Tag Archives: Holiday

Tui on a wire

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Five years ago we had never seen a Tui in our back yard. We thought of them as birds of the bush or forest, certainly not visitors to our suburban home.

These New Zealand native birds have a distinctive white ruffle under their chin and a call which is a mix of ringing bells, clicks, whirrs and buzzes – with the sound of someone gargling mixed in for good measure.

About 3 years ago Tui just started to appear around the house and now their annual arrival is a mark of spring and the arrival of the warmer weather.

Their resurgence in numbers has been quite significant and is due, in no small part, to a successful breeding programme at our local wildlife reserve.

Nice.

The book of the blog

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I started writing this post as an endorsement of a fantastic service for turning your blog posts into a book – Feedfabrik.com. But I’ve just learnt that, due to problems between the partners, they have stopped taking orders, their website is offline, and it is unlikely to return anytime soon.

I first used Feedfabrik last year to produce a simple black and white book of the first 100 toscanakiwi posts which we had delivered to our cottage in Tuscany. We carefully carried it around Europe on our travels and it’s sitting, slightly battered and beaten up, in the bookcase next to me.

A month ago I ordered two volumes of blog posts (about 200 posts in all) hard bound on high quality paper and in full colour because they produce the pictures that go with blog posts as well as the writing. The books arrived last week and they look absolutely stunning.

It is a real shame that others won’t be able to make use of this excellent service in the foreseeable future.

Our thanks to the team at Feedfabrik.com. We love your work and hope that you’ll be back soon.

You hum it, I’ll play it

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In the last few days Wellington has been plagued by an outbreak of humming. Not your run-of-the-mill, can’t remember the words humming but rather humming on a city-wide scale. As our local newspaper put it on Tuesday:

Mysterious hum reported in Mt Victoria

A mysterious low-pitched humming sound has been troubling some Wellington residents for the last few days and it seems no-one has any idea what it might be.  The Wellington City Council has had several calls over the past few days with the most recent being about 5am today.  Spokesman Richard MacLean said the complaints had been coming in from Mt Victoria, Newtown and Mt Cook residents. “We are interested to hear if this starts to become a constant thing. We are keeping our ear to the ground.”

One Mt Victoria resident said he and his fiancee had noticed the noise on Saturday and it hadn’t stopped since. He likened it to a low to medium pitched humming sound and said it went all day and all night and was “doing his head in”.

Of course the source is a mystery but there have been many suggestions made in the local paper. Some rational and some not so:

 “Maybe it is the 50Hz hum that comes from a transformer feeding electricity to the area. If the transformer is overloaded it will hum louder, or maybe something on or near its enclosure is vibrating at 50Hz.”

“The Mothership is preparing [to] leave. Because Mt Victoria is actually an ancient alien spaceship. It would be a bit annoying for the suburb’s residents, though it would make the commute between Te Aro and Hataitai substantially quicker once it left.”

But  this comment is my favourite: “Why is Mt Victoria humming? Simply because she doesn’t know the words.”

Summer is almost here

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It’s been a while since the last Toscanakiwi post. Maybe that can be blamed on the end of winter – that period of the year where the worst of the bad weather is over but still the sun won’t shine and the days are more rain and wind than anything else.  Good news – spring has finally arrived and from last Sunday daylight saving commenced. Suddenly the days are longer, the temperature warmer and every plant in the garden is growing as fast as it can.

Last weekend we travelled to Nelson on the northern tip of the South Island for a family birthday. If there was any doubt about the arrival of spring, the afternoon spent sitting on the deck looking out over the Waimea Inlet to Tasman Bay and beyond was proof enough. It was a fantastic weekend – thank you to our wonderful hosts and, once again, happy birthday to wee James.

Today Wellington lived up to it’s windy reputation

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With winds whistling through Cook Strait at up to 140km/h today our place reminded everyone why it’s called Windy Wellington.

The normally peaceful view of small boats moored in the shelter of Evans Bay looked a little different today.

One year ago today

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This time last year we had taken a break from the hectic pace of Tuscany, packed up the trusty Peugeot and headed north to France – the Cote d’Azur to be precise.

