Lil's View

How much land?

2009-09-08T14:35:00.011+12:00

The Hutt City Council is considering allowing some residential development in the eastern hills of Lower Hutt. The area is a classic example of gorse providing a nursery for regenerating native bush. At different times walking and jogging in these hills I have seen tui, kereru, bell birds, fantails, grey warblers, tomtits and a freshwater crayfish (the latter and I gave each other a fright one day when I was crossing a creek). The area is popular for walking and mountain biking.

Of course, people need somewhere to live, but I hope better alternatives are feasible. New Zealand's natural areas have been shrinking ever since humans came to this country; my view is they have shrunk further than is necessary and it is right to let them increase again. I sent a letter to the Hutt News a few weeks ago expressing my opposition to development in the eastern hills. The following week, there was an interesting response from another letter writer disagreeing and saying that those of us opposed to development can't have it both ways: we don't like it when cities and towns grow outwards but neither do we like to lose small green areas within cities. The additional claim was made that severe restrictions on development force up the cost of housing.

I agree there is some validity to those arguments but I think the incentives in our tax system to invest in property hold a greater proportion of the responsibility for rising house prices than restrictions on development do. And I believe there are alternatives to building on reserve land, including building upwards, which of course has its own problems of creating shadow and invading neighbours' privacy but can be appropriate in some situations, building smaller (saves time on housework too :) ), and building on superfluous farmland.

Josiah is going to the Climbing World Youth Champs!

2009-08-01T18:24:00.002+12:00

A rare double post; my apologies to anyone who reads both my blogs. Josiah is heading off as part of the NZ Youth Climbing Team to the Climbing World Youth Championship in Valence, France, in August. We are all very excited! We have set up a blog to enable friends and family to follow Josiah's journey.

"Working" Mothers

2009-06-01T16:06:00.005+12:00

A recent comment on Nine to Noon riled me. I have sent this email in response although it is a bit belated as I didn't listen to the interview till some time after it was broadcast:

Dear Nine to Noon

It is depressing to hear full-time parenting still being spoken of as inferior to other forms of work in 2009. I am referring to Gill South's casual assertion that "... there's just no way that [NZ Herald Senior Journalist] Karen [Shearer] would ever not work. It would be a crying waste of her brains." (Nine-to-Noon, 14 May 2009) and presenter Lynn Freeman's acceptance of Gill's comment. Statements like these, allowed to pass unchallenged, perpetuate the myth that parenting is not intellectual work.

When my children were younger, I once calculated that I worked eighty hours a week parenting them. The challenges of parenting have required me to exert every ounce of my intelligence, to continually strive to remedy my character flaws, to cultivate new skills, and to study new fields of knowledge. I don't claim to be doing superior work to that of mothers in paid employment: I imagine the challenges of combining paid employment with parenting are similarly extensive. It is past time, however, that mothers in paid employment acknowledge full-time parents as their equals.

Good News

2009-05-29T17:57:00.002+12:00

There are a lot of things I would like the Government to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on every year. Second-rate software is not one of them, so it was great to wake up to the news on Wednesday that the State Services Commission's negotiations with Microsoft over software license fees for the next three year period have failed. I'm hopeful government agencies will be motivated to switch to free software.

Presumption of InnocenceGuilt Upon Accusation

2009-02-18T13:27:00.015+13:00

I will try to black out on 23 February in protest against Section 92 of the Copyright Amendment Act. I'm not absolutely confident I know how to, but I will have a go.

Those who want to can sign the petition.

On Holiday at Home

2009-01-25T20:59:00.001+13:00

I am really enjoying being on holiday at home. My days are very relaxed but they feel full too. When I wake up, I check my email and potter around doing a bit of housework. Every second morning I go for a run. The rest of my day is a combination of gardening, getting jobs done around the house, listening to Radio NZ National, and reading and writing.

Tessa and Josiah mostly do their own thing: reading, writing, playing, baking, climbing, computer activities. Tessa has attached the garden hose to a pole, creating a sort of outdoor shower to play under when it gets hot. Some hot days, we go to the beach or the river in the late afternoon for a swim. The kids don't seem to be showing signs of boredom yet; I guess they are recharging too.

This is how I always imagine holidays at home will be, but usually the kids end up with a stream of social engagements and the holidays turn out to be as busy as term time. It's lovely that hasn't happened this time.

Don't know how I will fit homeschooling in come February!

New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-19T14:55:00.003+13:00

Ride the bikes more. I think the way to do this is to plan errands and shopping trips in advance rather than waiting till we run out of fruit or till the library books are due back and having to fit the errand into an already busy day.

Work in the garden regularly. Regularly enough to make it feasible to have a vegie garden and more fruit trees and vines. Currently, our garden is overrun by weeds but I have already made some progress since getting back from holiday.

Go completely vegan. I'm not sure I'm ready for this. I still enjoy a sweet treat every few days. With the exception of dark chocolate, I haven't come across vegan sweet treats to buy. I get bored of dark chocolate and struggle to find time to cook meals, let alone bake treats. However, I was horrified when we visited Pupu Springs in Golden Bay, one of the most pristine freshwater environments in the world, to see that the neighbouring farmer has a cow paddock that comes within about five metres of the springs. My understanding is that despite extensive fencing on dairy farms, toxic run off into our water ways continues to increase. It might be time for me to choose between including dairy in my diet and taking my future grandchildren river swimming.

Summer Holiday

2009-01-17T13:39:00.003+13:00

We are just back from two fabulous weeks climbing in Golden Bay. The kids really pushed themselves ... and their parents. I think Josiah was a bit bemused when he he succeeded at 1080 and the Letter G, one of Paynes Ford's classic climbs, about half way through the trip. Didn't take him long to set himself a bunch of new goals though; he spent his evenings pouring over the guide books. Here he is hanging from 1080 on his first attempt at the climb, during which he did all the moves but took some breaks hanging on the rope.

Tessa must have had a secret goal of improving her mother's endurance. She dragged me along for two marathon sessions: "nine climbs on the ninth" (of January) at Seagrass Wall, Pohara, and, on our final day, all the climbs on Little Lost Wall, Paynes Ford, except Lost Soul (too hard for now) and Knicknack Paddywack (too scary), which left eleven climbs! She didn't choose easy climbs either. The "nine on the ninth" included Tessa's hardest outdoor climb to date, a grade 19, and two or three grade 18s. I couldn't keep up, only attempting eight of the nine, and falling off climbs tired on our final day.

A bonus of staying longer in Golden Bay this trip than we did last summer was meeting other climbers and feeling like part of the transient but very friendly Golden Bay summer climbing community. One day, Tessa had a group of Germans cheering her on and giving her suggestions; on our last couple of days, she exchanged climbing tips with two Finnish climbers. Several groups of climbers stayed at our campground, including three lovely couples from Palmerston North, Christchurch and Korea, and Wellington. Here is a photo one of them took of Tessa.

We camped at Takaka Camping Ground which is far superior to Pohara Top Ten Holiday Park where we stayed last year. Takaka Camping Ground is small and therefore peaceful. We enjoyed sitting under the trees on hot afternoons when we returned from climbing or walking. They have the best campground showers ever! The facilities were clean and sufficient for the number of campers (in stark contrast to the situation at Pohara). And the managers were very friendly and helpful. We look forward to seeing them again next time.

Environmentally friendly presents

2008-12-08T08:23:00.006+13:00

That time of year again :) This week, I have been choosing presents for my six nieces, aged from 10yrs to 19yrs. It has been fun but not easy. Last year, I gave up gift wrap; this year, I want the presents themselves not to contravene my values. That means they should not bolster a culture of materialism, which I believe is making a lot of people unhappy. They should be environmentally friendly. They should not add to surplus household clutter. They should suit the individual recipient.

Books are the best option I have come up with. On the down side, trees have been destroyed in their creation. But as long as I choose good books, I think their circulation is worthwhile. Hopefully when the books I give are no longer wanted, they will find their way to a Trade Me auction or a secondhand book shop or BookMooch.

Consumables might be a good choice. I like art and craft supplies as a present for young children. I thought about shopping at the Body Shop, but their products come in plastic and I don't know how environmentally friendly they are.

Over the years, I've received some lovely homemade presents. My only crafts are crochet and knitting. I would have to get a lot more motivated if I was going to crochet and knit gifts: I currently complete about one small project a year.

For my youngest two nieces, I have bought a beautiful little wooden box and an embroidered bag from Trade Aid. The shop is full of lovely things and it is comforting to know that all the products are fair trade, but even as I paid for them, I worried that after some initial appreciation, these gifts will just be more clutter in my nieces lives. New Zealanders (most of us) have so much stuff!

I was nervous of going with secondhand books, toys or clothes, worrying that they would not be well received. Until it occurred to me that because secondhand goods are cheaper than new, I could top-up a secondhand present with something small but new, or with cash. Kids of all ages seem to love being given cash but I like to give presents that I have chosen. This way I can do both :)

Matthew and Waveney at Rubbish Free Year recommend giving an experience: a great way to avoid clutter. I'm thinking movie tickets; event tickets; entry passes to museums, aquariums, climbing walls, swimming pools, etc; outdoor adventures like kayaking trips. For someone who lives in the same town it makes sense to share the experience: a picnic tea overlooking the lights of the city.

Water shortage

2008-11-23T20:46:00.005+13:00

Just sent the following to the Hutt News in response to a series of articles in the last few weeks discussing the future of the Wellington water supply. Greater Wellington Regional Council would apparently like to take more water from the Hutt River, which is ironic to say the least considering that the second item featured on their homepage is about the need to improve river health, and taking more water would have the opposite effect because it increases the likelihood of conditions conducive to the growth of toxic algal mats. The Hutt City Council is opposed to any increase in water taken from the Hutt River. Here is my response ...

It is disturbing to see water conservation getting little mention in the discussion about the Wellington region's increasing demand for water. I appreciate the access we have throughout NZ to electricity and running water in our homes and I acknowledge that this has been made possible by damming rivers. But I wonder if we are reaching the limit of what is reasonable and sensible in terms of damming and taking water from NZ rivers. In my childhood, I played in the creek and swam in rivers every summer. My children do the same when not prevented by algal blooms which we are told occur when the river flow gets too low. I hope my future grandchildren will be able to swim and play in our rivers.

Smarter Homes lists ways to save water, several of which cost nothing at all. Maybe the Hutt News could get involved, calling for readers' suggestions. The Hutt City Council could play a role, for example providing home owners with information and expertise on how to collect roof water for use in the garden. Sourcing the small collection tanks and even subsidising them would probably be cost effective for councils when compared to the expense of new construction work on dams and reservoirs.

Undecided

2008-11-07T11:51:00.003+13:00

The election is tomorrow and despite (or perhaps because of) pouring over party websites with Josiah and Tessa over the last few weeks, I am still undecided as to who to vote for. I have just sent the following to the Green Party:

For the third election in a row, I find myself in agreement with many Green Party policies, especially those relating to the environment, health and tertiary education. Therefore I am considering voting for the Green Party. However, I am very reluctant to allow my vote to contribute to an increase in the harm caused by marijuana in New Zealand, which I believe will come about if your drug policy is implemented.

Are you able to give me any assurance that you will not attempt to push for steps to be taken towards the legalisation of cannabis during this coming term?

Please consider changing your drug policy before the next election. I believe that by making your current drug policy known, even without acting on it, you are sending teenagers the implicit message that cannabis is safe. This has the effect of encouraging them to ignore messages about the damage cannabis use can cause to their brain and their development and about the risk of making poor decisions while under the influence, such as to drive a car.

Just as my children and I are unable to avoid second hand cigarette smoke when we walk through town, wait at a bus stop, attend outdoor events or go camping, we are likely to be exposed to second hand cannabis smoke if your drug policy is implemented.

Thank you for considering my comments.

Hutt Hospital

2008-08-31T11:19:00.001+12:00

This is to say thank you to the General Surgery staff at Hutt Hospital for their treatment of Geoff's latest twisted bowel. The stay in the General Surgery Ward was a miserable time; I imagine it is for most patients. After abdominal surgery, the drugs take away most but not all of the pain. The anti-nausea drugs are only effective some of the time. And you feel pretty much like you've been run over by a bus. Things pick up when the body is eventually ready for food again.

