I suppose Twilight was tolerable in a lightweight, wanted to see the end of the story sort of way. But, that is the best that can be said of it. I was challenged to read it by my cousin Louise (under the “you shouldn’t condemn it when you haven’t read it” claim – always dubious) and so during a slow reading time I picked it up and finished it. Though I found it dull (and I’m clearly not the target audience!) I did find it interesting from an over-analysing semiotics point of view: it became a game of “spot the cliche” and “spot the obvious symbolism”. The threat to one’s existence of intimacy with a vampire is a metaphor for the moral and physical danger of teen sex (especially in an age of American puritanism and HIV). The heroine is a girl who really is special in a distinctive and unusal way, which is a metaphor for sense of isolation and “special-ness” that all teenagers experience. The heroine is a literal outsider – having moved from the big city to small town America – which is a metaphor for the sense of being an outsider that many teens experience. The group of vampires who are physically and psychically different and superior are this stand in for the normal “in crowd” who are merely socially different or superior. A more detailed reading would find more of thse sorts os things I am sure – all equally banal, obvious and trite. All of which goes some way to explaining the appeal of the Twilight series for teenage girls, but not – alas – for me.

View all my reviews

I was attracted to the premise of the book: that the legacy of Pythagoras – a way of viewing the world as being fundamentally describable with mathematics – imbued much of our modern culture and science. However the execution left a lot to be desired. A long rambling narrative about people who had claimed to be Pythagoreans through history which obscured the wood with the trees was the major issue. An incoherent superficial discussion of modern philosophy, quantum mechanics and postmodernism rounded off this conceptually confused book. I still think there is a great story to tell here about the influence of ancient greek thought our contemporary thought – but it isn’t in this book.

View all my reviews

Grandma, Judith and I

Mum was a gentle, mild-mannered person. She was not a judgemental person. She took everything in her stride and never lost her temper. She certainly never swore. I remember after I got my driver’s licence and one day was driving with her in my car I swore at something some other driver did and she said she was glad she never learned to drive if it meant she would swear like Barbara and me.

She loved her grandchildren. I was always amazed at her relationship with all her grandchildren. I recall my relationship with my grandmother which was not good, but Mum was great with her grandchildren, and they loved her equally as much. She waited a long time for great grandchildren and often would say that her sisters and friends had great grandchildren and it didn’t seem as though she would ever have any and then they arrived one after the other and in seven years there were seven of them.

Like most young marrieds Mum didn’t have any mod cons. She did all the washing for a family of five by hand and didn’t have a washing machine until David was born when we were 14, 12 and 10. We didn’t have a fridge until then as well. For many years she cooked on a coal range.

Most of her married life we lived in the country so there were no shops handy. We didn’t have a car and she had to rely on friends to take her to town to shop. Although in those days the butcher and the baker made deliveries to our home.
She made all Barbara and my dresses until well into our teens. She made a great job of each dress. In latter years we found out she hated sewing, but did it because she had to.

Mum was a great baker and cook. She was still trying out new recipes right up until she became ill at the age of 90 years and had to go into a rest home. A lot of her recipes have been handed down and the grandchildren are now using them. Her gingerbread, fudge and porridge biscuits were legendary.

She was a great walker and used to walk for miles and at a fast pace. Until she was well into her 80s she walked into the city which would take her about 40 minutes. Depending on what time the buses came some times she would walk home as well.
We had a lovely celebration to mark her 90th birthday. The whole family were together for the first time for many years. She really looked forward to it and I took her shopping to buy a new dress. She couldn’t make up her mind between a dress and a suit, so bought both. We also went shopping for new shoes and I was instructed to buy her a new handbag. We have some lovely photos to mark that wonderfully happy occasion.

My Saturdays have not been the same since Mum was moved out of Christchurch following the February 22nd earthquake. There has been a big gap in my life.

Our mother was a great lady and we are certainly going to miss her.

Ethel Carswell (Grandma) as a young woman

This recipe of Grandma’s for gingerbread is deservedly famous in our family, and graced the back page of the service sheet at her funeral.

