Our part of town

Several people gave me sketching materials for Christmas, so I've been indulging my hobby this week.

This is the view just past the Boys High School in Coronation Avenue. The house on the left is on the corner of Wakefield Street (yes, named after Edward Gibbon). Then comes BK's Motel, run by two of our friends, Ross and Sheryl Domney, with their three flags flying at the gate.

I spent yesterday afternoon turning it into a watercolour version:

There are some interesting older houses, and some newer ones, around the corner in Rogan Street, where they have a view of the mountain across the racecourse to the south, and the sea beyond the CBD to the north.

Here are the first few:

The house on the right is seen from the other side in this next view:

Sketching in Christmas Week

A photo was posted recently on Facebook of Mt Taranaki by moonlight. Here is my version of the photo, using white gel pen, white pencil and silver pencil on black paper.

Today we decorated my mobility scooter for Christmas; here is a photo to show you what it looks like, with granddaughter Carys trying it out:.

Although I am walking as much as possible along the street and back, I need to ride the scooter to reach some slightly more distant sites for sketching.

One is the Polytech just around the corner:

And in the other direction the corner of Tokomaru and Turi Streets.

And here is Margie's 2016 version of our Christmas tree:

The Bell Tolls

It was a handbell, just like the ones the schools used to use to ring lunchtime or at the end of the schoolday. This one was smaller, lighter, but just as well made and rang with a good tone.

It sat on my windowsill by my big armchair, where I was recovering from surgery on the third floor of the new hospital building. I could see a view of Mt Taranaki from the chair, but I couldn't reach the electric bell, so the nurses had found the handbell somewhere and brought it instead. I had insisted I wanted to see the view, rather than be closer to the bell button.

On the bell itself was a label which read: Property of TDHB Ward 4. The handle was well worn. I soon recognised it as one that had stood on the desk of the Charge Nurse of the old Ward 4 (Orthopaedic) in the eighties, when Patricia Woods was in charge. If my memory is correct it had been donated by a grateful patient.

So I told the nurses all this, and they looked at me slightly bemused; "why would a ward need a ward bell?"

My mind wandered back to those days. In 1988 the then Minister of Health, Helen Clark, had asked everyone to think about replacing Hospital Boards and some Health Department services by what were to be called "Area Health Boards". The aim was to make the health service more aware of preventive and community measures, rather than focussing solely on hospitals.

So the Hospital Boards set up Community Advisory Committees to consider the possible future shape of the new structures. I was asked, as a community worker at Social Welfare, to be a member of the Taranaki Hospital Board's committee, along with about 20 others, including several members of the Hospital Board, one of whom was Patricia Woods.

The committee was chaired by Dan Holmes, the THB chair, and advised by the Board's three top staff members, John Eady, Peter Matthews and Janice Wenn. Other community members included Simon Shera from Hawera. We duly thought about the questions the ministry had set us. A year or so later the Area Health Boards were set up.

A week after I left my picture window and the old handbell behind, the penny dropped. Every ward on those days needed a bell to ring the end of visiting time. Visiting was from 2 to 4 in the afternoon, say, and at 4 pm one of the nurses would ring the handbell to tell the visitors politely it was time to say Good bye.

No wonder the handle looked worn; it had been used every day for years.

More Sketching

I haven't stopped sketching

Even though it may look like I've stopped blogging. But I've just sent a contribution to Carers New Zealand, the national centre for carers. (carers.net.nz)

My best sketch of the last few weeks:

This is the Coastal Walkway, looking towards the Wind Wand from the area below Octavius Place.

Another day I walked in Pukekura Park to a hilltop overlooking the main lake and the Tea House. I wanted to concentrate on three of the trees, especially a kauri:

Another morning, near the walkway I could see a big bank of cloud to the west, brilliantly lit by the rising sun:

I stopped at a bench in Liardet Street one morning, opposite the Hour Glass night club, and sketched the building.

Have I given up on trying to sketch?

