Why Timaru?

A question that a person that is for some reason interested in my life would ask is “Why Timaru?” Is it that I was born here or spent the first seventeen years of my life here? No, not really, though memories do creep in every so often, Timaru of today is not the Timaru I grew up in. Like other places in the world Timaru has not stood still; buildings have been demolished, businesses closed down, streets altered, friends and family have moved away etc.

It is also a question that a famous chef maybe pondering over the next week as his Facebook page gets inundated with Timaruvians commenting why Timaru is a great place to do his live show. Heston Blumenthal is thinking of touring New Zealand and is starting off with an interesting way to gauge the popularity by asking what towns want him to visit. The local polytechnic (Aoraki) has started a campaign to get him to Timaru after successfully campaigning for Masterchef to hold their South Island auditions in Timaru at their campus.

But for me, the question is answered every time I drive up the bypass on my way home from work. I will take a photo of this reason and post it one day soon, but as I approach the crest of the hill the snow capped mountains of the Southern Alps gleam in their majesty appear in front of me and the blue waters of the Pacific stretch off to my right past the palm tree rich Caroline Bay area.

Both my wife and I are fortunate to get employment here and we can live comfortably in a three bedroom brick house with reasonable view, close to shops, bay, the new aquatic centre when it opens and even the café/restaurant strip. The same house and location in Auckland would be far from our meagre means and we would be in a viewless cramped suburb. I would rather live in a smaller place and have a life with views, decent sized section and most amenities a short walk away. But I definitely have, and still will, visit Auckland as it has a character all to its own and I do like the shopping malls there. Well at least the food courts in the shopping malls, a great place to sit down and write my stories as my wife explores the shops. The flautist description in IVRRAC was written in one such mall as I was having a coffee in a café looking out at the outside mall area.

But here in Timaru we have most things, Christchurch is only two hours away if we need more, Mount Cook Village is only two and a half hours west and Queenstown, the New Zealand tourist haven Trentsworth is based on, is four hours of driving through amazing scenery away. If I was a skier, and I am going to give my children the chance to become such, we have over four decent ski-fields under ninety minutes away and many more not much further.

The climate is an interesting one, every day can be different, one day it can be in the high 20s or even 30s (80s Fahrenheit) and then the next day plummet to single figures, only to reach high temperatures once more the following day, summer or winter. In fact one year the middle day of winter was over twice as hot as the previous middle day of Summer. The one thing we don’t get much of is rain, the clouds do not seem to like Timaru that much and avoid it as much as possible. It is quite often that I can look to the blue skies above me and see dark grey clouds banking around Timaru, too scared to actually come any closer.

So if I do seem to blog on and on about Timaru, it is not just because it is my birthplace but also because I have chosen to return with my family and enjoy the views, climate and location that Timaru provides.

Cheers and Blessings

Peter

The Wet Sponge Report

With the weather behaving normally for a change, this morning’s clouding over, wrecking the chance of another fine winter’s day, got my mind wandering. (Actually my mind does more wandering than a courier cyclist with a flat tire). Where it wandered this time was the polarising subject of Global Warming, or as we know it now, due to some massive cooling, Climate Change. For me it shouldn’t be so polarising, all we need to do is all admit it’s a load of rubbish and then we can live side by side in harmony.

Well actually in some ways it isn’t a load of rubbish, much to the chagrin of myself,  but even I have to admit there is some element of truth within the Climate Change mire. This is where the wet sponge comes into play. On this subject I am going to be as decisive as a wet sponge. Basically I am not here to make you think one way or another. I have a much better soapbox than mere human activity to be direct about, so I needn’t waste my time trying to convince people on this human issue.

I absolutely believe that Climate Change is happening, this is obvious centuries ago Greenland was green (thus the name) and they grew grapes in England. Now Greenland is white (for the moment at least) and grapevines are almost a possibility after decades of failure in England. (Apparently at least, not living there I cannot be 100% certain of this). But for me Global Climate Change is cyclic, every so many centuries it changes to warm, cold or indifferent.

The Human Associated Global Atmospheric Climatic Alteration or HAGACA (i.e. clearing one’s throat, not an internationally recognised acronym, but you know me and acronyms, just can’t get enough of them) has not yet been proven in the least as far as I am concerned. I would love to get more into this but I have so much more to say on the general subject that I won’t. Let’s just say that when there are so many contradictory statements made in support of a theory I cannot treat such a theory as proven.

