Finding Katherine Mansfield in the Middle of Our Adventure!

The tidy constraints of conservativism invariably encircle tightly and build dense fences around my life. So many years have been spent seeking safety and assurance, yet how often have I yearned for a streak of bohemia to come spill itself carelessly.. across the very fabric of my life.

 Staining in full colour,

 indelible.

 Perhaps, there has come an authenticity of recent years that brings diversity & satisfaction & I finally cease to care what others think....quite so much. 

Katherine Mansfield intrigues me in just such a way.

 A woman born out-of-step with her times & family.

 A woman fiercely determined to be herself, without apology.

 She explored the world in wildly intrepid ways...living it twice over, daily & then through her writing; a life that ended mid sentence..pen still poised, so much more to say & observe..

unwritten

"There's no escaping the glory of Life.

 Let us engage to live forever.

For ever is not half long enough for me"

from a letter to Elizabeth Countess Russell 1921 from Katherine Mansfield tumblr 

photo from Spartacus Educational

"The clock ticks on tip-toe and the yellow curtains wave gently.

I love such a day.

It's such a rest-not having been outside for three days..

I love to be out of the streets and buses, out of the nudging crowds.

Oh, I must work.

The very shadows are my friends"

Katherine Mansfield 1917 (KM tumblr)

Nearly a century has passed since her death yet her work is still well preserved & much admired.

 The film Bliss screened here on television not so long ago, a biopic on the early life of Katie Beauchamp (Katherine Mansfield) produced by writer & director Fiona Samuel

  

So, imagine finding KM in the middle of my very own adventure!

If you've just popped in here & have no idea what I'm talking about you'll make sense of it all here.

When I was a small child the Napier-Taupo road had a fiercesome reputation..it was rugged, windy, unsealed & made you puke. It was the only way to go north (& still is)...exhausting!

It looked, at that time pretty much like this:

I found this picture framed & hanging on the wall at the Tarawera Cafe when we returned to the Tarawera pools a few weeks after our initial discovery. 

The beginning of the adventure can be found over here, somewhere near the flying fox.

Waiting for our Earl Grey to arrive, I looked along the wall & discovered this framed newspaper article..I quickly rushed off to ask if I could take some photos. Who had been here so long ago, none other than our very own Katherine Mansfield!!

"We had reached the Tarawera Hotel in the evening and camped in a little bush hollow...

Grubby, my dear I felt dreadful- my clothes were white with dust- we had accomplished 8 miles of hill climbing- so after dinner (broad beans cooked over a camp fire and tongue and cake and tea) we prowled round and found an "aged aged man" who had the key to the mineral baths...He guides us through the bush track by the river...I don't think he ever possessed a tooth and he never ceased talking- you have the effect?

The Bath House is a shed-three of us bathed in a great pool-waist high...the water was very hot and like oil- most delicious...and when we came out each drank a great mug of mineral water- luke warm and tasting like Miss Wood's eggs at their worst stage- But you feel inwardly and outwardly like velvet."

Can you see the bath house?

What an amazing feat to have built such a dwelling back in the early 1900's!  

Sadly, the  bath house appears to have met it's demise around 1985 at the malevolent hand of a violent storm that devastated the area.
Perhaps this may have been the house that the "aged, aged man" was living in when KM stumbled upon him. There is now a slightly updated version a little further up the hill.

The track in is quite clear & accessible.

The surrounding bush is now satisfyingly verdant & mature.

But I suspect the source of the bubbling hot spring water hasn't changed much at all in the whole last century.

There is quite simply an alkathene pipe for delivery.

The well-spring..

And yes, it makes you feel like velvet...well, outwardly anyway!

Overwhelmed with delight & deep satisfaction at such an adventure, I could only but leave a message...from the bottom of my heart!

In autumn the track is furnished with hedgerow blessings. This vibrant bush is coprosma robusta. The berries are edible, seedy & fairly underwhelming but would sustain you well should you ever find yourself lost near bushes.

A short walk back to our car through a yarrow meadow.

Pondering on our journey home I would have to advise..take every opportunity that presents itself AND that appeals to you because you just never know whose life you may intersect or what history you might create for yourself...oh the things that you can learn & love!