But the staff do an excellent job. The doctors are informative and friendly. The nurses never stop working; their workload is very high. Yet they take the time to do a thorough job: they don't rush things. They are patient and kind, and many of them work hard to find creative solutions to every challenging problem a patient has.

Geoff had a room to himself when he first came out of surgery but was moved into a four-bed room a few days later. At one point the ward was so full that there weren't single rooms available for all the most seriously ill patients and one gentleman returned from major surgery to a bed opposite Geoff. Some hours later, when the doctors did their rounds, he was given the news that they had found a tumour, probably cancerous, and that chemotherapy was likely to be recommended. The news was given behind curtains but with three other patients, and me, in the room, which I'm sure added to the awfulness of it. I think of the gentleman often, hope he's doing okay.

Intestinal Malrotation

2008-08-25T18:42:00.011+12:00

An obscure heading for a blog post perhaps but, for the last hectic fortnight, our lives have revolved around Geoff's intestinal malrotation. Between the fourth and twelfth weeks in utero, our developing intestines undergo a rotation, positioning themselves in the abdomen. For unknown reasons, in some cases the intestines do not rotate into the normal position. Usually in these cases the small intestine positions itself on the right of the abdomen, the large intestine on the left. As a result, the base fixing the small intestine to the abdominal wall is narrow rather than broad (represented by the dots in the diagram below), predisposing the person to volvulus (twisting of the bowel). Also as a result, bands form connecting the caecum (part of the large intestine) to the abdominal wall, which cross and can obstruct the duodenum (the top of the small intestine).

Most cases of intestinal malrotation manifest, and are surgically treated, in the first month of life, and almost all in the first year. Geoff wonders if he did show signs at the age of one month but his symptoms eased on their own and were put down to having been introduced to solid food at too early an age, Plunket in all its wisdom recommending in those days that babies start solids at one month of age.

In a few cases, symptoms do not appear until late childhood or adulthood or not at all. Geoff's experience of intermittent abdominal pain throughout his adult life is fairly typical of those.

Two years ago, Geoff had his first twisted bowel, a caecal volvulus. Geoff underwent urgent surgery, as is usual for volvulus because of the risk of ischaemia (restriction in the blood supply) leading to necrosis (death of cells) of affected intestine, and death. We were told after that first surgery that Geoff had intestinal malrotation but we didn't understand that he was therefore at a heightened risk of twisted bowel in the future.

Just over two weeks ago, Geoff had a second twisted bowel, this time a midgut volvulus. He is recovering well now. Good news is that this time, as well as correcting the volvulus, the surgeons performed a Ladd's Procedure which corrects some aspects of the malrotation, minimising the risk of further twists or obstruction.

With his belly all distended, I thought Geoff looked 5-6 months pregnant. Here he is ten days after the surgery.

Unhealthy eating

2008-07-02T10:35:00.005+12:00

I caught (most of) Kathryn Ryan's first interview on Nine to Noon this morning, on nutrition and family, and sent in the following response by email:

I listened with interest to your discussions this morning on nutrition and family. Almost every child in New Zealand goes through two cooking courses at Intermediate School. This excellent opportunity for educating children on healthy eating is not being taken advantage of. My daughter has just completed the Year 7 cooking course, during which she cooked eight recipes, four of which were treat foods high in sugar. Only two of the eight recipes contained vegetables. In the several recipes that used flour, white flour was used in every case.

I expect it would take an average, healthy cook about half an hour to come up with a new set of tasty recipes, appealing to kids, using vegetables, whole grains and pulses. I don't understand why the Ministry of Education has not done this!

Warm regards
Lisia Grocott
Lower Hutt

---------------------------------------------------------

In case you are interested, the recipes my daughter cooked were:

Banana muffins - with sugar, white flour.

French toast - not your usual french toast recipe, this one included 1/2 a cup of sugar for 6-8 slices of bread, and icing sugar to dust.

Oat cakes - with white flour.

Snack bars - with sugar, honey.

Stuffed potatoes.

Ham and corn bread cases.

Scones - with white flour.

Chocolate cake - with golden syrup, sugar, white flour.

Butter also featured in a lot of the recipes.

Treat cyclists as equals

2008-06-22T12:48:00.001+12:00

That is the message I think needs to be impressed on New Zealand drivers. Motorists seem to believe that they have more right to the roads than cyclists have. They don't think of cyclists as part of the traffic - something they need to watch out for when entering traffic and moving around in it just as they watch out for other motor vehicles.

I have been reading about cycling in the Netherlands, wishing we had similar support for and encouragement of cycling here.

Riding with Tessa to her Technicraft class each week, most cars pass us with plenty of space if there is nothing coming the other way, but if there is a vehicle coming the other way, and parked cars on our side of the road, cars pass us as fast as ever, giving us no space at all.

Twice in the last year, a motorist has come past me on the outside and turned in front of me, forcing me to stop abruptly to avoid hitting the moving car.

Two cyclists were killed in the Hutt Valley on Thursday, one I understand knocked into the path of traffic by the door of a parked car being opened in their path. It's a common topic of discussion among cyclists - the need to ride far enough out in the road to avoid being hit by doors of parked cars if they are opened, and the difficulty doing that when vehicles are passing at close quarters and high speeds. Yet the word has not got around drivers (and passengers) - many continue to open their doors without checking, apparently oblivious of the risk to other people.

On Tuesday Geoff was hit by a car while on his bike. He's okay, thankfully, except for a probable cracked rib or two, which is keeping him off climbing and causing some discomfort. And his bike, though a bit bent, is still in working order. The ute that hit Geoff came from a side street. In turning onto the road Geoff was on, rather than wait for a space in the traffic, the driver of the ute drove down the wrong side of the road for a short distance to get ahead of a car going his way that he should have given way to. The stretch of road that the driver drove the wrong way down was free of cars but in his, presumably cursory, check before he turned, the driver didn't see Geoff coming towards him on his bike. Geoff was knocked onto the bonnet of the ute and into the windscreen, which smashed, then bounced off the bonnet onto the road beside the driver's door. The only positive in all this is that the driver was seriously shocked: I hold out a feeble hope that in future, he will think to look for cyclists as well as motor vehicles when he turns into a street.

Catching up

2008-06-11T09:03:00.005+12:00

I haven't meant to neglect my blogs in this way: life has been a bit hectic. Just in the last three weeks, Josiah, Tessa and Geoff have had a trip to Tauranga for a climbing competition (Tessa came first in her category - the Under 12s!); Geoff and Josiah have each had two colds, Tessa and I one each; DynoMites Climbing Club committee - which Geoff and I are on - has begun the big job of planning the national competition that we are hosting in August; HangDog's Winter Boulder Series has begun (Josiah and Tessa are now officially famous: someone other than their mother has written about them on the Internet); Josiah has been away on a Boys Brigade camp; and the kids and I have had an unplanned trip to Christchurch to attend my grandmother's funeral.

"It's so unexpected," Tessa cried into my shoulder after I told her Mabel had died. Mabel having made it to 100 years, and having lost her good health over the last three months, I don't think it was unexpected for anyone else, but no less sad for the rest of us. It's amazing how sad it is to have someone you love not there anymore even while you are fully aware you were lucky to have them around as long as you did. It was a lovely funeral; I was really pleased to be with family. One aspect of living to 100 that hadn't consciously occurred to me previously is that another generation got to know Mabel in these last two decades. One of Mabel's great-granddaughters, the 17yo daughter of one of my cousins, spoke at the funeral. She spoke beautifully and I loved hearing about her friendship with Mabel. It gave me a new appreciation of the contribution a person can make to the world even after they are very elderly, dependent on everyday support from others.

Poor Tessa: for her I think this felt like too many people have gone. In her 11 years she has lost a grandfather before she had time to know him, three great-grandmothers who all lived long enough for her to know and love them, and a grandmother who was one of the most important people in her life.

Also since I last posted, my mum's partner has had surgery for bowel cancer. His extremely positive and optimistic attitude has been so infectious that it wasn't until I was on the train to meet my mum to be with her while G was in surgery that it hit me what a serious thing this is. I was holding off tears all that afternoon at the awfulness of it all. But the surgery was 100% successful: the doctors are confident that all the cancer was removed and are not recommending chemotherapy

G is still recovering but I know his and Mum's concern is focused on G's brother who is not recovering from his own bowel cancer.

Gardening

2008-04-21T13:58:00.002+12:00

I have been doing a lot of work in the garden lately: mostly weeding, a bit of planting. I think I got inspired when I discovered a couple of months ago that I am capable of tackling blackberry. Two or three years ago, the local Council supplied young native trees and grasses for my neighbours and me to plant beside the reserve in our street. Since then, I have been cutting weeds back from around the plants periodically to prevent them being smothered but I have largely ignored the returning blackberry, not knowing quite what to do about it. When I went out most recently, in February, to cut back weeds, I found the blackberry running rampant! There was more blackberry than anything else. I figured I might as well make an attempt to take it on, and soon found that with gloves and long sleeves, I could get close to the roots and cut the stems off with shears. I dragged it all into two big heaps and asked the Council to come and take it away (no progress yet on that - might take them a year or two to action). Where the soil was loose, I dug out some of the blackberry roots and Geoff says when the new growth starts, which it probably has by now, he will go out and do more of that. The photos above and below are before and after shots respectively of one little patch.

Since then, I've been working in our own garden, starting with the strip alongside the driveway, which has been dominated by weeds because when we planted it in native grasses a couple of years ago, we didn't plant enough. I am visiting the local garden centres one by one, buying their cheapest native ground-covers. The driveway strip is starting to look good.

Next I started clearing out the back, which has also been dominated by weeds ... in this case not because of insufficient planting but because we almost never do any weeding there! Our small feijoa tree has fruit on it but it was all going to fall among a tangle of weeds and be lost. There had been a bad smell near the feijoa tree for some time, which I noticed whenever I went out to hang washing on the line. I wondered if it was a dead hedgehog - I sometimes hear what I think is a hedgehog snuffling around at night - but when I cleared the area, I didn't find any nasty remains. I think the smell was just rotting vegetation; it's gone now.

I would like to plant something around the base of the feijoa and around our other fruit trees, which are still in the conceptual stage, to combat weeds. I am wondering if lupins and mustard would be appropriate. I know they are used to refresh vegetable plots; might they contribute to the soil health around fruit trees too?

Careless

2008-04-17T08:28:00.005+12:00

I have joined the ranks of climbers who have endangered themselves through stupidity. The kids and I went out to Ship Rock at Baring Head at the weekend, with a friend. It was a beautiful day and we had a lovely time despite my wee incident, though didn't get in all that much climbing. Baring Head is mostly bouldering but Ship Rock is bolted for sport climbing. When I got to the top of my climb, I set up to abseil down as usual, did a quick check and began to lower myself. Things felt wrong immediately: my harness felt as if it was being pulled sideways and I wondered if I hadn't done it up properly. I looked down and saw, to my horror, that my abseil device and the rope were attached not to my harness loop, which is designed for the purpose, but to a gear loop on my harness, intended just for hanging carabiners and other gear off when they are not needed.

I'm pleased to say none of us panicked. I took my weight off the gear loop simply by pulling on the rope above my abseil device, and was beginning to enter into thoughts of lowering myself down the rope while supporting my weight in that way (it wasn't far to the ground) when my climbing buddies pointed out that there was a bolt nearby on the rock. I clipped in to that and moved the abseil device onto my harness loop. Made it to the ground safely though in need of chocolate I did have a prussik attached (correctly), as a back-up brake, which would most likely have caught me if my gear loop had broken. Would not have been pleasant though!

This is of course a decidedly unflattering story, but I have appreciated hearing other climbers' stories of pitfalls to watch out for so it seems only fair to tell others of my mistake.

Naturally, I have been motivated to re-think how I check my set-up. I am checking more systematically now, starting at the body (is it correctly in the harness?) and working outwards, and, at Geoff's suggestion, checking that there is back-up for every step of the system.