However the crux of the matter here is the world “Global,” this is very difficult to prove as there are no direct consequences, no direct reactions to actions. A butterfly may cause a hurricane in Florida by beating it’s wings, but there is no way we can ever pinpoint that butterfly. However at a localised level there is. So if we look at HALACA instead, not only does it sound more like a dance than throat clearance, it also is quite obvious and is factual and provable.

Take Mount Kilimanjaro for instance, even the most committed Global Climate Change advocate admits that the weather changes around this mountain (which is a major lack of precipitation causing a receding hairline, sorry snow cap) are caused by the equally massive deforestation around the mountain’s base. On the melting of the Artic and Antarctic, has anyone researched how many  more ice breakers etc. are being used in the areas of major meltdown?

We do need to take note of what we do, but I feel we need not look at how much CO₂ we release but what we do to the environment around us. If we chop down trees we must take the consequences of drier weather, if we break up our ice fields we must take the consequences of having the ice melt at a faster rate. If we go out and shoot endangered species we must take the consequences of them becoming extinct, or even over fishing the seas etc. Charity starts at home, I reckon environmentalism does also. If you are not interested in preserving the environment you don’t need to worry, but if you are, forget about whether the fizzy drink you had released too much carbon dioxide, worry about where you put the empty bottle instead.

For me the Global Climate Change issue is that many people are so busy worrying about the global issue and multinational conglomerates, they don’t notice the damage being done right on their doorstep by local companies and councils. And this is the damage they have power to stop, whether or not Global Climate Change is fact or fiction.

Remember  a wet sponge is much more powerful in close contact.

 

Cheers and Blessings

 

Normal Abnormality

My weekend is over and I have had a wonderful day. After church we had some friends over for lunch and had soup, breads and cake out on the deck on an unusually standard winters day. I say unusual as we have not had an usual winter’s day this year until yesterday. I blame the volcanic dust cloud that has been hanging around since the time our winter was meant to settle down. But today our thermometer dropped below one degree (Celsius)  and we had a decent frost. The skies remained clear and the sun beat down upon us over lunch, keeping us warm and happy. This is a normal South Canterbury winter’s day.

Another abnormal normality, if you can have one, is 160km (100 miles) to the north. Christchurch has not had a decent quake (around 4.0) since 9:40 Thursday morning and only a few non-decent with the last two being 41 hours apart from each other; both coming in at around 3.5 which is a good jolt but nothing compared to the 4.0+ aftershocks that had been happening daily or even hourly a week or so ago. Has the fault lines finally come to rest? I hope so and pray that the alternative (building up of pressure) is not the case.

Our church follows the lectionary and thus our readings today were Romans 7:15-25a and Matthew 11:15-30. It was a good reminder to me that even Saint Paul was not able to abstain from sin, something I have been beating myself up about this week when my greed has been overtaking my sensibilities. I will attempt to remember to take on Jesus’ yoke, as per the reading from Matthew next week and allow him to guide my motives.. We will see though, as like Paul, “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” Sin is all around us, and it is only through Jesus’ guidance we can move forward into a sinless life. But if Paul himself relapses, what hope have I? I guess that is why I am studying theology to sort these questions out.

So we probably should stop beating ourselves up and start looking towards Jesus and the wonderful life ahead in his name.

Cheers and blessings to you all.

 

Busy, Busy, Busy

Well Wednesday has rolled around yet again and I have not posted anything for a week. Obviously it has been a busy week for me otherwise I would have been in here like a shot posting some rubbish for you to read. Not only busy in my employment I have also been busy around the house, creating peace treaties between the two great warring nations of my son and daughter, finally mowing the lawns and other general housework and maintenance.

My writing has not been neglected, I have been re-reading BOAS up to the point I stopped writing those months ago in readiness to once again start rejigging the last draft into a more hilarious version with more character development and plot etc. I have some wonderful ideas and humorous additions to the story, now all I need to do is put them down in bytes.