 ♥♥♥♥♥

All Things Bright and Beautiful

The clocks have been "fallen" back, the rains have come... and stayed, the children have finished their first school term, chestnuts are falling and Easter slides in upon us.

Margaret Tarrant Chestnut Candles 1928

While we were out walking during the week (between showers) we happened to take a random turn & quite unexpectedly found ourselves passing an entire front "garden" of fallen chestnuts...real ones!

The house had a slightly unkempt air & the garden had been planted with full hope, many years ago. Knocking on the door several days in a row yielded no result, so I wrote a large note (large because I didn't want to risk it being thrown away since the writing on the letterbox stated "No junk mail"). I asked if they would mind if we had a few chestnuts if we raked up all the prickly bits too?! 

Sure enough, that very evening I received a frank & friendly phone call from a Greek sounding man. He was most happy with my suggestion as lots of other people had simply been taking them (the Chinese he was sure). We soon learnt that you need to handle chestnuts with more than kid gloves! Just as we got started in our foraging quest a breeze got up & began to shake the trees all around, chestnuts started to fall from the sky...ouch!! "Feels like being hit by angry baby hedgehogs" cried Rob and he was right!

We gathered up a whole wool phage of prickles & nuts which took a bit of processing. Quite sure that the Chinese wouldn't have left us enough nuts & delighted that we had tidied things up, our Greek man duly arrived the next evening with yet more chestnuts for us. As it turned out, he is the minister of the Greek Orthodox Church in town..

I wasn't home at the time but Rob assures me that he looked much like this...only without the hat! (maybe not the dog either)

(However, this fellow is in fact, David Wasley artist, shepherd and maker of coloured windows & Fellow of The British Society of Master Glass Painters) 

I didn't know that chestnuts have tails.
 They really are very hedghoggy don't you think?

We have forgaged all kinds of nuts in the past few weeks (even hazelnuts right by the footpath)..still perfecting the art of roasting the chestnuts.

I had never noticed how Christmassy our Easter actually is before. Just around the corner outside Eversley...a lovely Eldercare Home, I noticed a handsome holly tree in full regal berry.

Clyde (Potter) grows the finest organic produce.

 I'm so glad he brings some to our Farmer's Market

Lesley form The Squirrel's Pantry grew these delicious little kiwi berries.

 They are tiny kiwifruit without fur!

I found these wonderful sundae dishes at the People for Pets Op shop this week. All six in perfect condition... might have to make something delicious to put in them for Easter.

My sweetest find in ages came from Trade Me.

There are pictures in here that I have never seen before.

"Queen of the Brownies" 1926
I was a Brownie once but not in 1926!
At The Mart I found zinnias.

It's quite hard taking pictures of pictures!
I love the colours.

Our lovely South Island city Christchurch, still has a long way to go in rebuilding & reinventing itself after more than a  year of vicious earthquakes. The much loved Cathedral has had to be be demolished except for the very outline of the foundation. Coming up to Easter I remembered the precious pictures that my friend Leigh had sent me of the inside of the Cathedral & the commissioned angels that hung in it in the weeks before the first earthquake. 

 Amazingly, no one at all was hurt in the Cathedral itself at the time of the first quake.

 There had also recently been a Festival of Flowers.
So beautiful!!

They make you feel like this..

"Welcome Spring" by Percy Tarrant c 1925 (Margaret's dad)
I always loved the sentiments in the hymn "All things bright & beautiful" as a child (still do).

On Tuesday there was a knock on the door (& it wasn't someone wanting to buy fruit) it was Barbara our lovely neighbour across the road. She came bearing this...

and instructions for making Pope Pious's bread.

You nurture & feed the dough for a week or so, divide it in to 4, keep one part & give the others away. With the 1/4 that remains you get to make a delicious cake...for Easter.

I love the concept...the rising & the nurture & the kindness & the sharing.

I am hoping those things might crown your Easter dear ones...a time for sharing & remembering & giving thanks.

Thank you so much for coming by!

MUCH

 ♥♥♥♥♥

The Joy of a Hand-crafted Life

Do you find that?

 That there is a joy & a satisfaction in living a well hand-crafted life that just doesn't come any other way? Add a bit of vintage style & life seems to acquire a richness that truly nourishes.