Salad

2008-03-27T13:37:00.015+13:00

My New Years Resolution to cook proper meals more often is proving as elusive as ever to put into practice. It occurred to me today that that wouldn't matter so much if I made the kids a salad every day. I make myself a salad most days and I always used to offer to make salad for the kids too but got out of the habit as they often said no, not being hungry at the same times as me, and when they did say yes, they would complain about my choice of ingredients. So today I made a list of all the (easy) salad ingredients I could think of and had the kids tick the ones they like. I figure I'll make the salads directly into containers that seal, so if the kids don't want to eat them immediately, the salads can go in the fridge till they're wanted. Here's what our choices look like:

	Tessa	Josiah	Lisia
Tomato	✔	✔	✔
Cucumber	✔	✔	✔
Mushroom		✔	✔
Avocado		✔	✔
Mung bean sprouts		✔	✔
Alfalfa sprouts	✔		✔
Leafy greens	✔	✔	✔
Broccoli		✔
Capsicum	✔	✔
Grated carrot
Red onion		✔
Apple
Olives	✔		✔
Beet root
Baby corn	✔	✔	✔
Chick peas		✔	✔
Walnuts		✔	✔
Cashews
Pumpkin seeds		✔
Sun flower seeds
Sesame seeds			✔
Olive oil and vinegar dressing	✔		✔

If you have any other ideas for easy, vegan salad ingredients, please leave a comment I love strawberries and melon in salads but like them even better on their own. And tofu, and roast vegies, but they will only be available if I actually cook a meal and there are leftovers!

Life As Usual

2008-03-21T18:02:00.006+13:00

Wow, a month has gone by since I last posted here! I didn't mean to let that happen; time has slipped past. We've been up to all sorts ...

The Baring Head Rockhop

All four of us climbed in this competition and had a great day. For once, it was not windy at the Head, but it was therefore sweltering. There are no trees; the only shade is from the rocks themselves, and they are not tall enough to provide much shade in the middle of the day.

I was hampered in my climbing by how scared I get bouldering. The routes are supposedly only to heights safe to fall from, and sure enough I saw plenty of climbers fall, often repeatedly, from near the top of climbs, landing comfortably in the sand or on boulder mats. But I find it terrifying. After a few adrenaline rushes, I gave up and stuck to low traverses, which limited my options considerably.

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

... visited Wellington as part of the NZ International Arts Festival. Josiah and Tessa attended their performance for schools and I went with my mum one evening. They were hugely entertaining.

15 Years

Ordinarily, I avoid mentioning things I've already brought up on my other blog for fear of boring readers but I can't help feeling that Geoff and I reaching our 15th wedding anniversary is too important to pass by here.

A cold and a tomtit

We've all had bad colds but mine had compensation. I usually jog with mp3 player and headphones and if I'd done that as usual last week, I would have missed my first sighting of a tomtit in Lower Hutt. I didn't feel up to jogging, so instead Tessa came with me on a bush walk, where we have often seen tui, fantails and grey warblers, but never until now a tomtit ...

Nine To Noon

2008-02-20T13:34:00.003+13:00

I love Nine To Noon. When other news outlets are talking about someone, you can almost guarantee Kathryn Ryan is talking to them. Where other news outlets play a "soundbite," Nine To Noon does an in depth interview - or several in order to get different points of view. And it's not just for news that I appreciate Nine To Noon: I learn new things every week listening to the interest interviews and the book reviews.

As many children do, Josiah became interested in insects around the age of six. This interest has endured; Josiah carries around with him in his backpack a very dogeared copy of Which Insect which he uses regularly to identify miscellaneous insects. A couple of years ago, Josiah also became interested in the classification of life. Reading books about classification and taxonomy, Josiah and I eventually came across phylogenetics, the study of the evolutionary relationships between species, which is how modern scientists classify species. That was about a year ago. Since then, Josiah has told anyone interested that he plans to be a phylogeneticist entomologist when he grows up.

As you can imagine, supporting Josiah in this intention poses somewhat of a challenge to a homeschooling parent. Fortunately, science writer, Colin Tudge, has written an excellent book, The Variety of Life, which is meeting our needs for now. Still, it seemed a shame that Josiah and I only heard the word "phylogenetics" spoken by each other ... until (I should have expected it) I found myself a day or two ago listening to Kathryn Ryan interview on Nine To Noon, Warren Chin, a New Zealand phylogeneticist entomologist!

Warren Chin was there to discuss the Bluff Weta ("Bluff" because it lives on bluffs, unlike the oyster, which comes from Bluff). It was a fascinating interview, and very exciting for Josiah and me. Josiah has expressed the hope that being a phylogeneticist entomologist will meld well with his interests in conservation and climbing. Sure enough, the scientists studying the Bluff Weta are looking into its status and will be involved with its conservation if it is found to be in danger. And, believe it or not, when asked by Kathryn how the scientists are accessing the weta, Warren Chin replied, "Oh, there are a number of bolted routes." The Bluff Weta live in a sport climbing area! Of course, not every New Zealand insect studied by scientists is so considerate as to choose a climbing area for its habitat, but it does seem very encouraging that the first phylogeneticist entomologist Josiah hears of has to climb (or abseil) in his work.

Who knows whether Josiah's intentions will change (when I was twelve, I wanted to be an actress or the Prime Minister ... that didn't last!). Meanwhile, I continue to be grateful to Kathryn Ryan and Nine To Noon.

P.S. If you look for the Warren Chin interview on the Nine To Noon website, you won't find it, sorry. It took place a couple of weeks ago and has already been replaced with other broadcasts. I am always behind the times with regard to what's on Nine To Noon. I am busy with other things when the programme airs so I subscribe to the feed and listen to the broadcasts later.

The Holiday - Part III: West Coast and Christchurch

2008-02-16T15:45:00.019+13:00

We've been back a month. Seems like longer. The kids and I have been busy the last fortnight with the start of our homeschooling year. Geoff's had a couple of projects on the go, the chief of which is our amazing new home bouldering wall. Here he is painting the background before it went up ...

So, the holiday continued ... when we left Golden Bay, we headed over to the West Coast, stopping to visit my aunt in the beautiful (but sandfly ridden) Buller Gorge on the way. In Westport, we treated ourselves to a night in a motel, the Ascot Motor Lodge, which was well worth the $120. The friendly proprietor invited Tessa and Josiah to help themselves to strawberries from the various plant boxes around the complex.

Least said about the following day, spent at Punakaiki, the better, probably, given that a certain member of the family was not happy that day and made it rather challenging for anyone else in the family to enjoy themselves either.

In Greymouth, Geoff, Josiah and Tessa were taken on a tiki-tour of Greymouth's important buildings: where I lived when I was twelve, where my best friend lived, where I went to school. More nostalgia in Hokitika, visiting the glass-blowing studio and greenstone shop.

Then on to the glaciers. At $55 a night for our tent site, Franz Josef Top 10 Holiday Park was even more expensive than Pohara, but the facilities were reminiscent of a five star hotel! Clean, modern bathrooms and kitchen. Large dining area with covered verandas all around it (which came in handy on our last day when we took down the tents in a thunder storm and were grateful to be able to take them under cover to shake them out and roll them up).

We had a great time exploring the glacier region ...

Josiah, Tessa and Spotty at the foot of Franz Josef Glacier

Mt Tasman

Lake Matheson

Fox Glacier

One of the snacks we carry in the backpacks on our holiday excursions is chocolate. I break it up into pieces and keep it in a container so that I don't end up with chocolate crumbs through my bag. I might need a new system, though, as this is what we repeatedly ended up with ...

From the West Coast, we headed over Arthurs Pass to Christchurch, stopping in the Castle Hill area for a couple of days' climbing. In fact, it was too hot for me and I didn't really climb but instead found a small shady spot beside a boulder and read my book. The landscape was amazing ... I don't understand how the mountains stay in tact: they look like enormous sand dunes.

This is Tessa and me, waiting for Geoff and Josiah in the shade of a boulder, me with one of the boulder mats on my back, which was no fun to carry because of the extreme heat.

By the time we reached Christchurch, we were too tired for any more sightseeing. We went to two movies in three days and ate out at South of the Border where Geoff and I had eaten often in the past, before children, and we relaxed at the campground.

Our wonderful South Island holiday finished with a highlight: my grandmother's 100th birthday celebration. It was great to catch up with all my cousins and just lovely to see my grandmother happy and healthy after 100 years on the planet, and in her element talking to her huge extended family. I thought of my dad often, he would have been in his element too, enjoying the gathering and the occasion.

Here are Josiah, Tessa and I with our grandmother and great-grandmother on her 100th birthday.

The Holiday - Part II: Golden Bay

2008-01-28T16:51:00.000+13:00

From Quinney's Bush we drove to Golden Bay, stopping on the top of Takaka Hill to take a guided tour through Ngarua Caves, well worth stopping for.

Once in Golden Bay, Josiah could be held back no longer: the words "climbing," "Paynes Ford," and "when?" were heard repeatedly until we set off from our camp site at Pohara for Paynes Ford to discover what outdoor climbing is all about. We have been climbing indoors for the last few years but apart from bouldering had no real experience of outdoor climbing. We had hoped to learn the ropes, literally and figuratively, on a weekend away with the kids' climbing class late in 2007. But that trip was postponed, leaving us anticipating a holiday at one of the best beginners' climbing spots in New Zealand, without the experience to safely take advantage of it. So in December, Geoff and I read three climbing manuals each, practiced at HangDog, our local climbing wall, all the techniques essential to outdoor sport climbing but not part of indoor climbing (placing quickdraws; abseiling; securing ourselves at the top of a climb then untying from the rope and setting up to abseil down rather than be lowered - so as not to wear out the abseil rings or other gear in place at the top of outdoor sport climbs) and grilled our fellow climbers for advice. Everyone was very helpful and generous in giving us their time. Conveniently, Geoff used to be involved in taking groups of kids abseiling, so he has plenty of experience setting up top rope anchors.

It is more common to learn outdoor climbing techniques by climbing with an experienced climber than by reading manuals and practising indoors on a backup rope. For that reason, we were prepared to reach Paynes Ford and find that we weren't prepared, in which case we probably would have begged friends who happened to be at Paynes Ford while we were there - older teammates of Josiah and Tessa - to give Josiah and Tessa a climb each, and sadly waited until some other opportunity to be introduced properly to outdoor climbing, or splashed out and hired a guide for our first session. But, happily, once we reached the rock, we could see immediately that the set up at the top of the climbs was exactly what we had practised and prepared for.

We had three or four days fabulous climbing at Paynes Ford and we can't wait to go back. The setting is idyllic: it is a short walk from the car park up to the rocks, which are dotted along the hillside and which are protected from the sun for some of the day at least by the surrounding native trees (and a few rogue sycamores, I noticed). There are two gorgeous swimming holes in the nearby Takaka River. The only problem with the swimming holes is the temptation they put to teenagers (and a certain 12-year-old, not to mention the 12-year-old's dad) to try dangerous feats like leaping from one massive rock to another and walking across a log suspended between rocks two metres above the river.

Pohara beach is a great place to swim too - we had several beautiful days there catching up with friends. The kids played cricket and dug holes and one day they drew a soccer field in the sand and challenged the dads to a game.

I can't write about our time in Golden Bay without mentioning the food! Geoff and Josiah being vegan, eating out has become somewhat of a hassle, but not in Takaka! We ate brunch at the Wholemeal Cafe one morning - delicious salads and sweets. (The sweets weren't vegan: Geoff and Josiah had smoothies instead.) Dinner of vegetable pie with salad at the Mussel Inn was mouth-watering. But the most surprising meal of all, we discovered one evening while walking along the main street in Takaka. We passed a small park between shops and noticed, seated on the grass, someone working at a small gas cooker, with a blackboard propped up against a nearby tree with the magic words "Vegie Curry ~ Ready in 30 minutes," written on it!