On the earthquake front, nothing major over the past week, though Christchurch residents are still being bombarded with smallish aftershocks (3 - 4.6) and I know they are sick and tired of them. A telling sign that there are Christchurch residents on the edge is the latest quake felt locations on Geonet (via Google Maps). These are reports logged by the public on the Geonet website who felt the quake. This quake was centred in the Southern Alps and obviously on the Alpine Fault, which is quite removed from the faults responsible for the quakes in Christchurch (though I think they talk to each other, there always seems to be a large quake in Christchurch a few days after a 4.0 or high quake on the Alpine Fault). Well anyway, this earthquake was 4.1 and centred just North-East of Mount Cook/Aoraki which was 160 Km (100 miles) South-West  of Christchurch and 120Km West of here. 30 – 50 Km (30 miles) South-East of the West Coast towns. If you follow the link above you will see that the felt reports are from the West Coast Towns and Christchurch, but no felt reports from Timaru or any other eastern towns closer to the earthquake than Christchurch. I can just imagine those people in Christchurch frozen to their seats analysing every little creak, every little bump in fear of another large quake. This is not a life for anyone, but a life being endured by the hardy soles up there in the “Garden City.”

Another interesting factoid about the quake is even though Christchurch has been shaken badly and as a result a few buildings in Timaru are condemned, Timaru itself is still deemed a low earthquake risk area. Our local paper seems quite upset that Timaru’s earthquake rating remains low as they have recently been running stories about the risk our huge percentage of brick buildings (was the highest in New Zealand), especially those in the main centre, being a death trap. What they forget is that Timaru is not on a fault line (as far as the experts know) whereas Christchurch was always deemed to be on fault lines even though their exact nature was unknown. We may get shaken from earthquakes further afield but we are very unlikely to experience one on our doorstep like Christchurch has several times this year. Plus the ground structure of Timaru is totally the opposite to the sandy, swampy ground that Christchurch is built on. I agree that we should keep buildings in good condition so blocks of stone and bricks don’t fall on the public below, but we needn’t go overboard in suddenly demolishing every brick building around “just in case.” I pray that the council is wiser than the reporters of the local paper.

I think I will need to go into the history of Timaru in another blog so as to explain the high percentage of brick buildings. It involves a fire and a local industry.

 

Have a great Wednesday over there in the rest of the world.

 

Cheers and Blessings

 

Peter

 

Exams... Yay!

It was exam day today. Isn’t it strange how as soon as you sit down at the table/desk in front of a small seemingly unimportant piece of white paper with a few questions on it your mind goes completely blank. Well that was my experience today, all those names of the great, and not so great, theologians must have poured out of my ears onto the floor escaping my grasp throughout the 2 hours I spent staring at the black letters that once would have meant something to me five minutes earlier.

Fortunately it was not quite that bad and I pray that I have written some useful theology down that satisfies my wonderful and fantastic tutor (just in case he reads this) to take pity on me and award me some grade higher than a D.

But the significance of this is that for a few weeks I have no more study and thus can put some time into this blog and of course BOAS. So expect more from me during the following days.

I am meant to be having an early night tonight and reclaim lost hours of sleep working fulltime and studying for exams (and the occasional posting of course).. But I could not put my head on the pillow until I had posted yet another mindless drabble on the internet for people to ignore.

 

On another note – and sorry guys for bringing it up yet again – but we had another large quake last night. 5.4 on the scale and yet again I did not feel it. Unfortunately the people of Christchurch did and the 20 plus aftershocks since last night so again I am thinking of them and the distress they must be under.

For me I had just wandered into the bedroom when my wife noted the bed was moving. I felt nothing and the only way I knew she was right was the light swinging from side to side. We estimated about a 4.2 so we are definitely not experts. Of course it all depends on the site of the quake, this time it was close to Halswell, a south western suburb of Christchurch where they have had some liquefaction in past quakes. Luckily it seems the only real damage was to the supermarket stock in Halswell crashing to the floor.

 

As far as the location goes the further west it is, the more likely we will feel it down here, the eastern ones seem to go off into the ocean and miss us. We felt the September Quake much more dramatically than the February and subsequent eastern quakes. In fact in Timaru there was major building damage in September but only minor cracks (some sending a couple of buildings just over the safe limit after September’s work) in February.

 

Well that’s it for a cold Wednesday

 

Cheers and blessings

 

Peter

 

Talking about the Weather...

Winter is upon us (well us in the Southern Hemisphere at least) and it is starting to make itself felt. Gone are the unusually mild days of May and early June we are now deep into wintery temperatures. For the U.S. readers when I say it hasn’t got higher than 8 degrees they would shiver but since I am speaking in Celsius, being in New Zealand, it is not so bad as that is equivalent  to 46 Fahrenheit. In fact the northern U.S. and Canadians would probably now be saying “that’s a warm winter, get a life!”