Rob has just gone back to work after a couple of weeks of annual leave. His holiday time has been so richly satisfying & fun we are both quite chuffed. We have built a certain flexibility into our lives so that we can rearrange things when opportunities arise & spend as much time as possible doing things together.

We went over to the market on the Marine Parade last Sunday...just loved this vintage basket & found the Swift beater later in the week.

 There was a lovely lady selling some interesting bits & pieces, like this long length of Sanderson linen.

 After so much moisture recently & with a bit of a quirky, leaky back porch, I had a clean out of the old hospital tea trolley that I keep up in the corner..thought this oil cloth might work.

 I am so glad to have a pile of old washing baskets...they are so useful for all kinds of jobs.

That's a bit better now. It seems that with all my cultured food projects & homemade stuff I need a large range of glass jars & bottles.

 I thought perhaps a cover might help & found this old sheet for $3..then decided to anchor the corners with some past their use-by-date kitchen tools.

One fine day, Rob did a bit of trimming of/in our mental old plum tree. 

It might all come crashing down one day...meantime we've propped it up & trimmed it best we can.

 We spent time in the larder...just needs a little more work, but I adore this space.
It's like playing house!
Rob has rebuilt the grottiest old shed you have ever seen & now it's the loveliest most useful, larder-y sort of room. The bed is still there for when David needs to stay. It used to be a bed settee in my grandmother's house. One of those metal fold up jobs.

 My wreath found it's way out there. I hope David doesn't figure out that I put Ginger Bons inside the gingham parcels!

  Might be quite a nice place for a wee afternoon nap.

 A spare fridge or two...so useful when there is extra fruit in the summer.

 So much better having easy access to my Ranzware.

I love finding stray, out of sync blooms...especially friendly ones like foxgloves.

 With our daylight saving coming to a close tonight I guess the late season flowers will begin to pack themselves down to sleep.

 I came up with a wee idea for after school hours...the boys especially just love it! Now I hear shouts of "Thanks Miss!!" most afternoons..works brilliantly. Probably should just let the Stormers' know a few doors down, that they will have a plum forest in a year or two!

 I have been half-heartedly looking out for another wheel barrow as the old one has to have a sack in the bottom to stop everything falling through. Amazing what you might find in an Op Shop these days!

 Now I can stop pestering Rob about the dead animal under the house...think it might have been my sheep manure after all...fund raiser for St Luke's church! Best I move it down the back tomorrow I think.

Deciding that it was time for another little adventure, we checked the weather for the week, shuffled things around & on Wednesday set off for what proved to be one the happiest of days in the "country".
Rob was so sweet to screech to a halt every time I cried STOP...& look what we found! The biggest, juiciest blackberries sitting in a hedgerow.

 There were others keeping a look out for us..

Next stop was Puketapu Domain (about 20mins from home). We really went out that way because we recalled seeing large walnut tree. We also discovered...

 the coolest flying-fox ever!

We did pick up a few walnuts that we can sell at the gate along with the fruit & that will all help pay for the petrol.

Next stop was when I spied this patch of nettle. Stinging nettle no longer stings when cooked & is in fact, the most delicious green I have ever tasted. It also makes a medicinal tea reputed to be most useful through menopause.

 I find it fascinating that if you should get stung by nettle the best antidote is to rub a dock leaf on the spot...you will almost always find dock growing near nettles.
 When I got home I ate some for my dinner & made tea with the rest.

 Now, our true destination that day turned out to be the most wonderful place possible..but quite where is a secret (well, just for now as it deserves a story all of it's own so marvelous it is!)
Along the tracks we found rosehips..real ones!

 & all kinds of foragey things...more blackberries too!

The story I wish to tell you..very soon, involves the celebrated New Zealand author Katherine Mansfield. In her letter home from this location she wrote"...Grubby, my dear I felt dreadful- my clothes were white with dust- we had a accomplished 8 miles of hill climbing- so after dinner (broad beans cooked over a camp fire and tongue and cake and tea) we prowled around and found an 'aged, aged man' who had the key...."

See you again soon!!

MUCH 

♥♥♥♥♥