An angel in the garden: October 2014

After 8 long weeks The Mother stands silent (she needs new bearings & a valve replacement),

dozens of squeaks & squeals have been remedied

but not my noise!

I now know more about the guts & inner workings of "the most productive factory in the world" than I ever cared to know.

We think that we may have finally tracked the source of our noise but the next challenge is to find someone on site who can actually "hear" it too. Factory deafness is endemic, so it seems.

I feel like the little boy Sparky who heard the train talking to him. One of those stories for children on the wireless back in the day. Only, I'm a Katie & the factory has been talking to me.

This time of acute challenge & sound sensitisation has been quite fascinating, in it's own perverse way. I have discovered that sound is sneaky & deceptive & that it likes company. That it travels in waves, bounces off walls & masquerades in layers. I have also come to realise just how cacophonous our modern world has become & how many people go about their lives quite oblivious to the bombardment of loud & irritating sounds.

Yet to hear...the voices of our loved ones, the chatter of children, birdsong, the susurration of the wind through trees, music, the purr of a cat...these things are gifts. Truly to be treasured.

I find that I had rather got out of the habit of listening to music but with my constant & annoying companion persistently wittering in the background I have sought refuge in the sweeter friendlier more lyrical sounds of music. A few months ago when Matthew & Sarah popped in for a visit they brought with them a particularly natty little device called a base disc. So cheap & entirely portable...almost pop it in your pocket compact. A little blue tooth portable speaker, it enables anyone, anywhere to listen to music even from a simple iPhone. Our stereo is creaky, hopeless & "had it" so I bought a bass disc for myself so that I can get a better sound from music played on my computer.

I even discovered an upgrade that cost precisely nothing-when the speaker is, quite simply, plonked in a bowl you get greater amplification!

Finally, now in October we are having some magnificent days of spring.

What a joy these double tulips have been. I will certainly be growing them in a large pot again.

I am always refreshingly astonished by the incredible burst of spring power that overtakes every bush & blade of grass come spring.

So much green-life green.

And then begin the flowers...

I discovered that an elderly neighbour has an un-favoured lily-of-the-valley patch tucked in to a corner of her front garden. I popped in to ask if I could pick a little & offered to bring her some flowers from my garden. in return."They'd just be a damned nuisance that I couldn't be bothered with," came the reply, so I picked some divinely, fragrant, bells anyway.

I do believe that these dear flowers should be called "fairy bonnets".

This is perhaps the sweetest fairy bonnet I have ever grown. I adore it!

Last week on one of Rob's days off we grabbed a pretty vintage blanket & a bottle of bubbly & found ourselves a hill on top of the world.

There wasn't a breath of wind,

just birdsong & spring magnificence all around.

On our way home the sunset was so beautiful...we screeched to a halt & raced back across the Havelock North bridge...just catching the colours as they faded in to night.

A few days along...

The flowers are now filling the garden & my vases with spring joy.

We have had a delightful supermarket promotion here for the past month or so of Little Shop items. Tiny groceries for children to collect & play "shop" with. I did giggle when a friend passed on some little packets & what should we find but a tin of Watties peaches. (Watties is the factory over the fence making all the racket)