Pohara Top 10 Holiday Park let the side down. As Josiah said, "Bottom 10" would be more appropriate. In the campground's defense, we stayed there from Boxing Day till 2 January, probably the busiest days of the year at every beach motor camp in New Zealand. But draining the pasta for dinner in the laundry tub because there was a queue three or four deep waiting to wash dishes in the kitchen sinks is a new low in camping for me. I think the queues for the kitchen sinks were probably also to blame for the fact that the tables were often dirty when we came to eat at them: it's hard to wipe up after yourself if all the sinks are occupied. The bathroom facilities were basic. There were queues for the showers and washing machines but that is pretty standard during peak times in my experience. The camp ground land was almost entirely taken up with campsites and buildings: there was no where to go to sit in the shade and read a book if you didn't happen to have shade at your campsite. $50 per night for a tent site for the four of us seemed steep in these conditions.

The Holiday!

2008-01-24T10:00:00.000+13:00

Part I: Quinney's Bush

At 23 nights away from home, this was the longest holiday we've taken as a family, in fact the longest holiday Geoff and I have taken together. The ferry trip from Wellington to Picton is one of my favourite ways to start a journey. As soon as we park the car in the queue, I feel like the holiday has begun: it's always a festive atmosphere, so many people together, almost all of whom are on holiday, and the situation of the Wellington ferry terminal means that everyone gets out of their cars to enjoy the harbour view until it's time to move. The kids all go clambering over the rocks or looking for star fish and crabs in the rock pools. The ferry was late this time, so we got to see it come in.

At peak times, the ferries provide special on board entertainment for children. This trip it was face painting but not your usual designs. I don't think Tessa would have washed her face for a week afterwards but fortunately she chose to go swimming the next day and after that there was no way to preserve the horse any longer.

Our South Island holiday began with four nights at Quinney's Bush, a campground on the Motupiko River about half way between Nelson and Murchison, which I have been visiting since I was a child and which my mother has been visiting since she was a child, though in my mother's case, it wasn't a campground she visited but the home of her friends the Quinneys. My mother, my sister and I all remember old Mr Quinney's tractor rides: four or five metal sleds would be tied to the back of the tractor, a child perched on each, and Mr Quinney would drive round a field with the sleds flying across the grass behind. In my day, this was the highlight of a weekend at the campground. In my mother's day, Mr Quinney's tractor rides enlivened the parish picnics.

The tractor rides have gone but outstanding entertainment for children continues to be the hallmark of this campground. Of the twenty or so flying foxes that dotted the campground during my childhood only two or three remain (or have been replaced) but there is now a sophisticated confidence course and a huge water slide, which my children and their cousins had a great time on this trip.

The swimming hole is fantastic, and includes a rope swing, and a sort of a staircase up the bank on one side of the river, which you can take the rope swing up and launch off from to get a higher drop. I was more than satisfied with the excitement offered by launching off from about the fifth step but Josiah launched at least once from every step and preferred the top step. (There were 13.)

We didn't take many photos unfortunately, so what you see here are action shots of a game we invented while at Quinney's Bush: Kick Swingball. Josiah thought Header Swingball might also catch on but Geoff and I weren't game.

The amenities at the campground were clean and sufficient for the number of campers. Except for washing line space: there was no line at all! A fellow camper told me the population of the camp was expected to more than double on Boxing Day, the day we left. If that was true, "sufficient for the number of campers" might no longer be true! We paid $36 a night for a family of four camping.

Catching up with my family was great, until tensions arose due to some of us having shared general opinions too freely in conversations, and others of us having taken many of the comments as personal criticism.

Water shortage

2008-01-21T23:29:00.000+13:00

Last week's Hutt News, my local paper, warned that increasing demand for water may mean that in the future more will have to be taken from the Hutt River. Meanwhile, for the second year in a row, the public is being warned not to swim in the river because of toxic algal mats, which form when river flow is especially low and which can cause rashes and vomiting in swimmers. One is left wondering if these algal mats will be the rule rather than the exception if the quantity of water extracted from the river is increased. The Hutt News editor asks if Hutt residents would prefer water metering and, it is implied, charges for high water use. Here's the letter I posted to the paper in response:

Thank you for the wake-up call in the 15 January issue of the Hutt News about our increasing water use. I would much rather face water metering than lose one of my family's favourite summer activities - swimming in the Hutt River, and in the Pakuratahi River at Kaitoke. I hope water metering will be introduced soon. In the meantime, I'll be trying to cut down how often I turn the tap on and how much water I use when I do turn it on.

One easy way to cut down is to have "Navy showers" where you turn the shower off to soap up and apply shampoo then turn it back on again to rinse. Showering this way to save water was already standard practice in ordinary households in Germany when I was an exchange student there nineteen years ago. I wonder how much water would be saved if Navy showers were standard practice in the Hutt Valley.

One of those jobs I keep meaning to get around to is to install water tanks on my house's downpipes to collect roof water for use in the garden. The photo at http://www.rainsaver.co.nz/rain_saver.shtml makes it look straightforward.

It would be great if local Councils led the way in saving water (and ratepayers' money that would otherwise have to be spent on new water supplies), installing roof water collection systems on Council buildings, choosing composting toilets for all new buildings and renovations, and supporting residents to do the same.

In fact, we have swum in the river almost every day since we came home. The paper reported that a significant rainfall a few days before our return washed away the algal mats. The signs warning people not to swim are still posted at popular swimming spots as the mats are expected to reform if the hot, dry weather we've been having continues. This means that hardly anyone swims, so we've had some of our best swims ever with the swimming hole entirely to ourselves on two occasions. We swam in the rain this evening - just lovely.

Back home

2008-01-14T22:41:00.000+13:00

We are back today from three weeks holidaying in the South Island. We've had a great time, been in lots of beautiful places - swimming, walking, climbing, catching up with friends and family. In the photo above, I am with my grandmother at the celebration of her 100th birthday in Christchurch on Saturday, which was an enormously enjoyable event.

Will write in more detail about our holiday over the next week, but to give you a brief glimpse of where we have been, what follows is a list of the items we lost on this holiday and where we lost them ...

One fish slice, got mixed up with my sister's gear when we packed up after four nights camping at Quinney's Bush on the Motupiko River between Nelson and Murchison. We also lost a spoon at the same time, which got mixed up with my mum and G's gear, but we were reunited with that when we saw Mum and G in Golden Bay a few days later.

One small travellers' towel - you know the really thin but absorbent kind you can get from camping shops? Lost at Pohara Top Ten Holiday Park, Golden Bay. This had been a Christmas present from Tessa to Josiah about three days before it was lost :(

Geoff's shower gel, left in a shower stall at the Ascot Motor Lodge in Westport.

A plastic, Hutt City Council rubbish bag, stolen from on top of a washing machine at Noah's Ark Backpackers in Greymouth, where I had left it so that if the washing machine finished its load and was wanted by someone else before I came back to check on it, the someone could put my washing in the bag rather than dump it loose in the laundry. Okay, "stolen" is maybe unlikely. "Presumed to be a valueless, unwanted plastic bag and taken by someone who wanted a rubbish bag or washing bag," or possibly "tidied away by a cleaner," might be more probable. Was a bit of a nuisance though as we didn't have any other large plastic bags with us, so after that, Geoff's swimming bag had to double as a clean washing bag.

A copy of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien, which Tessa had been reading, left behind at Noah's Ark Backpackers, Greymouth.

Two sun hats, bought for $20 each at Takaka five or six days previously, lost at Franz Josef Top Ten Holiday Park, Franz Josef. Note to self: don't buy expensive hats for children - hats are too easy to discard!

Geoff's replacement shower gel, left in a shower stall at Franz Josef Top Ten Holiday Park, Franz Josef.

Tessa's hairbrush. We're not sure where this was left behind; it may have been at the backpacker lodge at Flock Hill Lodge where we stopped for two nights to climb at Spittle Hill in the Castle Hill region.

One tea towel, went missing from the washing line at Christchurch Top Ten Holiday Park but reappeared again on the washing line a day later!

Wind farms

2007-12-20T21:06:00.001+13:00

We had a great time visiting friends in Palmerston North the weekend before last. On the Sunday, we all went out to see Te Apiti wind farm. The wind turbines looked dramatic from a distance, sort of other-worldly. There is one turbine that you can drive right to the foot of. As we drove up to it, the road came within a couple of hundred metres of another turbine and I was disappointed: I decided wind turbines were not so spectacular on their own. But once we reached the one on the roadside and I stood right underneath it, hearing the quiet swish of the huge blades as they swept towards me, I changed my mind. It was magnificent. The ones in the photo above are some distance behind us. (Thanks to Dave for the photo.)

Some people consider wind turbines an eyesore but to me they increase the visual appeal of farmland. However, my opinion of wind turbines in areas of native vegetation is just the opposite. We have few enough areas of undisturbed nature left; why not restrict wind farms to land already modified by humans? There are surely enough such areas to choose from ... as well as farmland, there are probably suitable areas near towns and cities, where land has been stripped of its natural vegetation for one purpose or another in the past and where existing roads could be used to service wind turbines. Friends of Turitea Reserve are fighting a wind farm approved for a nature reserve near Palmerston North.

Christmas wrap

2007-12-19T10:44:00.000+13:00

We decided to stop buying wrapping paper some time ago. We still have a few odd bits of wrap we are finishing off. Where they aren't big enough, we are improvising with old calendars and the occasional catalogue that slips in past our No Junkmail sign. For some of our Christmas presents, I made the little drawstring bags in the picture above. Tessa crocheted the cords. They are sewed from an old pillow case, worn too thin for use as bedding but not too thin for this purpose, thoroughly washed beforehand!

Someone at Be the Change pointed out this lovely wee movie about Christmas wrap:

More thoughts on Boy Racers and co.

2007-12-18T08:24:00.000+13:00

I guess the reason governments decide to add layers of illegality to the crimes committed by Boy Racers, gangs, etc. is that these crimes are being committed despite existing law, therefore the legislation is deemed to be failing. It may indeed benefit from some changes: I would approve whole-heartedly of permanent car confiscation and long term (five years?) loss of driver's licence for all drunk drivers, and medium term (six months?) confiscation and short term loss of licence for second offence speeders (be they Boy Racers, girl racers, middle-aged racers or anyone else). I doubt the legislation that is primarily at fault though. If something is illegal, making it differently illegal seems like a waste of resources to me. I wonder if the most effective solution would be greater police numbers. I don't suppose there are many Boy Racers who would drive dangerously or throw bottles at cows if there was a police officer nearby watching.

Boy racer, gang and terrorist legislation

2007-12-17T10:35:00.000+13:00

2007 seems to have been the year for the introduction of special legislation against particular groups. I don't understand the need for such legislation. Either gang members are committing crimes of theft, violence and drug dealing, and should be charged with those crimes, or they are not, and should be left alone.

So called "terrorists" are either amassing illegal weapons, using weapons illegally, threatening to kill, and killing and injuring, and should be charged with those crimes, or they are not; either way, the label "terrorist" is unhelpful in my opinion. According to my dictionary, the difference between terrorists and other violent criminals is that terrorists' acts of violence are aimed at overthrowing the government, or the terrorists are the government and the acts of violence are aimed at controlling the people, whereas other violent criminals commit their violent acts for other purposes. I don't think murdering or threatening to murder someone for one purpose is any less bad than doing so for another purpose so I don't see a need for those crimes to be dealt with differently. In practice, terrorist violence often injures and kills larger numbers than other violence. I accept the justice of charging a person with multiple crimes - one for each person injured, but I think that already happens under our laws.

As far as giving police greater powers to eavesdrop on people suspected of involvement in terrorism, my arguments are the same. Maybe it is appropriate to give police greater powers where it is suspected that crimes are being planned that could injure or kill large numbers; that is a separate issue. But to give police greater powers where it is suspected a crime is aimed at the government rather than at any other individual or group is wrong in my opinion.

If one believes what the media tells us, it seems pretty clear that "Boy Racers" are committing various crimes: speeding and other dangerous driving, littering (throwing of bottles is often reported), trespassing on private property, ignoring fire bans, and from the sounds of things drunk and disorderly conduct. Why cannot they be charged with these crimes? Why on earth is there a proposal in Christchurch for the most ridiculous bylaw I've ever heard of? "banning people from using roads unless for a lawful and sufficient purpose." They want to make it unlawful to use a road unlawfully!? What is a "sufficient purpose"? How would the enforcers justify allowing people to go for a stroll or pop out to buy a chocolate bar (not Boy Racer gatherings, therefore "sufficient purposes") but not allow people to meet friends on the side of the road (Boy Racer gathering, therefore "insufficient purpose")?

