Archives for June 2006

A breath of different air

Discovered because Russell Brown mentioned it at a meeting I attended last night: Refugee Stories Our Politicians Never Tell Us: Shahzad Ghahreman describes his personal experiences during the Iranian revolution and how he and his family have come to live in New Zealand. We hear far too little from refugees. In fact we hear altogether […]

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Skate information

eHow.com seems to have information on everything, including a lot of articles useful for skaters and skateboarders, like this: How to Rotate Wheels on In-Line Skates. [Discovered via Lifehacker.] I’ve had my skates in the lounge for weeks, intending to rotate the wheels. Now, finally, done. Though of course there’s no sign of the weather […]

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A very effective massage

A friend kindly gave us vouchers for the local East Day Spa. We went along on Friday evening to redeem the vouchers for a massage. I opted for the: Shanti – 60 minutes: gentle massage of slow, long flowing strokes that induces a deep state of relaxation and makes you feel like you are floating […]

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Winter storms hang about

New Zealand’s a bit of fragile country: it’s small for starters — from Invercargill to North Cape is about 2,100 Kilometres. The South Island is narrow, with mountains the length of it. The North Island is wider in the middle, but has plenty of mountains dotted about. The AA has maps and distance calculators. It’s […]

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Tinakori’s red hills

Pine trees are OK, well, except that they give me terrible hayfever. But they’re not native to New Zealand, and we have an awful lot of them. [Side note: in 1990 I was in Canada for a week. Driving from Edmonton to Vancouver involved two days of pine forest!] Wellington has hills, lots of hills. […]

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Oddity 59 finds a new home!

Welcome to the new Oddity 59. I’ve been moving posts across from the old site, but photos and other things still need to be updated. Meanwhile, please visit http://mactips.blogs.com for photos or anything else that you find missing from here. If you come across any obvious errors, please let me know.

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Women: goldminers and settlers

While the Māori came to New Zealand about a thousand years ago, Europeans started settling the country around the 1800s. In 1840 the British crown signed a treaty with the Māori people guaranteeing both sides certain rights. Disputes continue to this day… In the 1860s gold was discovered in Central Otago, bringing about a goldrush […]

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NZ Olympian archer dies

I was sorry to read today that Neroli Fairhall has died. Fairhall won a gold medal in Brisbane in 1982 in the only time archery has been included in the Commonwealth Games. She also was the first paraplegic to compete in the Olympic Games at Los Angeles in 1984 and was awarded an OBE for […]

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Wild weather in New Zealand

We get some great skiing in New Zealand, with mountains running the length of the South Island and dotted about the North Island. Snow to ground level is always a newsworthy event though. Today a massive storm is lashing the country. We’re somewhat sheltered in our house as there’s a hill between us and the […]

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CataBlog for cat lovers

CataBlog: gives people an idea of what goes on at the Brooklyn shelter of the Wellington Cats Protection League.

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Serious pup

Our dog Harriette didn’t come to live with us until she was six years old. The other day we were given this photo of her as a young pup. It’s not a very good ‘scan’, but she always was a rather serious dog and you can see that right here. Soooo cute!

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Goodbye Harriette

I first met Harriette (photos at the end of that link), the fox terrier, about 12 years ago when she was 4 years old. She lived with friends of ours and was an active little dog, sometimes finding a way to escape from the property and go in search of tasty morsels. Things changed, and […]

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