Put ¼ lb butter, 1 breakfast cup milk (280mls), 3 large tablespoons golden syrup, 1 breakfast cup sugar into saucepan, bring almost to the boil, add 2 level teaspoons baking soda, pinch salt.
When frothy stir in 2 ½ cups flour sifted with 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 2 teaspoons ginger, 1 teaspoon mixed spice.
Cook for ¾ hour at 350 – 375 Fahrenheit (175 – 190 Celsius).

Grandma and Barbara about to board a jetboat

Our mother must have been a fighter right from the start. She was the youngest of 10 children born in 1916 to Fitzherbert and Ethel Clarkson, in the backblocks of Victoria, Australia. Tragically, her mother died when she was born and she was brought up by her older siblings and then by a housekeeper who then married her father and by all accounts became the original wicked stepmother. She was just 16 when her father died following an accident in a sawmill.

Mum came to New Zealand with one of her sisters not long after her 21st birthday, met our father when he was on holiday in Rotorua and then married him in Christchurch. They moved to Silverhope, which for those of you who don’t know, is a suburb of Hunterville in the central North Island. Not an ideal location for a girl used to the streets of Melbourne and Sydney. Dad was a country school teacher and there were a number of moves and the births of four children before they shifted to the South Island and then eventually to Christchurch in 1964.

They lived in what we think of as our family home in Fitzgerald Ave until Dad died in 1984. Like many women of her generation Mum had never owned a cheque book or managed a bank account and never had to make major decisions on her own so she had to learn a lot of new skills very quickly.

At this stage of her life Mum started to enjoy overseas travel and took a trip to the UK to visit David, a bus tour through Europe, Norfolk Island with her sister Ida and various trips to Australia sometimes to celebrate a significant birthday of one of her sisters.

In time Mum moved to a small owner ship flat in Linwood and lived there very happily with Nina her Siamese cat and then Zulu the black and white cat on long term loan from Richard. We will all smile when we remember how she would pour warm water into the bird bath to break the ice for the birds in winter.

In 1994 she had noticeable health issues and following some intervention from the family was diagnosed with heart failure needing a pacemaker. She bounced right back from near death, having told us she knew she couldn’t let the family down by dying before she reached 90. Around then we discovered her sense of adventure and for her 80th birthday we gave her two tickets for a hot air balloon flight. We drew straws to see who would go with her and Louise her youngest granddaughter was the winner. At that time I also took her on a jet boat ride near Queenstown which she just loved and declared was much more exciting than the hot air balloon.

Well Mum did reach 90 and as Judith has said we had a wonderful celebration of that milestone.

In 2006 during a routine replacement of her pacemaker she was infected with an MRSA bug which changed her life dramatically. The result was that she could no longer live on her own but moved into the Maples rest home where she carved out her own little niche, walking every day as she always had, befriending new residents and helping them settle, going on all the outings and feeding the birds with crusts from the lunch table. She joined in all their activities with enthusiasm and enjoyment. She even won a gold medal in the Maples Olympics much to the amazement of great grandson Josh who told her he thought she was too old to win an Olympic gold medal.

Following a fall in 2009 when she broke some ribs, and punctured her lungs she was given 48 hours to live, but her strong constitution once again had her back on her feet, unfortunately this time needing hospital level care. We moved her to a room at Windermere. She found it difficult to accept her increased dependence on other people for assistance with daily routines and personal care, spending most of her time in her room, but continued to enjoy family outings and visits.

Mum’s room at Windermere was largely destroyed by the earthquake of February 22 and she was moved to Nelson by the powers that be and we can only imagine the horror of that trip. Seven elderly people, a nurse, a driver and a box of sandwiches left Christchurch at 4.30pm on 23 Feb, drove to Blenheim, arriving very late in the evening and then some of them were moved on to Nelson the next morning. Mum was never a demonstrative person, greeting anything other than a kiss on arrival or departure with a “What do you want?” But I will never forget when Jude and I went to Nelson to see for ourselves how she had survived that trip getting the biggest hug I’d ever had in my life from her.