It might seem like it from my recent posts

But since our house-shift I have been back into it.

One evening I sketched an ornament and table in the corner of he room:

On our way to Wellington we called at Greytown for lunch. We enjoyed revisiting the Wairarapa, if only for an hour or two. We particularly like Greytown:

And stopped briefly in Palmerston North. This is a view looking across John F Kennedy Drive:

In the capital we travelled into the city by train; I only had time for a quick impression before the train moved off:

And one day in Pukekura Park there was this tree trunk: 
 
 





On our way through Stratford I managed an impression of the clock tower:

 

 

A Leafy Suburb

A day or two ago, between showers

I wandered around our new neighbourhood to look at Spring colours.

Even from our lounge window the maple tree has suddenly dressed itself in these deep red leaves, contrasting with the pink, cream and blue from Ian and Barbara's garden over the street:

Two more shades of red from the roadside trees round the bend....

And promise of more shades of pinks, reds and white further along.

Round another corner in Bell Street a historic Puriri on the lead up to the Polytech reminds us of our own puriri giant in Lemon Street, which is known and loved by thew whole of that neighbourhood.

On a street corner a more formal arrangement with its Spring greens,...

And the trees from our other lounge window looking into Geoff and Carolyn's wilder garden. These trees were planted many years ago when the house was owned by our Lemon Street neighbour Jan and her late husband Paul:

Coming back home past Ian and Barbara's plants arranged to cascade beside their house:

Our own rhododendron beside the drive is now in full bloom. We can see it from our kitchen window and enjoy its rich colour all day long.

Old neighbour Joyce, a well-known and well-loved potter, used to live in this house until her death some years ago. You can see she had some skills in garden design as well!

Our street has lots of beautiful old trees, full of tui and other birds. We are well sheltered from the cooler southern winds by all this foliage.

The birds of paradise flowers are doing well this season, certainly in our part of town.....

What a delight all these Spring colours are!

Building Community

Do humans need a religious basis on which to build a community?

We were in Wellington to attend the annual conference of the Sea of Faith, an organisation we have belonged to, at a distance, for nearly 25 years. It explores all sorts of ideas that are or have been associated with religion. Many of its members are "progressive" or "liberal" christians, some are more inclined to other world religions or atheism.

The organisation itself holds an annual conference (this year at Silverstream) and publishes a newsletter.

Each conference has four keynote sessions followed by discussion in smaller groups and winds up with a panel which enables everyone to ask questions of any of the speakers.

This year was kicked off with an address by Lloyd Geering, who put forward the idea that the evolution of the world has produced more and more complex organisation, both in the physical world and in the world of ideas. He drew on the writings of Jan Smuts and Teilhard de Chardin to elucidate ideas like "complexification" and "noosphere". 

Lloyd suggested that the ultimate result of these processes would be a world community which has been developing out of the Christian West over recent centuries.

The second address was a recorded one from Michael Benedikt, who is an American architecture professor who has written a book called "God is the good we do". Michael's parents were both holocaust survivors who became very opposed to religion as a result of those experiences.

His idea is that God only exists through the good we do. When we do ethical things we create God. He calls this idea "theopraxy".

The next speaker was Gretta Vosper, a minister of the United Church of Canada, who leads a church in Toronto. She has declared herself to be atheist; her church does not use any of the traditional christian language, but what they do and what they talk about amounts to christian values and christian practices translated into secular terms.

This has put Gretta and her church at odds with the United Church authorities. Discussions are continuing; watch this space!

The last session was addressed by Geoff Troughton from the Religious Studies Department at Victoria University. He summarised the present state of the religious life of New Zealand, as measured by census returns and and the Study of Attitudes and Values. 

The main point he made was that the numbers of people with any connection with christian churches is dropping, while the numbers who report "no religion" is rising, which we all know anyway from anecdotal evidence.

We had missed the conference for several years; it was good to reconnect with several old friends from other parts of the country.