News
August 2005: At Home
The first semester of 2005 was a peaceful time for us — with none of the excitement of last year with house guests and travelling all over the South Island. Well, quiet and peaceful is also good.
Sometime early this year, probably in February, we endured three rainy days followed by a beautifully sunny weekend. That Saturday afternoon we, and several other Dunedin families, decided to climb Mount Cargill. You would probably not even call it a mountain, but try to walk from near sea level to about 600 metres above, and it feels like a mountain. Anyway, it was gorgeous! The air was clear and crisp, the foliage all around was washed clean, and every so often the pathway crossed one of the many small streams babbling down the mountainside. As one gets higher up, the views over the city and the harbour are most amazing. So, with camera in hand we clicked merrily away and got quite excited about the photographs we anticipated getting off this reel — just to discover, when we got to the top of Mount Cargill, that there was no film in the camera! The next bit of bad luck was that on the way down and near the end of the walk, Lisa tripped and skinned a knee. Anyway, it was an outing that lifted the spirit after the gloom of the rainy days.
We saw quite a bit of rain during February, with substantial flooding and millions in damage to the down–town area of Dunedin. The tables and chairs of the sidewalk cafés on the Octagon were literally washed down the street. Some shops were repeatedly flooded and we felt quite sorry for the shopkeepers. Of course then the City Council came under fire for not having adequate drainage systems in place. But that is in the nature of disasters — systems that can cope under normal circumstances may fail under pressure.
Every year in February the city holds its own "Distinctly Otago Last Night of the Proms". This year, on the 18th of February, the Town Hall was again packed to capacity for this concert. It's more than a mere concert — it's an event most Dunedinites look forward to for a whole year. The Southern Sinfonia, the City of Dunedin Choir and several other musicians provide a programme of music that ranges from the sublime to the more light–hearted, and of course the second half includes a fair amount of audience participation with "Rule Britannia" and the like, with plenty of flag–waving and red, white and blue balloons everywhere. During the interval the promenaders strut their stuff and the person with the best "British" outfit wins a prize.
Another highlight for the Dunedin community was the visit by Prince Charles during the first week in March. People flocked to wherever they heard he would be going, hoping to meet him. Although we think he is quite a pleasant fellow, we were not particularly anxious to catch a glimpse of the man.
You may recall that Leta is a member of the City of Dunedin Choir, enjoying the thrill and challenges of the music. The Choir presented J.S. Bach's magnificent St Matthew Passion on Sunday 20 March in the Town Hall, and on Saturday 21 May the City Choir joined the Dunedin Youth Orchestra in the "Autumn Tones" concert in Knox Church, performing the Te Deum and three motets by Bruckner. The programme included several other items by the orchestra. We were pleasantly surprised at how well these youngsters performed.
The most important event this past six months is probably Lisa starting her studies at the University of Otago here in Dunedin. Since she graduated from school she was allowed to move into the flat in the back yard, and to become a little more independent from continual parental supervision. So far, so good; she is having loads of fun and did very well in the mid–year exams, achieving two As and two B–plusses. Her subjects were Biology, Psychology, Linguistics and German.
At university she met a nice young lad, Wynton Moore, and the two have developed a strong mutual interest. Wynton is a clever third–year Physics student.
Leta took up regular lunch–time walks through the city with colleague Lexie Arnott. Mostly the walks go up–hill from sea level, and on a sunny day the views are awesome. In any case, the exercise and the company are always good. These pictures were taken on one of these walks sometime during autumn, excepting of course the first one, which was an attempt to capture the magic skies over Dunedin one morning as the sun was rising.
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Click on the thumbnail picture to see a larger image.
Jacques and Hester are both well and happy, still living in Wellington. Jacques resigned from eServGlobal earlier this year to join the group starting up a new software development company called TeleForge. While TeleForge is still setting up Jacques continues to work for eServGlobal on a consultation basis, apparently a very lucrative position to be in. Hester is currently persuing her interest in clothing design and has been making wedding and ball gowns and such for family and friends.
During the mid–semester break Jacques sponsored Lisa's plane ticket for a week–end visit with them. She reports that their two pet rats are still fine. Apparently the way they hold their food in their front paws while they gnaw away at it is very cute.
We were delighted to see Jacques and Hester when they spent the weekend of 6 and 7 August here in Dunedin, having flown down for a friend's birthday party.