Speaking this month we have:
1st: Simon Banks – What’s the plural of paradise? Malawi, UK & Aotearoa.
2nd: Mark Hadley – Morocco: fast and slow
See the meeting page for details.
Saturday, February 6, 2021
The zoom meeting opens at 13:30 with the talks starting 14:00 GMT (London time), please arrive early so we can deal with any issues with joining.
After the talks I emailed Simon with “Yes, Simon, I was watching you at 0300 hrs NZ time! Well done. A good ‘promo’ for NZ. And you got my beautiful features on the screen.
Your shots of the track to Glenda’s had me thinking of the Oz song, “the Road to Gundagai”:
Well there’s a track winding back to an old fashioned shack
along the road to Gundagai.
Where the gum trees are growin’ and the Murrumbidgee’s flowin’
beneath the sunny sky………
Your mention of the gold mining around Thames reminded me of my piece, “The Shotover Claim”:
THE SHOTOVER CLAIM.
Near the town of Thames, in the North Island of New Zealand,
there once operated a gold mine bearing the name, “The Shotover Claim”.
Discovered on the tenth of August 1867, the claim produced gold worth half
a million pounds sterling.
A century later, and the area has largely gone back to nature.
In a valley stands a mine-house – clapperboard built, with a corrugated iron roof
now turning up at the corners – like a week old take-away sandwich.
The floorboards rotten, broken; the walls torn out, or falling in; a remnant of paint
peels off a remnant of decaying wood.
At one time, the two main rooms of the house looked out over a spacious, well-kept
garden, one that sloped with the valley. Now, they are invaded by moss-draped apple
trees, trees planted to shade the dwellers of the house as much as to produce their Granny
Smiths, or Orange Pippins.
To the rear of the building, the lean-to kitchen and scullery have likewise surrendered
to the passing of time – native bush climbs in through their unglazed windows,
through their doorless doorways.
Blackberry bushes bear ripe fruit; the grapevine has a crop this year, sweet and succulent.
There’s a head of seed on a garlic stalk, and the hydrangeas are a catalogue picture of purple
and pink.
Delicate, long petalled, on three foot wands leaping from long bladed leaves of green, some
red flower matches the colour, but not the hue, of the berries clustered – like corn on the cob –
at the head of span-high short stubby stalks.
Grasses and shrubs are everywhere.
Further down the valley stand the fronds of giant ferns,
while fir trees overtop all.
The ever-chattering cicadas, and the plaintive tweeting of a lonely bird are the only true
sounds of the bush.
For, far below, motor traffic powers along the coastal tar seal.
And a tractor works a distant paddock.
Back up at the house, where the meat safe lies in the wilderness that was the garden, and the
route to the outside lavatory is now camouflaged and obstacle strewn – like the paths to the
walled-up mine adits themselves – all is at peace.
There will be no new strike this year.
The “this year” was 1977, 44 years ago on this 10th February!
The second talk – on Morocco – took me back to the time Joyce and I spent there. She had also been there long before she knew me. Those shots of the dirt roads and desert scenes looked so familiar.
So – two good talks, both with familiar connections. ”
I first met Glenda at Mallacoota in Oz on Christmas Day 1977. And got in touch with her again a few years back, then already at Opoutere, my favourite NZ beach. Knowing Simon was going to be in NZ, I suggested he visit her. I’m pleased he did.
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