We arranged to move her to Wellington, knowing there were not going to be any spare beds in Christchurch in the foreseeable future and that the family there had enough on their plates just surviving. It was going to be our turn and indeed our privilege to look after her with the knowledge she was unlikely ever to return to Christchurch.

We brought her to Wellington on 9 March, another traumatic trip for her, and began to look forward to her return to her former self once she was settled. Unfortunately another fall, resulting in a broken hip, and a lengthy hospital stay meant she never walked again and began a steady downhill slide.

During her last two weeks Mum’s condition worsened noticeably and we know she wasn’t going to live much longer. My only wish at that stage was that she shouldn’t be alone at the end after all she had been through. So when that phone call came at 4.00am on Thursday 16 March I was so grateful to be able to sit beside her with Ian and Sally until she took her last breath.

Our mother wasn’t rich in the accepted sense of that word, but so very rich in the love of the people who mattered to her. They are not all here today but we know where ever they are they are thinking of us and of her. Her name isn’t a household word except in our homes, she won’t be remembered by the rest of the world, her lifetime achievements haven’t added hugely to the sum of human knowledge. But we all for the rest of our lives will remember our times with Mum. We may laugh or cry but we will have warm comforting memories of a great lady who had the love and respect of those she left behind.

Grandma and the Field family

Hello everyone. I’m Kevin Field. I am the privileged oldest grandchild and I had Grandma all to myself for three and a half years. When I was a wee boy, I often wondered what people thought about this tall woman, striding rapidly into town with a gaggle of grandchildren struggling to keep up. For some reason, this thought stayed with me till I was a young adult and was put into perspective when I heard second hand, a quote from Don when walking with Barbara, “Slow down, you’re not walking with your mother now”.

I walked many places with Grandma. It would be the river side of Fitzgerald Ave if going to Cleveland Street or as most expeditions were, into town. We would normally visit the Farmers department store which always used to have the delicious smell of roast cashew and peanuts wafting through the store. Sometimes Grandma would even buy some roast cashews if I was really lucky. Sometimes there were hurried trips across town to Ballantyne’s because a certain grandchild needed to go to the toilet and Ballantyne’s was the only place he would go. No demands that this toilet is good enough, she just did it. That was Grandma. Even as a young fella, I thought she was kindest grandmother you could ever have. It seemed to me that during the regular visits to the Fitzgerald Ave house, we would be asking Grandma if we could take home any number of trinkets that we had discovered in the house or shed. And she would normally say yes.

Staying over at Grandma and Granddad’s was special. There were National Geographic’s for Africa – many about Africa; plenty to explore and always breakfast in bed. Toast and marmalade and the sweetest, nicest tea. Somehow, the way she made it was just the way I liked it. And there were always scones on Sunday for when more of the family gathered.

There were never any favourites with Grandma – we were all treated the same and that was with kindness. She was non-judgemental, even when the older grandchildren struggled to play Christmas day cricket with the younger grandchildren because they had headaches or if they turned up at Fitzgerald Ave with bleached hair.

The last time I saw Grandma was on 23 February and unlike 4 September, where Grandma was quite philosophical about her potential fate that day and was more concerned with the new dinner arrangements, she was worried about her Christchurch family and whether they were all right. I was pleased to be able to deliver that news.

I realise the last few months of her life were a bit confusing after moving first to Nelson and then to Wellington, but I am pleased the Wellington family had the chance to be with her and to spend time with her.

And even though her health deteriorated in her 90′s, she still got to meet and get to know her seven great-grandchildren. I am pleased she was able to watch them at her house as they went about their routines, doing such things as scrubbing the bird bath, picking up apples or chasing the cat. I’m also grateful they got to know her as well.

So thank you Grandma. While I’m sad to say goodbye to you today, I’m happy to have had you in my life and that it was you who was that rock in my life.

One last thing. Ballantyne’s had small children’s toilets and that’s why I had to go there.

