Mapua Garden Club Spring Show

A parade of pets festooned, somewhat resignedly, with spring flowers, the dashing firemen of Mapua and lots and lots of plants – a good turn out too for the Annual Mapua Garden Club Spring Show. Most unusual item? – a four foot tall Hamish the Heron made from horseshoes by Arthur (who made the horse at Nelson airport). Thank goodness it wasn’t today because it is lashing down.

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Choccy Dog win a prize in KNZB Mural Competition

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Chocolate Dog entered a design for a mural competition run by Keep NZ Beautiful www.keepnzbeautiful.org.nz  with sponsorship from Resene Paints and Panasonic – and won the Zone 4 – Top of the South Island category – YAY!!!! We’re hoping to get the school involved or – if they are too busy with all their other projects – to run it as an “open paint” day at the Mapua Arts Weekend in November 2011.

Thank you Resene for the vouchers to cover paint  – all we need now is to agree on a wall…

The Golden Bowl of Bovey

The Golden Bowl of Bovey works its magic

Our English BF Jo lives with her family in Devon in the tiny village of Christow. Nearby is the heaving metropolis that is Bovey Tracey. We had lived in New Zealand for nearly ten years when I was browsing in the little antique store in Diamond Harbour (now sadly trashed by the recent earthquakes) when I came across this sunshine yellow mixing bowl. Lovejoy-like, I sidled casually over towards it trying to disguise my interest. I am a sucker for that 1950’s retro look in the kitchen and this was the real thing. Turning it over, I noticed that it had a faint potter’s mark with Bovey Tracey Pottery set in a shield. (Found on http://www.kalendar.demon.co.uk/pountbovey.htm – thanks for the info.) I had to have it; it would remind me of Jo and it was the ideal size for raising my bread dough – after Monty pulled my previous whopping Mason Cash off the worktop trying to get at the contents. It has turned out to be magic too – my dough rises, keeps on rising and frequently sets off on its own for a tour of the kitchen. Must be the magical golden bowl of Bovey!

Tui Tiles for Carole

New thing to try – hand painted tiles. You just paint ’em and pop ’em in the oven for 20mins. Isn’t that a brilliant idea?

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These are for my mate Carole who is building a new house in Nelson and wanted tiles to highlight her kitchen. There are 10 in the set but I thought you might drop off seeing all 10…

Beautiful new box for putting stuff in!

My Dad and brother have just visited from Blighty. As a lovely gift by which to remember their trip – and before my painting materials bust out of their confinement and take over the rest of the house – Dad took me off to a local bespoke wooden furniture craftsman, Tony from Jointworks, to have a “painting stuff box” made. Tony had a small piece of Saligna lying around in the workshop and Dad and I were struck by the beautiful moiré silk-type patterning in the grain. Satin soft to the touch when polished but tough enough to stand use. Tony and I agreed a size and various artist-type requirements like enough room for watercolour paper to lie flat and room for a tray to take brushes lying flat too. A little bits-and-bobs draw to slide in the front too. So, yesterday I went to pick up the finished box – and I am delighted with it. In the end (for you wood-nerds) the box was made from

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Saligna, the tray inside from NZ Delegantensis and a little bit of American Maple. Plain but beautifully designed and robust enough to take use. Thanks Dad! And Tony of course.

You can visit Tony and his wife Jane’s blog at

www.jointworks.co.nz

Mingin’ Mushrooms

I GREW SOMETHING!!! And it lived – admittedly mushrooms, and from a kit, but I did ACTUALLY grow them! My friend Alex the Talented Cartoonist gave the kit to us as a ‘thank you’ when she and Duncan came to stay. She knows me better than to give me something exquisite and temperamental to look after so mushrooms were just the thing – follow instructions on the box, leave in a cool, damp shadowy place and forget about it until they are knocking on the door to get out.

The kit was bought from Mapua Country Trading Company down on The Mapua Wharf and the mushroom kits are from Mushroom Gourmet.

Mingin’ Mushrooms? Last time I was home in the UK I went to the local pub in Ringwood with my old, old, old friends Ali and Chris. The waitress wandered over and in a broad Dorset accent (MY native accent BTW so don’t knock it!) asked what we wanted to eat. I asked about the specials, she listed a couple and then said “Yeah but, don’t have the mushrooms – they’re mingin’!” Honest to a fault – good on her!

Oyster Mushrooms

Woollaston Winery Weather Wash-out

Well, we were hoping for sunshine as this is Nelson after all… you know; sunniest place in New Zealand. What did we get for our outdoor shoot of the twenty guys who inhabit the award winning Woollaston Winery? Torrential rain, buckets of it for the first time in what seemed like months. Never daunted we hunted around with one of the Woollaston team and she showed us some of the (undercover) nooks and crannies of the place. What interesting places wineries are architecturally – super high-tec doo-dads for doing things to grapes offset by a living roof planted all over with grasses which is very cool and the grounds dotted with sculpture. If a winery is your back yard then you can fit in something like Yantra for Mahana – a gigantic iron jigsaw puzzle in three dimensions. They also have a gallery in the tasting room. I love New Zealand’s straightforward approach to wine – they love great wine here (and they really know what they’re doing) but without the snobbery that comes packed along with some of the European wines.

Anyway, we unloaded and got set up down at the cellar door and managed to get everyone in  – and all smiling. In true style we got the shot – well, Neil did, I am just the bag carrier on these jobs.

Sunday Brunch

Autumn is a great time for a leisurely Sunday brunch here. No need to rush up early – the dogs are old enough to like a lie in as much as the humans in the household. Stroll down to Mapua and select your eatery of choice: pastries or a cooked breakfast at The Naked Bun (excellent French Toast with maple syrup and nanas), Wharfside for a classic breakfast or The Appleshed for a perfectly judged omelette – light and still a little gooey in the middle. They all do a slap breakfast at any rate. We chose The Appleshed this time – it’s still warm enough to sit outside and they overlook the wharf so there are good people-watching opportunities. Choose some good friends to go with: our BFs Howard and Carole newly arrived having sold their house in Christchurch post earthquake.

Great spot in Mapua for breakfast

Last of Summer

The changeover from Summer to Autumn is happening very gently here in Mapua. The days are chillier in the mornings but hot by midday. A cartoonist friend over from Melbourne to visit insisted on swimming the channel over to Rabbit Island. You got to swim is just on the turn of the tide so that you get carried effortlessly across to the island, then cross the outgoing tide to be gently deposited back at the campground on the Mapua side. All the kids do it in the summer – jump in at Grossi Point – shoot round with the tide and out again by the Boatshed Café at the campground. So, the water was a little more bracing than in the height of Summer but still good fun – got the old heart rate up anyway. More beach walking at Kina with the two hounds and ever-present football. This beach just up the coast from Mapua is great at low tide with sandbanks revealed for the practice of footy skills.

More intellectually-minded pursuits included a free lecture at The Suter Art Gallery on Science and Art. They can now identify the unique signatures in pigments and tell you whether your Ancient Egyptian papyrus bought on a jaunt to Cairo was actually painted in a back room in Timaru using Winsor and Newton’s finest! Fascinating stuff. Some of the forgeries are so beautifully executed that the V&A in London bought five anyway knowing they were hokey.

Chocolate Dog in Mapua signing on

Monty The Eponymous Chocolate Dog

This is our first foray into blogging – We’ll be telling you what we do with our days in our design business, what we get up to on photographic assignments and what life is like here in Mapua at the top of the South Island in New Zealand. I can tell you… it’s pretty darn good!