Old Saint Paul's Cathedral

When my cousin Katie came to Wellington, we went downtown and I showed her many of my favourite things about Wellington. In the afternoon, we had some extra time, because Zealandia closed earlier than I thought. As I was thinking about what else I'd like to show her, she said, "Isn't there a cathedral in Wellington? Saint Paul's or something?" I'd never heard of such a thing, but my handy friend Google had, and it was not too far away, so we walked over, having fun stopping at interesting places along the way.

Old Saint Paul's Cathedral is not far from the train station, and I've therefore been quite near it multiple times, but never known it was there!

This picture was in the small alcove that's been turned into a museum. I was amazed to see how it looks like it's all alone, whereas now it is in the middle of the city! Also, I was impressed to see how little it has change (judging by the outward appearance) since it was built in 1865-1866.

In 1960, a new Saint Paul's was built just a few blocks away, and this one was scheduled for demolition. Many Kiwis joined together and spoke up for their church, and eventually succeeded in preserving it. It is now considered a national heritage building, and is protected by Heritage New Zealand. It is a popular place for people to visit, as well as still being used as a church for weddings, christenings, and other celebrations. 

As soon as you walk into this church, you feel the peace and warmth the it exudes. It is beautiful, but also meaningful and full of positive energy, such that you're just content to be there.

The building itself is awe-inspiring, with these amazing gothic arches and the rich warmth of the wood. The only cathedrals I've been to before have been around western Europe, all of which (that I saw) are stone. It was amazing to see one in wood instead!

Sorry for the bad lighting, but isn't it gorgeous! We watched a video that was telling us about the three-circle cut-outs that you can see in the triangles of the arches, and which are a trademark of gothic architecture.

I particularly love the wood in this organ. Being raised by a finish carpenter, I have developed a love for the patterns in natural wood, and I love that they've just varnished it and let the wood grain show.

Katie and I were awed by the beauty of this embroidery. We learned that this is a Christmas flower. I started to think that it looked awfully summery for a Christmas flower, before remembering for the umpteenth time that week that Christmas is in summer here. (I don't know if that will ever sink in).

Old Saint Paul's also has some wonderful stained glass. I love the patterning in this window.

I am so appreciative that Katie had heard of Old Saint Paul's and that she wanted to visit, because otherwise I could have gone years more without hearing about it. It is such a special place, and I'm thrilled to know that it's here, and to have visited it. If you'd like to read more about Old Saint Paul's, click here.

Seashells

Being from Kansas, I grew up with the idea that seashells were objects of almost mythical beauty and attraction. They came from far-off, exotic places, and they had endless variation in shape, colour, and design. I cherished the shells I collected on beach trips as treasures from another world. I haven't entirely lost that view of seashells in adulthood. I still remember going into an amazing seashell store in Hawai'i during my first year at university, and having an unfathomably strong urge to either live there forever or take each and every shell home.

Wanting to share this delight in seashells with my children, and now having the privilege of living in a place that is almost entirely coastline, I did some shell collecting. Tangaroa is the atua (guardian) of the sea, and we have a special area in our room that is for taonga (treausures) that Tongaroa has given us. Unfortunately, such taonga do eventually get broken, so they need replacing. Fortunately, shell collecting is a delightful task, which I have happily delegated to myself.

This is my most recent batch of shells (and pummice), collected principally from Makara Beach, although some are from Tarakena Bay and Tongue Point.

This is one of the more common types I find, although I rarely find them this brilliantly white.

This is what the inside of that shape of shell looks like. Sometimes they're actually cooler when they're broken. Also, those stripes of gold and brown are more typical coloration here.

This is a paua (abalone) shell, which I believe I've written about before. They are so beautiful, and become more so if you know how to polish them. Maybe I should learn how someday. 

Side note: In the new Disney movie, Moana, her necklace is made from a small paua shell, much to the delight of my children, who recognize it as the same as the ones we have at Whare Kea (my centre).

You can also find shards of paua shell, which are amazing as well, because the edges get smoothed and rounded like sea glass.

I also found, for the first time ever, little tiny paua! They're so cute!

And unlike the big ones, the little ones I found are cream and pink on the inside. It's hard to tell in the picture, but they do still have a bit of iridescence. 

To give you a sense of scale, here are some of the paua-like shells I found that day. To be clear, I don't actually know if they are all paua. They look the same to me, except for size and colour variations, and I haven't heard of anything else that looks like that, so for now I'm going to assume that they're paua. They can get much bigger than that as well. We saw one once that was bigger than a dinner plate!

I love the spiral swirls in seashells!

This one is wonderful because of the bit of rainbow that it's got going on, as well as for how tall and separate the parts of the spiral are, as compare to many that flow together. By the way, a word in te reo Māori for spiral is āwhiowhio (pronounced ah-fee-o-fee-o), which is one of my favourites! The children love it as well.

I've brought these seashells in to work, and will give them to the children and do some exploring, observing, and appreciating. Thanks, Tangaroa, for your beautiful gifts!