Fruits of labour

2007-11-26T16:55:00.001+13:00

A few weeks ago, while playing on the reserve in front of our house, Josiah and Tessa made the first sighting of a tui on our small suburban property. The tui was checking out the miniature flax in our front garden. Geoff and I missed it, but I shared the second sighting with the children a day or two later. We've had so many tui visits since then, both to the miniature flax in front and to a larger flax on the bank in the photo above that runs along one side of our property, that we've lost count now. A flock of wax-eyes, regular visitors for the last couple of years, enjoy the flax too. One tui looked remarkably silly with its face covered in flax pollen, like a toddler who's just eaten an ice cream.

Unlike a certain lemon tree which is smaller than when we planted it three or four years ago, our native trees have thrived. We don't seem to have a photo of our bank as it was when we first moved here - with nothing but weeds growing on it - to compare to the photo above taken last week, but here is one of the first photos we took of the bank, taken in 2001, shortly after our initial planting.

Chivalry lives!

2007-11-16T22:36:00.000+13:00

Got a nail in one of the car's tyres on the way home from picking up the kids at climbing this evening. That's the second time this year we've had a nail in a tyre, and the second time in my life. If we hadn't had the previous nail, with Geoff in the car that time, I would have ignored the rhythmical pupupupupupupupupu sound the nail made hitting the road as we travelled along, except for maybe driving more slowly - I would have told Geoff about it when I got home, not having a clue what it signified. But that first time, when Geoff heard the rhythmical sound, he pulled over, ran his hands around each tyre till he found the nail, then changed the offending tyre. So I supposed I should do the same.

I've changed a tyre at least twice before. We got a flat tyre while on holiday in Nelson when I was about seven months pregnant with Josiah. I had never changed a tyre and we thought that knowing how to could be a useful skill for me so Geoff directed and I changed the tyre. I wondered what passers by thought, seeing a heavily pregnant woman changing a car tyre while a fit young man stood by watching and issuing instructions.

Remembering an occasion as a child when my mother, my sister and I had got a flat tyre on a country road somewhere near Queenstown and a gentleman and his son had stopped and changed the tyre for us, I wondered if anyone would stop to help me this evening. No one did as I got the jack set up, and I was thinking, times have changed - it's recognised now, that women are competent to deal with these things. Then I found that I couldn't loosen the nuts that hold the tyre on by pushing on the lever designed for the job: I had to jump on it, which must have made me appear anything but competent. Immediately, two cars pulled over and two men, so young I doubt they have any more experience changing tyres than I do though I'm sure they have more strength, offered assistance. By that time, I had the nuts loosened so was able to thank them for stopping but decline their help. Later, when I had the spare tyre on and had replaced the nuts but not tightened them, a third car stopped and another man offered his help. This time, I accepted gratefully: it had occurred to me that if the nuts are supposed to be so tight that I have to jump on the lever to loosen them, then I would have to do that to tighten them too, and I wasn't sure that was particularly sensible - it would be very hard to judge how firmly to jump ;)

We made it home. It's nice to know people are willing to stop to help a stranger out.

Jury Service

2007-11-15T23:05:00.000+13:00

I was on a jury for two days last week, a fascinating experience. Our "accused" was charged with "injuring with intent to injure": he had given someone a black eye. The evidence supporting the charge was flimsy; we all agreed that there was considerably more than "reasonable doubt", and found him not guilty.

We were told by the judge at the end of the first day that we were not permitted to discuss the case with anyone that evening because our decision must not be influenced by the comments of people we respect but must be based solely on our consideration together as a jury of the evidence presented. I had an idea that even after a case was over jury members were restricted in how much they could say to others so, knowing I would want to write something about being on jury service in this blog, I asked the jury attendant if discussing the case with others was permissible after it was over. He said that would depend on the outcome of the trial and that if the judge did not give us any instructions regarding this, I should ask the judge. Consequently, when the trial ended and the judge dismissed us without instructions, I raised my hand, overcoming the momentary embarrassment at interrupting proceedings, and said I had a question. The judge's response surprised me and was not entirely helpful. He said that he did not encourage us to tell others about the case but that it was understood that jury members would talk through their experience with family and friends. He then laughed and added, "I wouldn't contact the media," at which the entire courtroom burst into laughter. I was left nonplussed. However informal, I suppose a blog is the media, in that it is available to the public. But in the face of that laughter, I didn't like to bring this up!

Given that I specifically asked the judge what was "allowed" and he made no reference to any stipulated restrictions, I gather there are no legal restrictions. It wouldn't seem right to provide details that might identify anyone involved with the case but other than that I presume I can write freely.

The stand out way in which this real court case differed from those in the movies was the amount repetition! In the movies, witnesses' testimony is always conveniently to the point and informative. In reality, the Crown lawyer asked questions that took a witness over and over what happened, jumping back and forth in time, then the defense lawyer repeated the entire process. When it came to summing up, both lawyers repeated their main points three or four times, then the judge felt the need to repeat those points several times again! Being a long-winded sort of person myself, I now know, I should have been a lawyer!

The next issue of interest for me was how relieved I was to be able to find the accused not guilty. It hadn't occurred to me that I would dislike to find someone guilty of a crime, but I suspect now that such aversion would be common. Maybe in a case where there is overwhelming evidence that the accused did commit the crime I would feel differently.

Another aspect to take me by surprise was how rewarding I found the whole business. I was part of seeing justice done! I helped save a (probably) innocent person from jail! (Although, my mother tells me you don't go to jail for crimes of this nature.) People often describe parenting as a "rewarding" role; I have probably done so myself at some time in the past. But I don't know that it is rewarding in terms of according satisfaction of achievement of good. When my children are clever or kind or thoughtful or skillful (and they often are), I see that as their achievement. When they are rude or hurtful or careless, on the other hand, I share responsibility with them: it's my job to teach them how to behave well. When they are happy, I take that for granted; when they are unhappy, I feel at least partly answerable. I think this is one of the very tough things about being a full time parent - not having ownership of the positive outcomes of our "work". The wonderful sense of having done something good by serving on this jury reminds me of how necessary it is that full time parents protect themselves from feelings of low worth, taking note of the good things we do for our children and the things we do that contribute to our children's development of virtues and skills, even though we can't claim those virtues and skills as our achievement. Next time you see a parent you think is doing a good job, please tell them!

Be the Change

2007-11-08T21:22:00.001+13:00

Greenpeace, Oxfam and Forest and Bird recently launched Be the Change, a fun site designed to assist people to take action in their own lives against climate change. I was pretty much glued to it for several evenings last week, reading all the discussion. It's nice knowing there are lots of other people making changes similar to those I'm making.

As I read through the "Pledges", I signed up for a bunch of them, which was maybe a bit rash ;) Some I signed up for just because I think they are worthy suggestions but, if I'm honest, it's cheating for me to claim them as pledges when I've already done all I intend to for now in those areas: Eat more greens for example - I don't think I could eat more greens than I do already. Geoff is vegan due to food intolerances and we all eat a vegan diet at home because that's easiest (except when I sneak an occasional Picnic bar or Cookie Time cookie into the house).

Other pledges are things I definitely want to improve in: Switch off at the wall, Buy local. I've been meaning for a while to go around the house taking note of what is plugged in and whether it needs to be. I haven't got around to looking into buying local yet, except for choosing New Zealand fruit and vegies over imports at the supermarket and buying clothes and other non-food items secondhand as much as possible. I'm not convinced that buying local is always the best choice for the environment: tomatoes grown locally in a heated glasshouse could conceivably have a larger ecological footprint than tomatoes grown in a warmer climate and transported in bulk - as long as they are not transported by plane! I'm sure that in many cases, buying local is best and I do plan to make more of an effort in this area. One suggestion often made in connection with buying local is to grow your own and this is something I'm enjoying slowly learning about.

I've gleaned several tips from the discussion at Be the Change. One of the pledge suggestions is to give up ironing, which shouldn't be hard for me: our iron comes out of the cupboard about twice a year. One of the tips on the ironing discussion is to hang crumpled shirts in the bathroom while someone's having a shower - apparantly that smoothes any creases out. So maybe we will be able to dispense with our iron altogether.

Bye Sue

2007-10-30T14:21:00.000+13:00

My lovely aunt, Sue, my mother's brother's ex-wife, died this month. She killed herself, having suffered from depression for a number of years. An awful, awful thing ... I just do not understand it. I hadn't seen Sue in recent years; the Sue I remember was high energy, always laughing; I had such fun with her. Every time I saw Sue, which was usually on summer holidays in Nelson, she had a new joke. The last time I saw her, she told me I was a "twearly". According to Sue, we are all either "twearlies" - arriving too early for everything - or "t'lates", who arrive late. She herself was a definite t'late, so I think she would have laughed at my mother and me arriving at the funeral home after the end of her funeral service. Our flight from Wellington had been delayed due to an unidentified smell of smoke in the plane!

The photo was taken at Geoff's and my wedding; Sue is the shorty in front.

I met an interesting person at the after-the-funeral gathering: Kevin Graham, the husband of one of Sue's cousin's, who runs a new business, FriendlyPak, making cornstarch bags among other things - compostable alternatives to plastic bags. Mum and I drilled the poor guy for details. The possibilities are exciting ... one of the obstacles to Councils collecting household green waste separately from other household rubbish so that it can be composted rather than dumped in landfills, is that the bins would quickly become revolting ... but they wouldn't if they were lined with compostable bags! Christchurch City Council, always a step ahead of the rest, is apparently currently looking into green waste collection.

Labour Weekend

2007-10-24T22:27:00.000+13:00

Josiah went on an overnight tramp with Boys Brigade over Labour Weekend. Tessa decided she wanted to go on a tramp too, just her and Geoff, so I had a peaceful night to myself. I dropped Tessa and Geoff off at Catchpool in Rimutaka Forest Park on Sunday afternoon, a stunning spring day. As I was there, in such beautiful surroundings, I took the chance to jog the Five Mile Loop track. It was lovely, starting off through beach forest and returning through a mix of podocarps and Nikau palms. There were quite a few people but it was quiet enough for birdsong to dominate - I guess we were all gratefully drinking in the fantastic day after the foul weather we've been having. Back to rain and gales again by Tuesday :(

I read somewhere the suggestion to use fountain pens rather than biros because biros are one source of the plastic that ends up in landfills. Great excuse to buy a nice pen ;) So I bought a cheap pen on Trade Me. It fills straight from a jar of liquid ink - no plastic refills. It's lovely to write with and I just like the look and feel of it. I keep finding excuses to write just so I can use my cool new pen (shallow, I know). Reminds me of my dad: he had a fountain pen that had to be filled from a jar of ink. Tessa wants one now too so we're keeping an eye on Trade Me for another cheap fountain pen with its own refilling mechanism.

In defence of native plants

2007-10-23T11:38:00.000+13:00

My local paper, The Hutt News, recently asked readers what plants they would like to see in the new plantings our Council is planning. Several people wrote in immediately suggesting a range of New Zealand natives. These letters were followed by responses abusing native plants as unsuitable for city plantings. I just posted in this letter in defense of natives:

Some recent correspondents object to native plantings on various grounds:

Because natives are boringly green. Natives can provide variety of colour: bright yellow Kowhai, orange Coprosma berries, crimson leaves of Horopito, large white flowers of native Clematis, purple Mahoe berries, dark pink curled clusters of Rewarewa flowers, purple and pink Hebe, scarlet Rata, to name a few.

Because natives are evergreen, creating unwanted shade in winter. There are a few deciduous natives, notably Fuchsia and Kowhai. Presumably these provide summer shade and let through winter sun as well as any deciduous tree.

Because natives seed in neighbouring gardens. My natives have begun to seed in my garden so I presume they also seed in my neighbours' gardens. But then, my neighbours' exotic plants seed prolifically in my garden. Usually, this is a bonus: a source of free plants! When not, I pull them out.

