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| MRT Sketch Roger Smith 2014 Drawing Click on the image to see a larger version. |
Monday, 2 June 2014
Tuesday, 20 May 2014
Those Were The Days - My First Year Of Infant Schooling
Yours truly is in the middle row, 6th from left. The school is Waitara Central in the town of Waitara, Taranaki, New Zealand. Waitara Central celebrated its 125 Jubilee in the year 2000.
Five abiding memories from those times:
- Compulsory and free school milk that was delivered in half pint glass bottles and which we consumed at 'playtime' (morning break)
- My school leather satchel which was my pride and joy and carried a homemade sandwich lunch.
- Home knitted jerseys of various patterns and hues which my mother created; she was a good seamstress, knitter and creator of various home crafts.
- The crackle of winter frosts and iced-over puddles underfoot as we walked to school.
- A robust and vigorous childhood full of outdoor games and adventures.
Wednesday, 7 May 2014
Caraway Cake and Catastrophes
I detested caraway seed cake. As a youngster I first tried this morning tea accompaniment when a former neighbour of my grandparents came to visit.
Mrs Dainty was aptly named as she was by stature and disposition a quiet and neat lady. She lived in Hackthorne Road at the foot of Christchurch Cashmere Hills. Her home was next to that of my father's earliest residence as a child, before the family moved higher up the hill to 118 Dyers Pass Road.
The weatherboard house is still there although its large garden section was subdivided and sold off for another house decades ago when my grandparents had passed away. As was customary at the time my grandparents were largely self-sufficient when it came to fruit and vegetables. Their apricot trees produced abundant crops and Grandma's bottle apricots were a real tweet.
Once a month the widow Dainty took the tram and later bus to have tea with my grandmother. It was a quiet affair and she always brought her tea cake as a contribution. A child's palate naturally favours sweet treats over highly aromatic spices and this why I never took a liking to the pungent caraway concoction. Cumin tastes great in curries but can be overpowering in baking.
Trips to my grandparent's home were a much anticipated odyssey as the travel from Waitara in Taranaki, to the city of Christchurch required a lengthy car trip to Wellington and the overnight ferry to the port of Lyttelton. Sleeping in a ship's bunk and being awakened by the steward delivering a morning cup of tea remain abiding memories. The Wahine, Rangatira and Maori were three of the Union Steam Ship Company vessels we travelled on.
This pilgrimage to my father's family did not occur that frequently; every couple of years was the usual space between visits and as my grandparents were both kindly people who doted on my father and his offspring. These rare visits remain full of very fond memories. The two things I remember most about my paternal grandmother was her pet canary and the range of scented soaps that surrounded her deep enamel bath.
As the Dyer's Pass home was built on a slope the underneath of their house had a large basement storage area which could be accessed from the garden below. The old wind-up gramophone and heavy 78 records had been stored there and I became adept at replacing the metal needles and listening to early tenors and orchestral music after vigorously winding the apparatus's handle.
As the Dyer's Pass home was built on a slope the underneath of their house had a large basement storage area which could be accessed from the garden below. The old wind-up gramophone and heavy 78 records had been stored there and I became adept at replacing the metal needles and listening to early tenors and orchestral music after vigorously winding the apparatus's handle.
A little further up the road was the Sign Of The Takahe whose construction was completed the year of my birth, 1948. It was one of four road houses that on the Summit Road and was modelled on the manor houses and castles of Britain - all very baronial and a source of endless fascination for a young boy.
My grandparents were great walkers and my father remained so. A Sunday walk from the Sign of the Takahe to Victoria Park and beyond was a family tradition. Part of its allure was the large childrens' playground and old field artillery gun which kept active boys such as I, endlessly amused.
My grandparents were great walkers and my father remained so. A Sunday walk from the Sign of the Takahe to Victoria Park and beyond was a family tradition. Part of its allure was the large childrens' playground and old field artillery gun which kept active boys such as I, endlessly amused.
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| Sign of The Takahe - interior |
Thankfully both the Sign of the Takahe and The Sign of Kiwi suffered only minor damage in the devastating Christchurch earthquakes that destroyed much of the city's heritage. In a way I am thankful that my father never lived to see the destruction of the city that he loved so much.
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| Entry to Victoria Park- Port Hills, Christchurch |
For me Christchurch is a city of childhood memories and will always remain so. My aversion to caraway seed cake also remains firmly rooted in my psyche.
Sunday, 20 April 2014
Today's Print - Spectre 2
What happens when you weed the Garden of the Mind! I enjoyed the challenge of creating this art work.
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| Spectre 2 Roger Smith, 2014 Digital Composition Copies of this work are available as a print - Look Online. |
Wednesday, 9 April 2014
Sunday, 6 April 2014
Two Thoughts On Autumn
I took the camera to today to capture the change of seasons. Here are a couple of the autumn (Fall to my American friends).
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| Autumn Leaves Photograph Roger Smith 2014 Click Here |
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| Old Vines Photograph Roger Smith 2014 Click Here |
Wednesday, 2 April 2014
Haze Breakthrough Unlikely
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| Haze: Breakthrough in map sharing efforts with Indonesia unlikely - Today Online |
Tuesday, 1 April 2014
When Pseudo Science Is Finally Defeated
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| Kinoya Whale Meat Cans, Tokyo |
I've never looked a whale in the eye. Nor have I ever been tempted to eat one.
My friends will testify that I have always been prepared to try anything on a dinner plate that is put in front of me, the one exception being a menu option I experienced in Stavanger, Norway.
The restaurant were offering whale meat as a main and something within me rebelled against the thought of doing so.
Perhaps it was and is the idea of eating an animal that is critically endangered or that the meat in question was quite unprepossessing.
A good dose of angry cynicism about the Japanese instance on their right to conduct "scientific whaling" in our southern waters, when clearly they have been doing so to sell it in their open meat markets, no doubt contributed to my decision at the time.
Perhaps it was also a growing realisation of mankind's selfishness to consume every palatable species around us thereby sowing the seeds of our own inevitable destruction as a species. Whatever the reason I settled for Norwegian salmon on the menu instead. Although it is fair to report that two of my museum colleagues at that time did try it.
So I awoke this morning to the news that the International Court of Justice had handed down a ruling against Japanese whaling in southern waters, with a sense of relief as well as admiration for those who had campaigned so vociferously against the practice.
Not that I regard myself as a "Greenie' but I do appreciate nature's bounty and beauty both on my plate and around me. It is selfish in the extreme to plunder the world's food resources without giving a damn about generations that will follow.
Now it will be a question of who is going to enforce the whale ban ruling? I suspect both the New Zealand and Australian governments will police and enforce the ban. At least I would like to think so.
It is perhaps no coincidence that today is April Fool's Day. For once we have stopped fooling around with the balance of nature and have respected the rights and conservation needs of another deserving mammal.
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