 

The reason I am going on about the weather is 1) I’m a New Zealander, and 2) I am sitting in my sun-porch office with no sun and feeling quite ill to boot (I am determined not to let it become man-flu but it is tempting)..  I look out the bit of window I can see between the drying racks and LCD monitor and all I see is grey-white sky above the row of houses on the opposite hill. The majority of winter days in Timaru are bright blue skies and very warm in enclosed glass areas, like for instance, my sun-porch office. So today is one of those not-so-nice days where everywhere is cold and it is the dampish cold that gets into the bones of a person.

 

I would prefer a minus 2 degree (Celsius – 36 Fahrenheit) morning with the grass covered in white frost and that clear skied day which follows such a morning, but the weatherman has noted that it is going to rain, rain and more than that, rain again. At present the best it can do is a light drizzle, I think the weather has lost heart in itself as well. I wouldn’t be so grumpy about it if it actually snowed. Timaru is lucky to get snow once every three years so snow is a bit of a novelty to us Timaruvians. Everyone is saying “It feels like snow” but then we get it so infrequently we can’t really remember what snow feels like. So that is not much of a gauge really.

 

You may wonder that since I have just moved to Timaru a few months ago why I am including myself as a true-blue (actually green and black are our rugby colours) Timaruvian. Well for those who haven’t read my bio on Amazon I was a born and bred Timaruvian who moved away for a total of seventeen years (albeit the last three only 50k (30 miles) away).

 

Well that is my Saturday thoughts sent out to the wide world. Now back to study and concentrating on my headache.

 

Cheers and Blessings to you all.

Just some thoughts for a Thursday

Well I have completed the Ay to Zed challenge, albeit late and with a little cheat at the end, but still finally completed. The challenge has given me more confidence to post any information whether it is to do with my books, Christianity or just some boring subject I happen to be enthused with at the time.

 

A few things have come to mind since my last posts (Here and in my BOAS blog).

·         A letter to the editor today in our local paper (Timaru Herald – www.timaruherald.co.nz) noted that one person died in Monday’s quake. I do not know how accurate that is, but if so, I wish to pass my commiserations onto the family of this person and I am very apologetic that I did not mention the death in my previous post.

·         Another large quake occurred yesterday (Wednesday 15 June) at 6:20am (5.0) and yet again I did not feel it, my wife did but she was lying in bed and I was making breakfast. (Makes me look like a saint doesn’t it. Truth is, she already got up and made her own breakfast while I was spending all day in the shower). I did hear a window creak though.

·         I realised, mainly in my BOAS post, that I used the terminology of “I decided” a lot and there was no mention of God’s plan at all. I am going to do some serious praying about my direction over the weekend. More on this later.

·         Finally and the most important, I have come to realise today how annoying it is when your tongue seems to always end up brushing against the sharp point of the newly chipped tooth creating a very sore ulcer. I will avoid crispy ginger biscuits (cookies for the U.S.) from now on, but those new dark chocolate covered ones are all so tempting.

 

Another interesting fact is how long it takes to get a PO Box transferred these days. I am not being nasty here, the lady at the post shop was very accommodating and most of the time was my own inept ability in filling out forms. I do not know how many readers out there know I have moved from Geraldine to Timaru, or how many actually care, but I have. We decided to keep the box in Geraldine for a while to make certain we would be staying in Timaru and we were going back and forth anyway for a while so we could pick up the mail often enough to not require a change.

Now we are not going back and forth so much as winter is here and the gardens do not need so much attention (not that we gave them much to begin with) and life in the big City of Timaru (30,000 pop - very approx.) is getting busier and busier. The final say ion the matter was the invoice for the coming year so we made the move, and I had the task of going to the new location to do the deed.

We decided on Highfield because it sounds so posh and it is easier to get a park there, unfortunately many other people feel exactly the same and thus they have a waiting list. So I had to then pop into town and get one there and hope there was a free parking space close by. There was one opposite the train tracks which was a bonus for my son as there was a train going through as we walked back (well I walked back carrying him) after the ordeal.

So the upshot of the exercise is that Trentsworth Press (My publishing company in everyway imaginable) has a new postal address. You can feel free to send presents, cheques or book orders etc. to PO Box 341, Timaru 7940, New Zealand anytime you want from now on. Some people may think I mad putting my postal address here, but I realise even the most basic internet nasty would realise they could just go to the website to get it anyway, so why not make it easy for anyone who is legitimately interested?

 

Well that is Thursday’s posting. I may attempt a Friday’s tomorrow, we will see.

 

Have a wonderful Thursday yourselves.

 

Peter