Some New Zealand natives are now endangered. I hope Councils will continue to plant natives ... there is such a variety that I would think there is a suitable native for almost any purpose, whether what is wanted is shade, colour, to attract birds, fragrance, erosion prevention, or just a drop of nature in a city environment.

When I wrote that natives can provide fragrance, I was thinking of Lemonwood. Our largest Lemonwood is currently flowering for the first time. I never knew that their flowers have such a strong scent; it is as lovely as Frangipani or Freesias.

Baking Soda Shampoo

2007-10-08T22:48:00.000+13:00

Well, I've made the switch from normal shampoo to baking soda. It really does get hair clean - interesting. After each of the first couple of washes, my hair was flat, except for on top, where it sort of stuck up, and the ends, which were frizzy and bushy. Flat, sticking up, bushy: all three of the ways I get a Bad Hair Day occurring together; you can imagine my joy. I decided that the frizzy, bushy ends were caused by the hair being too dry so the third time I washed with baking soda I used a little conditioner afterwards. Sure enough that got rid of the frizziness and most of the bushiness; and my hair didn't seem so flat either. What's more, it wasn't sticking up at the back any longer - maybe that was nothing to do with the baking soda. So my next task is to find a recipe for an environmentally friendly conditioner I can make easily at home.

By the way, Geoff has made the switch too and hasn't reported any problems. He only has 5mm of hair though so if it was flat or frizzy, you wouldn't know.

Politics

2007-10-07T12:04:00.001+13:00

I came in from putting a load of washing on the other day, to find Josiah curled up reading on the couch. Glancing over to see what he was reading, expecting it to be one of the Artemis Fowl books, I had a quiet laugh: he was reading our Local Government Elections 2007 Instruction Booklet and Candidate Directory. Surfacing ten minutes or so later, Josiah came in search of me to tell me what he'd been reading and that he wasn't very impressed with it. About the mayoral candidates, Josiah complained, "They all say the same thing: 'We listen to you; we want to make the city better.'" Josiah says if he was running he would tell people what improvements he'd make because he'd want people to know what they were voting for when they voted for him.

A few of our local Council candidates feel the same way as Josiah: they have been up front about their priorities. Sadly for us voters, they are the minority; the rest spout meaningless platitudes ... which always include the word "vibrant" somewhere! Why is that? Sometimes you can get a hint of whether someone is right-leaning or left leaning depending on whether they say they want "growth" and "development" or they want "reasonable growth" and "reasonable development". The funniest are those who say there's been too much "talk" and not enough "action" but give no clue as to what actions they will carry out if elected.

I have found Council candidates to vote for: one who states clearly that public transport and protecting the environment are his priorities and another who opposes the sale of assets including Council owned housing and recreational facilities, seeing these assets as important to our well being. I'm at a loss as to what to do with my mayoral vote. All five candidates have voiced their support for the Cross Valley Link - a massive (and massively expensive) new road which would span the entire lower Hutt Valley. I'm appalled - I don't want to imply my support for new roading by voting for one of these candidates but I hate abstaining.

My footprint gets bigger

2007-10-04T12:16:00.000+13:00

My attempts to keep my ecological footprint in check took a bit of a hammering on Monday when I opened our car boot in a Wellington gale. Out flew one of the cloth carry bags we keep in the back of the car for grocery shopping. It was full of cloth drawstring bags and plastic bags, which we kept in there for reuse when buying fruit and bulk bin items at the supermarket. The whole lot was a hundred metres down the road in two seconds :( I managed to retrieve the carry bag and two of the cloth drawstring bags. The rest were carried by the wind I don't know where.

Carbon offsetting: more harm than good?

2007-09-30T20:26:00.001+13:00

I'm unimpressed with the concept of carbon offsetting. The Wikipedia article on the topic brings to light several controversies including a case where it was in question whether any carbon was in fact offset and others where non-carbon-related environmental and social damage was caused by the carbon-offsetting activity donors paid for. Another case involves a carbon-offsetting company, whose customers reportedly include the Prince Charles, Land Rover and the leader of the UK Conservative party, which pays third world farmers to switch from diesel powered to human powered machinery ... elitist in the extreme. I mean wealthy British are of course free to abandon their technology rich life styles in favour of running a small farm, pumping the water for irrigation by treadle. But to carry on driving cars, flying in planes, heating and air conditioning their homes, and running the latest electronic devices, while paying third world farmers to pump their irrigation water by treadle ...

Nothing wrong of course in donating to causes that truly help the environment (and/or the poor) alongside attempting to decrease our personal and communal carbon production, but I see no value in inventing a relationship between our carbon production and our donations to environmental causes.

The thought that carbon trading is likely to be formalised in law so that whole companies can get away without making their practices more environmentally friendly by paying other companies to carry out questionable acts such as transforming more land from its natural state to plantation forest is disturbing!

Lowering my negative impact on the environment: 2. Transport

2007-09-19T10:02:00.000+12:00

My general goal is to use my own steam (biking, walking, scooter) as much as possible to get around, next turn to public transport, and only if neither of those is feasible take the car. I face two main obstacles. The first is that my children aren't up to travelling far by bike yet - five kilometres at a time is about their limit. This means that we use our bikes to get to Tessa's guitar lesson, Josiah's Technicraft class, the local shops, and when visiting one friend who lives close by. Everywhere else we go is further away than five kilometres. Still it's a start and we hope to make longer bike rides over the summer.

I can ride further of course but I don't often go out without the kids - just to the odd appointment like visiting the dentist, or more often nipping down to the shops for something. Which brings me to the other obstacle I face: the car is so easy and accessible! Despite better intentions, I use the car when there's no reason not to go by bike :( Sometimes I think we should all find someone who lives a block or two away from us and swap parking spaces with them, making cycling the quicker, easier option. Or maybe all cars should be fitted with some sort of delay lock to make it not worth our while to use them for quick jobs.

New Zealanders interested in cycling as a means of getting around might like to check out my friend Steven Muir's cool website. Steve sells bike trailers.

Luckily I like taking public transport - given the choice between sitting comfortably reading on a bus or train and driving through traffic then hunting for a car park, I'll sit reading any day. So we take public transport for our longer trips around town whenever public transport is convenient, eg we don't take the bus to climbing because that trip takes ten minutes by car and at least 45 minutes by bus because the bus closest to us doesn't go close to the climbing wall and vice versa.

We make a few longer trips each year ... to visit family, to go camping or tramping and in the last two years to take the children to climbing competitions. Usually we drive, sometimes we have flown to Christchurch, sometimes we've taken the ferry and train to Christchurch, which makes for a long, tiring day but is a comfortable way to travel. Once, the kids and I took a bus from Nelson to Picton. That was the pits, only a two hour trip but I was overjoyed to get off that bus. I never feel unwell reading on buses around town but I guess buses sway more at faster speeds or something.

It seems clear that flying is the worst way to travel. I did some Internet research a few months ago and although the precise figures claimed vary enormously, every site I looked at agreed that flying is significantly worse for the environment than any other form of transport, no matter how you look at it. I'd like to say that I will never get on a plane again - I certainly feel challenged to avoid flying - but when the destination is more than a day away by car or train, I have to admit flying is an attractive option ... if the trip is justifiable in the first place: possibly the best way to travel more environmentally soundly is simply to travel less.

So which of my journeys can I eliminate? We are already pretty efficient around town. We do the supermarket shopping on our way home from climbing. We stop at the library on our way out or our way home. Items like stationery or clothing sit on my shopping list for weeks - sometimes months - till I happen to be passing a shop where they are sold. (I pass clothes shops all the time of course - there are so many! - but we buy most of our clothes secondhand and the large secondhand clothing shops in Wellington are all slightly out of my usual orbit.)

As far as our longer trips go ...

Visiting friends and family is very important to me. The camping holidays we take can be justified in my opinion because of their rejuvenating effect and the opportunity they provide to see something new - learn something new. Their impact on the environment can be kept to a minimum by choosing destinations not too far from home ... I'd love to be rejuvenated and learn something new in say Italy (the kids and I have been studying Ancient Rome this year) or say Fiji but there are plenty of amazing sights to see and people to learn from who live different lives to mine much closer to home.

Can trips to climbing competitions be justified? Climbing is Josiah's life! Attending competitions - meeting up with other enthusiastic climbers from around the country - is one of the highlights of his year. So, yes, I think they are justified for now :)

My current approach to transport seems to be not to have any concrete goal or rules to follow but to consider each journey individually.

Lowering my negative impact on the environment: 1. Rubbish

2007-09-02T12:12:00.000+12:00

No Impact Man divides his life into six areas to analyse his impact on the environment: trash, carbon-producing transportation, inconspicuous consumption, sustainable eating, reduced power use, and environmentally-friendly water use. I like this idea of breaking it down so I thought I would analyse each of these six areas in my family's life, cataloguing the steps we've already made (because patting myself on the back gives me the motivation to go further) and brainstorming what needs to come next.

Okay, today I'll look at Rubbish Production. The mantra is "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" isn't it?

First Reduce

To date:

We are cutting down on purchases.

We use cloth carry bags for shopping.

We use smaller cloth drawstring bags for bulk bin items and fruit and veg.

Next move:

Look for bulk alternatives to the food we buy that comes with packaging, especially non-reusable packaging: tinned food, pasta sealed in plastic, soy milk in one litre cartons. We have borrowed a soy milk maker but haven't tried it yet.

Ditto for non food purchases that come sealed in packaging: look for alternatives that come without packaging (I do generally look for secondhand options first).

Switch to environmentally friendly cleaners and hygiene products that can be made from bulk purchased goods. Currently we buy cleaning products from the supermarket, choosing ones that have some kind of green certificate. Next time I pass Moore Wilson's I plan to buy a large quantity of baking soda as I have heard it makes good shampoo and underarm deodorant.

We use a lot of paper tissues (I have a chronic sinus problem). I recently dropped a note in our local supermarket's suggestion box, thanking them for supplying recycled paper toilet paper and asking them to supply recycled paper facial tissues (the tissues we buy now are made from "sustainable forestry") but I know I should really be using cloth handkerchiefs. The problem is that I have horrible memories from childhood of the contents of handkerchiefs being redistributed rather than removed in the washing machine and ending up on my school uniform. Yuck. I guess handkerchiefs should be washed separately - in hot water? Anyone know how to wash handkerchiefs effectively?

One day in the future:

Have a larger vegetable garden - enough to do some of our own preserving so we don't have to buy tinned vegetables, tomato sauce etc. This is pretty unrealistic in the immediate future: I don't know how families find time to maintain a large garden and do their own preserving, make their own soy milk etc, especially if they also walk and bike everywhere rather than drive, another time consuming activity. Something for me to have in mind as a goal though.

Second Reuse

So far:

We reuse jars and plastic containers that our food comes packaged in.

We buy almost all our clothes and some other purchases secondhand.

I have recently joined my local Freecycle group. I think this is a great idea: if you have something to give away, you email the group, offering it to anyone who'd like it.

When our towels start to fall apart, we cut them up into cleaning rags.

For writing and printing from the computer, we use paper printed on one side that Geoff collected from recycling stacks at work.

Although we avoid plastic bags as much as possible, some still make their way into the house, eg bread bags as we bake some but not all of our bread. These we wash and reuse.

Third Recycle

Currently:

Josiah and Geoff eat a vegan diet, and Tessa and I eat a nearly vegan diet. This means that 100% of our home food waste can be (and is) composted :) We also compost the paper tissues we use for nose blowing.

All of our rubbish that is recyclable goes out in the recycling bin.

Not sure what else we could reuse or recycle at present; it seems our focus should be on reducing.

A note: When we were on holiday recently, I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the motorcamps and backpackers we stayed at had recycling bins and one or two even had separate bins for food waste.

I will write about each of the other five areas - transport, power use, water use, food and consumption - over the next weeks.

What shall I do?