Grandma with Ian, Jody, Brent, Sally, Tanya and Louise

Good morning everyone. On behalf of the family can I welcome you here this morning and express our appreciation to for being here to support us on this occasion. We are extremely humble that you have been prepared to share your time with us.

Many of you have travelled some distance to be here and we thank you for that. David, our brother in particular has had to be most resourceful in his endeavours to get here in time from England. Tanya too has had her relatively simple travel plans from Sydney disrupted severely by ash from Chile. And us South Islanders have had our trials and tribulations too in one way or another.

I would like to acknowledge here the Hammond family from Hunterville. When Mum and Dad were newly married in the early 1940s, Dad took up a teaching position there. They met Mollie and Clarry Hammond and there developed a deep and lasting friendship which continues to this day through successive generations. The two families have experienced highs and lows together, births, deaths and marriages, and have supported each other during these times. And so I wish to thank Tim and Tricia for being here today. We really appreciate your support, thank you very much.

So, now, how do I remember my mother? I remember her as a kind and generous person, loved by everyone. All who met her remembered her warmth, her generosity and her kindness. Others more eloquent than I will elaborate further.

Mum was an excellent cook. I love excellent food. So therefore I loved mum’s food. As children we enjoyed good, nutritious, meals: stews not casseroles, were popular as were mince dishes and roasts. Desserts consisted of rice puddings, blancmanges, bread and butter puddings, lemon puddings, sago puddings, and different flavoured junket. Some of these were not always happily received, but the answer was: “there are starving children in Africa who would love to eat that.”

As we grew up and attained our independence and left home to go flatting or whatever, our eating standards declined, and a trip home to enjoy mum’s cooking was always looked forward to. The popular call at home then was: “Oh, mum has got some roast pork, Ian must be coming home.” It was a cross I had to bear, but I did so willingly and happily.

So roast pork and its crackling was always a treat, as too were all her roasts and her meat dishes. Another dish comes to mind – oxtail stew – slow cooked over several days. Extremely delicious, it did not take two days to consume – demolish might have been a better expression.

As our families grew, an invitation to afternoon tea was always welcome. On the table there usually was a scone of some sort, either plain, savoury, cheese or griddle, and sometimes a savoury or sweet muffin. The biscuit tins were always full when we arrived, never when we left. We could always find some lovely moist fruit cake, and some hokey-pokey biscuits, chewy anzacs, scroggin or ginger crunch. A just cooked gingerbread  loaf fresh from the oven and with a crunchy crust was a favourite. My favourite – and this was shared by many – was her chocolate fudge. I have the recipe if you are interested. When we left for home we were always given a little bag of tasty morsels to take home for afterwards.

But the most delicious item of all was her iconic chocolate pavlova. Not inspiring when you saw it for the very first time, but bite into it and you immediately became hooked and had to think about second or third helpings. The expression “lick your plate clean” developed a whole new meaning.

So mum, with these few memories fresh in our minds, it is time for me to say goodbye. And when you catch up with Dad, give him a big hug and kiss from us all. You can then sit with him once more,  and keep watch over us all again.

Goodbye mum, we will miss you so very much.

Grandma and me

Like all of you here I loved my Grandma. I had a very special relationship with her – as I think did all of her grandchildren. Not everyone has such a special person and such a special relationship in their lives and we should all remember just how lucky we are to have had Grandma.

Our lives are like a tapestry – woven from the threads of the stories that we tell about ourselves and that others tell about us. When we look at the tapestry of Grandma’s life – woven from the stories that we have all told about her here – the pattern that emerges is one that is centred on her family, the love that she had for us, and our love for her.

Talking to her a few weeks ago she told me that she was very proud of her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren. And with apologies to my mother, aunts and uncles, we were what she regarded as her greatest achievement. Her selflessness in regard to us tells us so much about her.

One of mum’s stories that I will claim for myself is that as a little boy I thought Grandma was the most beautiful woman in the world. I still think that, and while I know that she can’t have been perfect, I have never seen any evidence of that.