Rock Zendala Project

Over the summer holidays, I wanted to do something relaxing that also felt productive. I have a hard time doing things that are for pure relaxation, because I have the sense that I'm "wasting" time. I know that this is not really fair, and J has actually helped me to get a better perspective on this, as he values relaxation highly and intentionally spends time doing "nothing" to keep his brain healthy. However, I still find that when I have things to do that I label as both relaxing and productive, that is when I feel the best. Reading is the best example of that for me, and is part of why I spend so very much of my time engrossed in a book.

Anyway, I decided that over the holidays, I would do some rock zendala for the children. I read about it in an early childhood magazine (the same one my article was published in, actually), and thought it would be perfect for Whare Kea (my centre). We like to have lots of "loose parts" in our environment. Loose parts are objects for children to play with that don't have any designated or official use, so the children need to be creative and inventive in order to find a way to use them. This also means that they are likely to use them in a multitude of different ways, as their imaginations grow and they're inspired by the unique circumstances of each day's play. Ideally, loose parts should be interesting, beautiful, inviting, inspiring, challenging, etc. For me and my team, we also like our loose parts to be natural resources, as we aspire to have our programme as nature-based as possible. Fortunately, nature provides some of the best, most inspiring loose parts, so it's not hard to meld those ideas.

We had some stones in our environment, but the children didn't often use them, and I thought it would be nice to make them more inviting. Zendala, as I understand it, is simply drawing different patterns and shapes, often complex and detailed, and it has recently become popular as a relaxing, zen-like activity (hence the name, I assume). 

So, I bought a paint pen and some clear sealant to go over the top, and collected some rocks. J informed me that all rocks on NZ beaches belong to the Queen, but I decided that she wouldn't begrudge me a few, and if she did, she'd relent when she saw how beautiful they were.

I got my cup of tea and my audio book (as I couldn't leave reading out entirely) and settled in, ready to be both productive and relaxed. I did have a momentary surge of uncertainty as it occurred to me that I didn't know if I could actually create pretty designs, but at that point there was nothing to do but try, so I went for it. Turns out, it is beautifully relaxing, and a perfect complement to audio books!

These are the rocks that I drew on. I tried to make each design unique, and so while some of them have overlapping characteristics, they should all have their own special aspects.

You can click on that picture to make it bigger if you want to see the details better, and I've also taken individual pictures of some of them.

I made some that are a specific object, like this feather.

But I made more that are not any particular thing, but rather just designs. A lot of my "just designs" turned out a little bit flowery, but I decided to forgive that, as I like them so much.

This one inadvertently ended up a little snowflake-like.

I'm not sure about the swirls coming out of this one, but I accidentally stained the rock with sunscreen, so I had to cover it up! Necessity is the mother of invention, right?

I intended for this one to look like a pōhutakawa flower, but J says it looks like a pollen spore or a virus. That actually made me happy, because it should be open to multiple interpretations. Also, I did a side view of a pōhutakawa flower, so that's covered anyway.

I did some that are more typical of what I've seen in bigger zendala designs, which is various shapes filled with smaller designs. Not really my favourites, but fun to draw.

I also did some more geometric ones, which are the most successful at not actually looking like anything, but still being nice to look at.

I think this one might be my favourite.

This one managed to start out completely geometric and then still end up looking like flowers, which made me laugh.

Hmmm, maybe this one is actually my favourite.

I did a couple koru (unfurling fern spirals), which are very thick and solid compared to the others, but I quite like them.

This is the first geometric one that I did, and remains J's favorite.

Oh no, maybe this one is my favourite! I have a clear bias towards the flowery ones - I can't help it. I've always loved floral things! But please do admire my willpower to have done plenty that aren't flowers!

Trees have been my favourite thing to draw for most of my life, as I love the smooth curves and lines of the branches flowing up. I don't think this probably counts as actual zendala, but I had to do it!

I had a fantastic time doing this, and would have done even more, but I discovered that leaning over to do careful drawing really aggravated my lower back. My lower back hurts almost all the time anyway, and I have to be careful not to do anything that makes it angrier, so I started doing my drawing in shorter stints. That helped, but I still decided that this was enough. I'm going to do some with my children as well, and see what kinds of designs they come up with, which will be fun!

If you ever want to take something simple and make it into something special and beautiful, I highly recommend trying rock zendala out!

Swimming at Tarakena Bay

After a chilly Christmas, the sun came out on Boxing Day, providing us with a beautiful, warm day to head to the beach. J had heard that Breaker Bay (on the other side of town from us) was particularly good, so we drove that way. 

It was, indeed, very beautiful. The hills are on the other side of the opening to the harbour.

We were looking for a place that wasn't too busy, and was good for swimming. I think these places with rocks in the water are the most beautiful, but they're hazardous when it comes to swimming, so we kept going.

We got to this little beach, and decided it was perfect. By this time, we'd actually gone past Breaker Bay and into Tarakena Bay, which neither of us had heard of, but it was lovely.

We played catch for a while near the beach, partially because we enjoy it, and partially to get warmed up before swimming, because even in summer, the water is freezing!

We got changed into our wetsuits at the car, and then headed down to the water.

While I'm often at the beach, I haven't gone swimming for a while, so I was very excited to start!

