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

We did a lot of nothing yesterday…

Walked to the La Cigale market for fresh veggies. Our route takes down a couple pretty streets and through a park that includes a tiny little tropical rain forest. My photo skills are challenged when I try to capture the lush oversized greenery. Here’s a house perched on a hill overlooking that little park. 

On the way back, we happened across a coin show in the nearby Quality Inn hotel and stopped in. In my youth, I was quite the coin collector, started off by my grandfather who brought back coins from around the world during his Air Force career. I lived for several years near the American Numismatic Association library and museum in Colorado Springs, and would hang out there looking stuff up. 

But since then, my enthusiasm for that kind of collecting – and for hanging out with other collectors – has cooled. This little show, celebrating the 50th anniversary of NZ’s monetary decimalisation, was just what you might expect, only maybe a little smaller and more pitiful. Hotel conference rooms are the same everywhere, as are the gray-haired, bespectacled men with loupes and catalogs who love old money. Barely in the door, we were enthusiastically accosted by a gentleman eager to share with us the shocking, scandalous story of the Bahamas mule, including binders full of photocopies of previously classified government documents and press clippings from that scandal. Fascinating… for an eleven year old version of me. We didn’t stay long. 

We turned some of our new veggies into a salade kiwoise, added a lovely French pastry (Bastille Day and all) and had a midwinter picnic lunch on our little balcony. 

After that we set out to finally go touch the ocean. It’s maybe a mile walk, but we just hadn’t done it yet. 

They are working on the normal pedestrian walkway, so we had to detour through the lovely little St. Stephens Cemetery. 

I wonder if there’s an ICD-10 code for schooner mishaps. Probably. 

Then, past the Parnell Baths, closed for winter, to the sea. 

Lots and lots of people sailing. 

We walked some more, stopped for a pint, walked some more, and got home for dinner. Don’t know how many steps we would have logged on the step counter, but it was enough to be dozing in front of the TV by about 8:30. 

Not that we’ve been suffering by any stretch, but it was a milestone and a great feeling to have no more pressing settling-in tasks on our plate and just really take the day completely off. 

And now, on to Sunday!

Took a walk at lunch the other day up the hill into Remuera. Here’s a few pics. 

I thought this white church would be quite comfortable in New England. 

This brick church would also be at home back home, except for the tree fern. 

 I saw this mosaic decoration on a completely ordinary 3-story apartment building, and wondered what it might signify. 

Although I’m sure any semi-awake student at Auckland Grammar would know, I had to look up the story of Endymion. Ancient accounts vary, but as popularized by John Keats in 1818, Endymion seems to have been the mortal lover of Selene, the moon goddess. He was either condemned to, or chose, eternal sleep so they could be together. However sleepy he may have been, they managed to produce 50 daughters… gud on ya, mate. 

All week, for mysterious reasons, a road crew has been staging equipment on our street. It appears, goes away, and reappears. 

Parking is at a premium around here, and this enterprising driver decided that the guy who parked the trencher set the brakes correctly. Of course he did, and everything turned out fine. But I’m not sure I would have parked there. 

We’ve noticed a few organisations here that made us think SCAM!!! Like this one. There were posters in the window explaining how the mediums and seers in the Alliance are pleased to share their gifts during weekly sessions. 

But, Auckland is a pretty great place to live, and it’s pretty far away, so if you can convince some townspeople in the US or Russia or The Gambia  to pay $99 per year to join your alliance, this might be a really smart place to put your HQ. 

Most people would just pay their money and get the newsletter, done deal. For a select few true believers, you could arrange special séances. Those folks would be thrilled — trip of a lifetime! — to connect with their dearly departed in beautiful NZ , lying as it does at the convergence of three important Druidic Ley Lines and bubbling with barely repressed Volcanic Energy. 

And for any not-so-happy customers who might seek satisfaction, it’s probably best to be on the other side of the world, in a country with quite strict gun laws. 

One of the most amazing things we’ve come across in NZ is the postal service. All across the country (only in urban areas so far) mailboxes like these are connected to a giant vacuum tube system that pulls everything into a central processing facility where they are routed to substations for delivery. Letter carriers show up for work with their day’s post all sorted and packed, ready to deliver. For the most part, it will be prohibitively expensive to extend this system right to the home, but new larger apartment buildings are now required to include tube connections in their construction plans. 

Ok… not really. 

But it IS cool that the mailboxes look space-age enough that I had you going for a second!

For about the last hundred years or so, the Holy Trinity Cathedral has perched atop the hill that I think marks Parnell’s highest point. Before that, some portion of the current structure sat across the street and was moved… 

We walk by it every day going to and from work. This past weekend we were out at a time with good light and got some pictures of the striking modern stained glass windows. It’s really neat inside, light and airy. 

There’s an organ recital this weekend, although maybe on the old organ in the other chapel, because it looks like this organ might not be publicly playing yet? We’ll see…