2007-09-01T15:50:00.001+12:00

Every so often I think I have enough spare time to take up some formal study or paid employment. Usually homeschooling gets challenging again and I change my mind; that's probably what will happen this time too but it's nice to dream. So ... what would I do? My big passions are children under 7, writing, and conservation. I envisage that one day, when Josiah and Tessa are largely independent of me, I will run a home preschool / daycare - I would love to look after very young children again. But I am an introvert and I already have more human interaction in my week than I can cope with well so this isn't the time in my life to start a home preschool. Similarly, it would be odd for me to take on more conservation work considering I barely keep up with the ongoing care (weeding) of the natives the City Council let me plant on the reserve next door.

That leaves writing. Is the best thing for me to do to improve my writing to continue reading lots and writing as much as possible (eg this blog). Or should I enrol in a writing course? I quite fancy myself as some sort of editor: I often notice bits in books that I think should be written differently (I had to give up reading Eragon because the writing was so appalling it just about hurt to read it). The Writing School offers an appealing looking course called Editing and Proofreading. But the cost is $1000! And snobbishness always makes me think a university course is a better idea. Massey University has a paper called Writing, Sub-Editing and Publishing which doesn't look quite so precisely what I'm after but is only $500. Realistically a university paper, even one, is more than I have time for. I thought I'd found the solution when I came across a one day workshop, Editing and Proofreading: Getting it Right run by Victoria University but the cost is $600 just for the day!

Maybe for now I should just read books on writing and editing.

Dandelions

2007-08-22T22:50:00.000+12:00

When we moved into this house, a brand new lawn had just been sown. Seven years of Geoff's and my haphazard care later, the clover and dandelions were beginning to take over. So last autumn I searched the Internet for environmentally friendly weedkiller recipes, diligently put together the most popular of these - a mixture of salt and vinegar - and sprayed the dandelions and clover, carefully avoiding the grass. What I didn't know is that salt and vinegar is not a weedkiller at all but (perhaps I should have worked this out) works by altering the soil, making it inhospitable for anything to grow in. My "weedkiller" rendered portions of our lawn such a harsh environment that only the hardiest of plants can survive there, namely the dandelions ... which have thrived and multiplied. Any grass that lay next to a sprayed weed is now dead.

This afternoon, Tessa and I began the massive task of digging up the dandelions, which I have come to believe is the only environmentally friendly way to get rid of them. We are hoping that lawn seed will be able to grow in a small layer of fresh topsoil. If not, my feeling is to accept that our lawn wants to be a dandelion bed ... after all the seed heads are very pretty.

Solar Power

2007-08-07T19:33:00.000+12:00

One of the comments I made in yesterday's post sat uncomfortably with me all day today:

Solar cells, if I understand correctly, take considerable energy to assemble - almost as much as they in turn produce in their lifetime.

Someone told me that once. He seemed very certain of his facts; I believed him. On reflection, someone telling me something doesn't seem justification enough to spout off to others in a manner that suggests I know what I'm talking about. So I did a quick Google search, which revealed site after site asserting that what I said is a myth and not one site in agreement with me. If you're interested, Energy Bulletin was the site with the most detailed analysis of evidence.

The upshot of this is I might look into getting a roof mounting solar panel for heating water.

The truth about global warming doesn't matter

2007-08-06T15:41:00.000+12:00

I have neglected this blog lately in favour of my Montessori homeschooling blog. This post has been percolating for a while.

I have a few friends who do not believe global warming is happening, or if they do they do not believe human activity has any significant effect on global warming. When I contemplate studying the topic in depth so that I can debate the issues with more authority (and be clearer in my own mind what is known and what is just conjecture), apathy creeps over me; the topic interests me but not enough. There is to much else I want to spend my time on.

It occurred to me recently, though, that the truth doesn't matter! Everything I can think of that scientists and environmentalists are calling on us to do in the name of preventing global warming, we should be doing anyway for other reasons!

Pollution from cars and industry may or may not contribute to global warming but it certainly costs lives and many dollars due to its effect on human health. What's more our excessive use of private motor vehicles makes the streets so dangerously congested that children are forced to depend on adults to drive them around rather than walking and biking independently as my friends and I enjoyed doing a generation ago.

My non-global-warming-related arguments against deforestation are a little more tenuous, less scientific. I don't feel that I have the right to wipe out other species through using their habitat for my own uses. Other people seem to disagree. If someone is of the opinion that they have a right to endanger animal and plant species in Papua New Guinea in order to have a cardboard box for their latest new appliance to be transported in, I can't really argue with that.

I like forest. It's a nice place to be. I would like there to be more of it again, not even less.

Our energy use contributes to global warming we are told. But it is also harmful in other ways. Energy produced by burning fuel contributes to the health damaging pollution I mentioned already. Solar cells, if I understand correctly, take considerable energy to assemble - almost as much as they in turn produce in their lifetime. As the technology improves and more efficient solar panels are created, it will make sense for roofs to be covered in solar panels. But solar power plants will always be problematic because they are take up large tracts of land that could be returned to its natural state. Wind farms seem to me to be a better option than many but again they take up land. Nuclear power produces toxic waste that will be dangerous for generations to come. Which brings us to water. Like deforestation, damming a river is taking away someone's habitat. Do we have the right to keep doing that? New Zealand is covered in hydro dams, and as a result species of plants, birds and fish that depend on rivers are dying out. Like forests, rivers are a lovely place to be. I would rather cut my power use and continue to be able to swim in rivers and walk beside rivers in their beautiful natural state than take advantage of every opportunity to use hydro power.

Cows. Apparently when we farm them (and other animals) in large numbers they produce greenhouse gases in large quantities. Regardless of whether that is true or not, we are poisoning our rivers with run off from farms. Forests are being destroyed in order to clear land either for animal farming or to grow crops to feed animals, when to feed ourselves directly with crops would take only a small portion of the land currently farmed.

I rest my case :)

Crochet bag as alternative to those filmy plastic bags for fruit and vegetables

2007-07-06T14:48:00.000+12:00

Over at A Label Resistant Life, there has been discussion about finding alternatives for those filmy plastic bags that supermarkets and vegie shops provide for fruit and vegetables. I had a couple light, netting bags (I think our climbing harnesses, when we bought them, came in these bags) and I've started using those for fruit and veg. I am also crocheting what will hopefully be a suitably lightweight bag. A fellow reader at A Label Resistant Life asked about my crochet bag so here's a picture.

The stitch I'm using is "double treble" but since I chose this stitch I have borrowed a book on crochet stitches from the library. I think "double crochet with chain 1 spaces" and "chain 3 lace" might produce a lighter weight net. I plan to try one of those next.

Another reason not to fly

2007-06-28T14:28:00.000+12:00

How fortunate that flying is no longer morally acceptable, given the Aviation Security Service's latest purchase - a strip search scanner!

In fact, our family is considering flying to my grandmother's 100th birthday celebration in January. Here's hoping the scanner's use remains optional. Are they going to use this thing on children?

One can't help thinking the service could have found a better way to spend $250,000 given the only aviation security problems we have in NZ are drugs and pest insects, as far as I know.

Lil needs ...

2007-06-01T23:01:00.000+12:00

Daisy had a go at this in her blog; it was very funny. You do a Google search on "your name needs" and comment on what comes up. "Lisia needs" comes up with nothing at all so I tried "Lil needs":

Lil needs help.

Well, obviously :)

Lil needs a gawjus guy.

Already got one! (Except I would never refer to him as "gawjus". Having attempted to teach two children to spell, I am violently opposed to the use of cutesy alternative spellings.)

Lil Needs Her Morning Coffee.

I can't remember the last time I drank caffeinated coffee ... even when I did drink coffee it wasn't in the morning - I used to have a cup after lunch to see me through the afternoon.

Lil needs someone to raise her from the gloom and doom of her life.

Oh dear ;)

Lil needs all the beauty sleep she can get.

Beauty sleep or any kind of sleep! I'm 35 years old (for another few days) and I have two kids! Of course sleep is right up there on my list of preferred ways to spend free moments.

What aspect of LiL needs the most work: (please leave details in the comments).

Oh my goodness! No, please do not leave details in the comments!

David Bain

2007-05-31T19:27:00.000+12:00

I'm very happy for David Bain, his convictions quashed, released from prison after nearly thirteen years there (Josiah's lifetime). Joe Karam's two books convinced me that there is no evidence that David committed the murders. I have only just read Karam's second book, Bain and Beyond: Cops, Courts and Criminal Justice, which makes for worrying reading. Detailing the Bain case and several others, some of which involve convictions later overturned, Karam espouses two views:

that some police, frustrated from watching recognised offenders getting off on technicalities, come to see manipulating evidence (or hiding it) as a "noble cause", and

that the police sometimes jump to a conclusion early in an investigation and stick to that conclusion doggedly, carrying out not a neutral and thorough investigation of the crime but a hunt for evidence that supports their idea of what occurred.

Conservation

2007-05-27T22:25:00.000+12:00

I have enjoyed Corenne's recent posts in her blog A Label Resistant Life about what she is doing to live a more environmentally friendly life. I seem to need to be regularly re-inspired to live more environmentally soundly. I get all fired up after reading an article on the issue or discussing it with a friend but my good intentions fade after a while.

At the moment I am trying to get into the habit of turning appliances off at the wall after I use them. Even though that's not a big energy saver, it seems to me that any saving that is easy to make should be taken advantage of however small it is: why not? The only problems so far are that I often forget and that I am driving my husband insane turning off the microwave. Our microwave clock gains a minute or two every day and I wear a watch so I never look at that clock to find out the time, but Geoff does not wear a watch and he does refer to the microwave clock even though it can only tell him approximately what the time is.

I would like to find a trustworthy source of comparisons of the amounts of damage to the environment caused by different activities. I spent some time today searching the Net for information on the effects of air travel. I was aware that long haul flights are a major source of pollution but wasn't sure about how short haul flights compare to alternative forms of transport. Every site I looked at agreed that flying causes more environmental damage than travelling by train or car, though they all disagreed on how much worse flying is. I was surprised and interested in a statistic mentioned in one article - that only 5% of the world's population has ever travelled by plane.

Another comparison I'd like to find out about has to do with showering. In the summer, I have short showers to conserve water and energy. When the weather started getting cold about a month ago, I noticed my showers becoming longer. I started wondering if installing a bathroom heater would be more environmentally friendly than increasing our hot water use in winter. Warming (sorry about the pun) to the idea of a snug bathroom, I put this theory to Geoff. Sadly he scoffed at it - he thinks there's no question that using a bit more hot water is less harmful than heating the bathroom every time someone has a shower. I suspect he's right :( I also suspect that I should make the effort to keep my showers short even on the coldest days.

(Just in case a reader from a different part of the world is wondering what sort of a climate I live in, I can tell you that we don't get snow in winter but do get frequent frosts and some cold southerly storms. In our house, when it is cold, we heat the room we are in, i.e. during the day we heat the living room, and in the evening when the children play in their rooms, they turn a heater on until they go to bed. I think most people in Wellington do the same, though some do heat their whole house and sadly I imagine some cannot afford to heat even one room.)

By the way, Greenpeace didn't like that Genesis Energy used a pukeko in a television ad, giving an impression of being green and sustainable, so they made their own version of the add.

Gun control

2007-04-25T21:59:00.000+12:00

Last week, someone sent an email discussion group I'm on a link to this article which claims that “mass shootings occur less often in areas where responsible citizens may carry weapons.” Aside from the paradox that in my view a “responsible citizen” would not, by definition, carry a weapon, the article is disturbing.

It argues against “gun-free zones”, claiming that there is evidence that mass shootings are more likely to occur in schools and malls and so on where guns are banned than in similar areas where people may carry guns.

Supposing this is true, what the article doesn't acknowledge is that it is only comparing gun-free zones and guns-allowed zones within wider areas (cities and countries) where it is acceptable for people to carry guns. Perhaps there is a case against small gun-free zones. However, looking at larger areas – cities and countries - the international evidence seems clear that countries with greater restrictions on gun access suffer fewer gun deaths as a proportion of population than countries where gun access is freer:

http://www.guncontrol.ca/Content/TheCaseForGunControl.html#effect

Further up the page there is also an interesting graph comparing gun death rates in states and counties with the percentage of house holders owning guns in those areas.