It was absolutely frigid as the icy water started flowing into our wetsuits. I got to the point in this picture, or a bit deeper, and then just dove under, while J slowly waded all the way up to his neck. Neither way really diminished the cold, but you do what you can.

But once we got in, the wetsuits did their jobs, and we kept moving, and it was wonderful. And I always forget how much fun salt water is - it buoys you up, so it's beautifully easy to float.

You can barely see me in this picture, but I didn't want to crop it, because the ocean is so stunning!

This is the view from the edge of the water.

There were plenty of beautiful places to explore, although we didn't stay too long after swimming, because the wind was just cool enough that it kept us from fully warming back up. So we went home for a cup of tea.

New Year's Eve with Katie

Happy New Year, everyone! It's the day after New Year's Day in NZ, which is also a national holiday, which I think is fantastic. We can't just have one day and then go back to work - that's no fun! I have the whole week off work, and we start back on the 9th, but J goes back to work on Wednesday the 3rd, after Monday and Tuesday being the observed holidays. We both had all the days between Christmas and New Year's off, so it's a nice break from the business of daily life.

Our cousin Katie has been traveling the South Island for the past couple weeks, and then came to visit us in Wellington before heading back to the States. It was such fun to see her and show her around, and it just happened that she was here on New Year's Eve, so that was extra special. We don't usually do much for New Year's, but having a guest made it unique, and inspired more celebrating, which was great.

One thing I definitely wanted to share with Katie was Te Papa Tongarewa (the museum), and so we spent a chunk of the day there. We also walked through some of my favourite parts of the Botanic Gardens, and I showed her where I work. Unfortunately, my centre is under major construction and in a state of total disarray, as we're getting a new sand pit (sandbox) installed outside, and the cleaners are doing a very thorough clean of all the floors inside. But still, she saw it and knows exciting developments are happening. We had lunch at a super fun sushi place where all the food goes by on a conveyor belt and you pick off plates of what you want. We were particularly impressed by the raw salmon and tuna, which was melt-in-your-mouth delicious. We then went to a beautiful old cathedral that Katie had heard about (and I hadn't), and which was stunning. I've decided to devote a whole post to it later, so don't worry, pictures are coming.

As we strolled through downtown on our way to the cathedral, we explore the area around The Beehive. It's a fun building itself, but I like the building next door to it even better, with its variegated stone. I just learned, in fact, that The Beehive is just the executive wing of parliament, and does not, as I had previously believed, hold all of parliament between its rounded walls. 

This much more beautiful building is Parliament House, which contains the rest of parliament, including the debating chamber, the Speaker's Office, the visitors' centre, and the committee rooms. If anyone reading this sees Katie, please let her know, because I told her I thought it was the Parliamentary Library, which is actually the building next door, which we thought looked like a church. 

This one. See? Looks like a church, right? We poked around a bit and discovered that it looked like offices and such inside, which made sense, as a church doesn't really belong with parliament, but it didn't occur to me that it was a library, since I thought I knew which one was the library. Clearly, it's dangerous for me to think I know things. 

I also snapped a picture of a Pohutakawa Tree in bloom, because I have been delighting in their red, Christmasy displays for weeks, and I thought you should get a taste. Not the greatest layout, in retrospect, but it's the only time it occurred to me to take a picture, so that's what you get.

In the evening, after going home for a nice dinner that J cooked for us, we headed back downtown to the harbour, where they do a fireworks display at midnight. Actually, they do one at 9:00 for the children who can't stay up until midnight, which is very sweet. It happened right as we got to the waterfront, which was fun.

The Wellington Shake 'Em on Downers were playing right in front of a little bay off the harbour, and people were gathered all around listening. I love them, but Katie and I agreed that it wasn't the right venue for them, because their music is great for dancing, and there wasn't room to dance. But it was still nice. There was another band later, which did covers of popular (almost exclusively American) songs, and they were fun, too.

Katie and I plopped down on a boulder and listened for a while, then walked around for a bit and ended up at a nice outdoor terrace of a bar, where Katie kindly bought me a celebratory glass of wine, and we chatted about all kinds of things until closer to midnight. It was very comfortable and fun, and a great way to wind down 2016.

When we got back to the little bay, there were many times more people than when we'd left, covering the entire circle of the bay (which has a narrow opening onto the harbour). It was neat to see so many people out there together for the show, despite the fact that it was a bit chilly for summer and slightly drizzling. 

Also, notice the cool light displays on the building behind the people. There were many interesting effects, and even bigger ones on the taller buildings on the other side.

Pictures of fireworks are something of a lost cause, but I got a couple to commemorate the event.

The fireworks display won't set any records for inventiveness, but it was beautiful, enjoyable and special for me, as I haven't seen any fireworks in several years. And such fun to see it with Katie!

As I come to the end of this post, I am realizing that I didn't take a single picture of Katie herself while she was here! It's a bit of a pity. But you can trust me that she was here, and we had a great time, and it was wonderful to spend the end of 2016 with her. She flew out early in the morning on the 1st, and so is safely back in Kansas by now. I'm crossing my fingers that NZ made a good enough impression that she'll come back and visit again sometime!