I’d like to take a moment to mention my dad’s relationship with Grandma, because she was very special to dad. Dad’s own mother died before I was born, and I could see that Dad loved Ethel as if she was his own mother. I could see that Ethel loved dad in return. As she grew older Dad helped to make sure that Grandma had everything she needed – he was very generous with his time and the rest of the family’s as well – that’s how he demonstrated his love. I still remember spending summer at Fitzgerald Ave painting Grandma’s house with the rest of the family.

Two images always come to mind when I think of Grandma. I have the fondest memories of her baking – I can’t think of Grandma without thinking of her baking, especially her scones. Baking was clearly one of the ways she demonstrated her love for us. I remember Jude and I turning up late one night at Randolph St, having flown or driven from Wellington, to find Grandma waiting up for us with fresh baking ready for a late night snack.

The other image I have of Grandma is of her sitting in her chair, reading a book, with a cup of tea and a cat on her lap.

More recently, I’ve watched with real pleasure the delight she took in seeing Conor. Despite her frailty she loved to have a kiss and a cuddle with him, and you could just see the way she loved to have him visit – the way her face lit up when she saw him. I went in to see her recently without him, and the first thing she said to me was “Where’s your son?” One of the few good things to come out of the recent events in her life was that Grandma and Conor got a brief chance to get to know each other, something that I will always cherish.

The things about Grandma that gave us joy when she was alive – her deep love of us, her humour, her generosity of spirit, her kindness and her gentleness – should not trouble us now that she is dead. Instead they should continue to give us joy.

While my Grandma is not around to love me any more – and that is deeply sad – I will continue to love her for the rest of my life.

Grandma

My most beautiful and dearly loved Grandma – Ethel Carswell – died the other day – June 16, 2011, and her funeral was held yesterday (June 26, 2011).  Many of the family travelled to turn up to her funeral, despite the issues with the ash cloud and the numerous Christchurch earthquakes. Ethel was a very special person and we will all miss her very much.

For those members of the family who want them here are links to various items related to the funeral service.

Grandma’s Service Sheet

The photos that were displayed before the service can be seen here.

Music from the service:

• “Love Theme from Rome and Juliet” – played at the beginning of the service (YouTube)
• “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel (YouTube iTunes)
• “Fields of Gold” this was the Eva Cassidy version performed by my future sister-in-law Robine (Bea) Prigg (YouTube iTunes)
• “Love and Some Verses” by Iron & Wine (Youtube iTunes)
• “We’ll Meet Again” performed by Vera Lynn (Youtube iTunes)
• The album Waltz for Debby by Bill Evans was played before and after the service. (iTunes)

Anne Conroy was the celebrant and she did a lovely job.

The funeral was very tastefully and sympathetically organised by Larry Greco from Lychgate Funeral Home.

Conor riding a train at the Keirunga Park Railway

My little boy, Conor, is two and absolutely obsessed with trains. This is more than the usual small boy’s interest, or the standard enthusiasm for Thomas the Tank Engine. Conor loves anything associated with trains, any kind of trains. He loves seeing them bo by, he loves train stations, he loves train programmes. One of his favourite pastimes is to watch trains on Youtube - which can keep him occupied for ages. We had heard about this miniature railway in Havelock North (in the Hawkes Bay, New Zealand) so we thought we would check it out when we next visited Conor’s Aunty Marie and Uncle Pete over Easter – and aren’t we glad we did.

The Keirunga Park Railway is fantastic, and not just for train enthusiasts. This is a miniature railway, run by a local miniature railway club. The track itself is really long (for a miniature railway), with multiple tunnels and bridges, going up and round a hill. It even has a control tower! We got there at 10am, and it was just getting started, by midday the place was packed with large queues – so if you are going, get there early. There were lots of different trains, of all types (but not sizes). There were diesel locomotives, steam trains, and electric trains. Conor had six rides on six different trains. His favourites were the steam trains – fired by real coal! He had the absolute time of his life, and we would highly recommend this as a great family outing.