The rich get richer; the poor get poorer

2007-04-08T12:27:00.000+12:00

At the end of 1993, Geoff and I bought our first home: a three bedroom house in one of Christchurch's cheapest suburbs, Aranui, for NZ$70,000. Seven years, one double garage and a few minor home improvements later, we sold the property for NZ$105,000 and moved to Wellington. We received only the one offer on the house, about a month after it went on the market. We know that the family who purchased the house planned to live in it themselves as they visited before we left to take measurements for new fences to keep their dogs out of part of the garden.

In 2000, we purchased a brand new but small (106 square metres including the garage) three bedroom home in one of Wellington's cheapest suburbs, Naenae, Lower Hutt, for $146,000.

A few weeks ago, my late mother-in-law's home went on the market. It is in the same suburb as our home, also three bedrooms but slightly larger and considerably older than our home, and includes a separate double garage ... maybe worth slightly less than our home. It could do with painting inside and new carpet throughout in my opinion. Within one week, the family had received 14 offers, the highest of which is $285,000, nearly double what we paid for our comparable home just seven years ago. Apparently most of the offers come from investors who intend to rent the property out.

It is time the old saying “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer,” is updated: “Landlords get richer and tenants get poorer.” Buying a basic family home in a cheap suburb has been put out of reach of all but the rich, by laws which allow property investors to negatively gear. It is time those laws were reversed.

Noisy cars

2007-03-17T14:03:00.000+13:00

Generally I don't hear much traffic noise at home but on Thursday nights a roar carries across the valley from the weekly meeting of Lower Hutt car enthusiasts (otherwise known as boy racers).

Land Transport NZ is currently taking submissions on a proposal to lower the maximum decibel limits for vehicle exhaust noise. The new limit would target the noisiest of cars – those with purposely fitted modified exhausts that emit significantly more noise than an ordinary exhaust. Sounds like a great idea to me so I filled out the submission form.

You can make a submission online. Instructions on making a submission are here.

Questions and answers on the changes proposed are here.

Submissions close on 19 April 2007.

Landcorp clearing regenerating native bush

2007-03-14T10:21:00.000+13:00

I find several aspects of this news disturbing, the primary one of these being the attitude held by Landcorp that it is reasonable to clear regenerating native bush at all. My view is that in New Zealand and throughout the world, we have cleared too much land already, leading to climate change, erosion, extinction and threatened extinction of many species of plants and animals, and the uglification of our environment, among other negative effects. We are now at the point where we need to make do with what we have, assisting land that is returning to its natural state rather than re-clearing it!

DVD: Kenny

2007-03-12T10:16:00.000+13:00

This movie is fabulous! If anyone was left in any doubt after Strictly Ballroom, Muriel's Wedding, The Castle and The Dish as to who makes the best comedies, this movie must surely decide the issue in favour of the Australians.

The movie's hero Kenny is as endearing as a child but with some depth to his character too. His patience and compassion in the face of severe trials is inspiring. The movie's only flaw might be that he is a little too perfect. Except for one small act of vengeance towards the end of the film involving an expensive car and a quantity of raw sewerage, Kenny is the ultimate nice guy.

The movie's setting, a portable toilet company, provides opportunity for some truly funny puns and hilarious situations.

The story is told in the form of a mock documentary. For the first few minutes, I thought this was a mistake – it is a little more effort to watch than the usual unfolding of a series of events – but I soon got used to the format.

I look forward to watching this movie again in a year or so once the details aren't so fresh in my mind.

Rickards, Shipton and Schollum

2007-03-06T21:50:00.000+13:00

For the last few days, like many New Zealanders, I have been absorbed in and distressed by the revelations following the latest rape trial involving suspended Assistant Police Commissioner Clint Rickards and former police officers Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum.

Regarding the first trial the three faced together, I am appalled that any New Zealander believes that there is such a thing as consensual sex between an eighteen year old and three older adults. That a police officer holding this belief travelled up through the ranks to Assistant Police Commissioner disgusts me. That our justice system allowed a not guilty verdict after a defence based on “consent” sinks me.

I believe we need a new tier in our age of consent laws. The current age of consent in New Zealand is 16 years. I would like to see a change so that 16 and 17 year olds are considered capable of consenting to sex only with someone no more than two years older than themselves, and 18 and 19 year olds capable of consenting to have sex with someone no more than three years older. Think back to when you were sixteen or seventeen. At that age, two years is a huge age gap. When I entered university age 18 ½, the 25 year old “mature” students I met there seemed more like my parents' peers than my own.

It seems that the understanding that consensual sex is not possible when there is a significant imbalance of power between the parties is filtering through our society only extremely slowly.

I was very pleased to read this morning that Prime Minister Helen Clark has come out strongly ridiculing the suggestion that consensual sex between a teenager and three adult police officers is possible (see Stuff article). I might have to write and thank her. Maybe there is hope that the law will change.

There is a further change I would like to see take place, to deal with the problem that some rape cases come down to one person's word against another's. In these situations, a court case is pointless in my opinion; no one should go to jail only because someone says they committed a crime. But neither should rape victims be denied the opportunity to formally accuse their attackers. What is needed is a different type of hearing, entirely private (because of the possibility that the accused is innocent), which has no power to sentence, since it is acknowledged that the evidence does not justify that, and which the accused is required by law to attend, where the victim can state what happened and request acknowledgement and reparation from the accused (regardless of how unlikely it is that an attacker would comply with that request).

Cats - horrid little things

2007-02-06T21:01:00.000+13:00

Anyone know how to keep cats out of the garden? Our vegie garden has been doing surprisingly well given the poor care it's received from me. Among other goodies, Tessa has been collecting a handful of strawberries every couple of days. Yesterday's lot, though, stank of cat pee! I soaked them in water with the intention of rinsing them thoroughly but none of us were game to eat them - we chucked them out. The neighbours' cats often leave little offerings on our lawn (I think that means they were separated from their mothers earlier than they should have been) but this is the first time they've sprayed in the garden. It's enough to put me off cats altogether.

Geoff and I both grew up with cats - I have to admit they are lovely pets. But we choose not to have one now because of the ongoing damage to native bird species done by domestic cats (which are not native).

Sad news

2007-02-02T16:30:00.000+13:00

On 25 January, Geoff's mother passed away. After the diagnosis of terminal secondary cancer at the start of December last year, she went downhill rapidly, getting weaker and tireder and not being able to keep food down. Her biggest fear was that she would carry on for weeks or months being as unwell as she was in the last weeks, so we were grateful for her sake that the end came more quickly than expected. It has been a very hard time for us.

The funeral was a lovely honouring of M's life. Geoff (who is not a natural speaker!) gave the eulogy perfectly and Josiah and Tessa each did a reading.

DVD: The Matador

2007-01-13T16:02:00.000+13:00

This is the first movie Geoff and I have watched in a year or two that is so bad we didn't make it to the end. I chose this movie ... I don't know what made me think it would be worth watching - maybe Greg Kinnear. He's usually reliable (I'm thinking of As Good As It Gets and Nurse Betty, although come to think of it Stuck on You was weak).

Basically, Pierce Brosnan does such a good job of being a thoroughly unpleasant assassin that he is thoroughly unpleasant to watch. Greg Kinnear plays a boring "ordinary guy" who is boring and a little depressing to watch.

Don't bother.

Proud to be a New Zealander

2007-01-13T15:30:00.000+13:00

This week anyway ;)

The New Zealand government's duty minister and spokesperson over this period of the summer break, Jim Anderton, spoke out forcefully against US President Bush's decision to send more troops to Iraq, and, what's more, it appears that most Kiwis are in agreement with Jim's views (an unusual situation). Embarrassing but not unexpected that Prime Minister Helen Clark beat a strategic retreat, distancing herself from Jim's comments. If politicians like Helen around the world were less nervous of offending a selfish bully and more concerned with doing the right thing, maybe alternatives to further death, injury and destruction could be found.

Hope this means Jim Anderton's Progressive Coalition gets more votes next election ... maybe Jim was being strategic too.

Fire

2006-12-26T22:10:00.000+13:00

I dialed 111 for the first time in my life on Christmas Eve. Arriving home from a moving children's carol service at St James, I looked up to see smoke billowing in a valley of regenerating forest close by. The amount of smoke was not huge, though definitely more than a backyard barbecue could cause. I might have hesitated - I have my share of the common disinclination to be caught over-reacting - but there have been five scrub fires in the eastern hills of the Hutt Valley in recent months. My sadness and frustration at the setback this means for regeneration sent me racing inside to the phone. Within a reassuringly short time, two fire engines could be seen speeding up the hill. I don't know what they discovered but they stayed only a few minutes. They were gone again before the last of the smoke had dissipated into the sky.

I spent the next couple of hours feeling anxious, hoping I hadn't wasted the Fire Service's time but I guess I did the right thing. Fire is the number one threat to native forest regeneration where there is gorse mixed with young native forest plants as there is in the hills here. Gorse, a weed in New Zealand, recovers quickly from fire but if it can be protected from fire, provides native manuka and kanuka with the shade they require to establish. Once established they outgrow the gorse, shading it from the sun it needs to survive. The currently flowering manuka shows grey against the dark green gorse in this photo. Fire would set the process back to the beginning. I believe it's been 20 years since there was a fire on this particular hill.

Sometimes the news hits harder

2006-12-07T10:19:00.000+13:00

Not surprisingly perhaps, I have been unable to think of much other than our sad family news this week. As they always do in times of trouble, items in the news are hitting me more personally than usual. It's frustrating and very sad what is happening in Fiji, the country of my birth. Interesting that Bainimarama's criticisms of the government, which received some sympathetic coverage a week ago, appear to have been almost entirely forgotten by the media now that he has carried out his coup. Of course, regardless of the validity of his concerns, ousting an elected government by force is not okay. He must be peeved, though, that his actions appear to have increased support for the government he's removed.

Susan Wood's resignation from TVNZ was poignant for me, given she announced her illness the day I heard of my mother in law's. I confess annoyance was added to my sympathy when I read Susan's comment explaining her intention to continue working: "I'm not a tennis mum; I'm not going to be staying at home." Doesn't she realise it is easier for working mums to play tennis than for stay-at-home mums to? Working mums have regular childcare in place.

And in any case, whether you are a working mum or a stay-at-home mum, it is better for you, for your children, and for the taxpayer who pays for your health care, if you do play tennis (or exercise in some way). (Not that I suppose the taxpayer pays for Susan Wood's health care necessarily.) I wish Susan a fast and full recovery from her illness and from her stereotyped perception of stay-at-home parenting.

Site Feed

2006-11-27T21:28:00.000+13:00

I'm not sure how regular I'll be at posting so I've put a link to a site feed at the bottom of the right hand column.

Book: The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

2006-11-27T19:43:00.000+13:00

You know you've discovered a great book when you're already in tears of laughter reading page 22. The book is Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. Read it if you're looking for an interesting read or a laugh or first class entertainment.

***

In case you were wondering, my act of rebellion last week worked: the washing dried on the line :) The day was too windy to be called pleasant but the evening was lovely; Josiah and I enjoyed a bike ride most of the way to Boys Brigade until I got a puncture. Geoff rescued us so that Josiah wouldn't be too late. So much for my contribution to lessening car emissions and traffic congestion.

The Weather

2006-11-20T16:19:00.000+13:00

I hung the washing out in light rain this morning. That may seem ridiculous but in fact it was an act of desperation. The forecast had told us we would have our first fine day in I don't know how long, so I was determined to believe it was a fine day despite all evidence to the contrary. The rain got heavier as I pegged out the last items and I did begin to feel a little foolish. I wonder what the neighbours thought if they saw me. No, I know what they thought. They are as sick of the rain as I am. (I know this because everybody is sick of it - strangers now stop each other in the street to exchange complaints about the weather.) Anyone who saw me recognised that they were witnessing either an act of rebellion against nature or evidence of insanity caused by lack of sunlight. (I think it was the former.)

It's hard to believe our neighbours across the ditch are experiencing a drought. Wellingtonians deeply wish we could share our rain with Australia.