After returning the car today, we took a walk down to the water, where the Hobson Bay Walkway meanders along for miles and miles. The bluff is steep, and they’ve built nice stairs to get you down there. 

Again, the jungly-ness is less impressive in the picture than in real life. 

At low tide, this is just one big mudflat, albeit the prettiest mudflat I’ve ever seen by a long stretch. Over the years, Auckland’s footprint has increased into a lot of land like this. Owners of multimillion dollar homes along this stretch would fight bitterly against any new developments here, I’m sure. 

Newmarket is fairly posh these days, and getting posher all the time. But back in the day, not so much. In reading a little NZ history we have learned that 100 years ago the NZ government was about the most socialist in the world, and workers rights are still strongly protected here. 

Last evening, I had to prioritise pushing the wheelie bin out to the kerb. The rubbish is picked up every week, but the recycling is only collected fortnightly. I couldn’t remember which week this was, so I had to have a squiz at the neighbours‘ bins. Right then, all sorted!

They’re “upgrading” this street to be more of a pedestrian mall type setting. If you have to spend time in any of those conference rooms in the background, the noise can be a bit overwhelming, despite what this sign says. 

But full credit to the construction company for trying to engage with the pedestrian public… it seems to be working:

This amazing magnolia tree near the entrance to the Auckland Domain looked especially like some sort of octopoid sentinel the other morning. 

Last Sunday we went up the hill to an organ recital at the St. Mary’s Chapel, which is the old part of the Holy Trinity Cathedral (and also the part that moved across the street in the 1980s, and also the part that’s considered to be an exceptional example of wooden church architecture).

The organ was recently refurbished, including fantastic painted decoration on the pipes.

The organist Stephen Vincent, two-time President of the Auckland Organists Association and a former student of one John Carter (!), spoke with a clubby chuckle about the pieces on the program. Although I consider myself more or less musically literate, this was pretty much new material for me, and I was glad for his program notes.

The music itself was good, and several of the pieces seemed powerfully evocative… for instance the Louis Vierne piece seemed like archetypal haunted house music and made me want to design a video game so I could use it in the background. The actual execution seemed less good to me… lots of what sounded like missed notes , and a little too much fiddling with the many many stops on this 100-year-old contraption. Maybe that’s part of the appeal of an old organ: “look at how we can keep this crazy clockwork thing alive” as much as “listen to the harmonious sounds.”

Anyway, glad we went, now bringing to two the number of new cities we’ve moved to and gone to an organ recital.

When you get your veg delivered, you lose the choice over which specific veg you actually get. And so we end up with the Great Dane, the very Marmaduke, of celeries. 

An alert Facebook friend told us that painted utility boxes is a thing around Auckland. I haven’t seen any of the ones in the article… but it turns out there are lots of others!

By Bill Hayes