We had arranged to swap cars in Nice returning a slightly beat up Peugeot 308SW and picking up a brand new shiny Renault Megane Estate. Jean’s sister, brother-in-law and their baby James had been staying in Nice for a week relaxing so we met them and then moved about 10 minutes along the coast to the small seaside village of Villefranche sur Mer.

With bustling Nice on one side and glamorous Cap Ferrat on the other it always amazes me that this seaside village retains an air of calm and relaxation. There is nothing better than a quiet morning cafe at the hotel followed by a wander through the local markets and lunch on the Quai de l’Amiral Courbet with the sea lapping at your feet.

The panorama shot (made up of 6 individual photos covering 180 degrees) is taken from our balcony at Hotel Welcome, an institution in the village and a place we’ve stayed every time we’ve visited – which must be half a dozen times in the last decade. The Hotel has a wonderful manager who speaks excellent english, has a wonderfully dry sense of humour, and is a keen rugby follower. Even in August last year he was picking a France versus All Blacks Rugby World Cup final and an All Black victory. An easy one was his pick.

A view of Villefranche sur Mer with Cap Ferrat in the background

A South Island road trip

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This gallery contains 27 photos.

Last week I had the chance to head south. To leave Wellington for a couple of days, fly to Christchurch and take a road trip from Christchurch driving west over Porters and Arthur’s Pass to the West Coast. A work … Continue reading →

One year ago today

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This gallery contains 4 photos.

July 12 2011 – we were staying in the lovely Villa Greta in Positano on the Amalfi Coast. It was a scorching hot day with the temperature hovering in the low 30’s (celsius) with hardly a breath of wind. The … Continue reading →

A taste of Italy

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Every time Jean and I feel homesick for Italy we make the pilgrimage to MariLuca Ristoro. It is owned and run by a friend, Guiseppie, and stepping through the door feels like stepping back to Italy. It’s all warmth and friendliness and excellent Italian food, all in the heart of Wellington.

Bellisssimo.

Note: photos are courtesy of MariLuca Ristoro

Our place – Wellington

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Having written about various parts of the world over the last year it’s time to write about our place, Wellington, New Zealand. It’s where I was born and where I have lived since. After every overseas trip or holiday there … Continue reading →

Christmas in April

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It really did feel a little like christmas on Wednesday when we made our first trip to the storage unit we filled prior to heading overseas last year.

This was our chance to bring some of the precious (and not so precious) things we had put away last year, home.

And every box was a new and exciting experience. Our box labeling was a bit haphazard –  as you’d expect when things were being packed a week before heading overseas – so boxes marked “books” contained plates and boxes marked “plates” contain pictures and boxes marked “pictures” contained books.

Hence the reason it was a bit like christmas.

The bad news was that even after removing around a dozen boxes, the storage unit still looked full to the ceiling. Yikes.

How quickly routine takes over

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We’ve been back in our house for nearly three weeks and it’s amazing how quickly the daily routines of life take over. Having said that, in the last fortnight we’ve had a family wedding, my sister staying for a few days and the arrival of painters to turn the house into temporary chaos so maybe that’s not exactly routine.

The girls have settled back in as if they’ve never been away and are back terrorising those who dare to walk past our front gate. If you have seen our dear old Daisy in the last few months you would not recognise her now. Since coming home she’s had a new lease on life – in the video she’s the wagging tail on the right.

Coming home

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Daisy rediscovers the delight of sleeping on our bed

On Friday we moved back into our home. It is almost a year to the day since we moved out and already that year seems like a blur. Since arriving back in New Zealand with five suitcases, two carry ons and two boxes of freighted stuff we have clearly accumulated some more as it required a small van to move us from the home of our friends to our place.

We arrived home with a little more than we left with

It was fascinating seeing the reaction of the dogs when they walked through the front gate. They knew this place – and immediately set about rediscovering everywhere they used to go and the things they used to do. Those that say dogs just live in the here and now are wrong, our girls remembered everything.

Even old Daisy with her heart condition, failing eyesight, deafness and tendency to collapse at a moments notice gained an added spring in her step and sniffed out her old haunts – immediately starting to bark at those poor passers-by who dared to walk on the pavement outside her front fence. I could almost hear them curse “those bloody barking dogs are back”.

As I write this Daisy is curled up in her basket beside me asleep, at peace with the world. And that’s a good thing.