Tinui

Tinui is a pleasant 40 km drive from Masterton on a good road which takes you past dairy and sheep farms, pine plantations, herb farms, home stays and a lime quarry. While an easy drive it is still be a rural drive and you are always likely to come across herds of cattle or sheep being moved. Surfers with cars loaded with surf boards often zip past on the way to Castlepoint, trucks and farm bikes loaded with dogs, and you often see cyclists loaded up with tents and packs. Castlepoint is approximately 15 kms past Tinui.




Tinui has been known for serious flooding and there are homes here which have had to move to higher ground, one has built a huge flood bank around it. The local archive has produced an interesting book "When the Rains Came" about the 1991 flood.


Tinui has a timber mill and a miniature horse stud.




Tinui has recently lost it's landmark pub where you could see chickens and pigs in the backyard. The front section has been moved out to Martinborough which is more popular with the city visitors as the area produces wine, is a pretty town with upmarket shops within an easier distance from Wellington.

The loss of the pub has had an interesting effect on Tinui as the imposing two storied building sat on the corner and created both a focal point and a boundary to the small village. In the last year the small dairy there also had to close. As the shop's building is owned by a community trust the locals have banded together and now run it on a roster system.





Next door is another shop which is used as a co-operative craft shop. It's a place to get very cheap and well made articles and I always purchase Rosa's Herb Farm delicious handmade pickles and chutneys.


Behind this quaint shop is an area that was once the town jail which has been turned into the public toilets.

Opposite the shops is a small but vibrant school.
























In the yard is a memorial bell, erected in 1976 to celebrate 100 years on the site.

Next door is the large Memorial Hall- often used by the school - and behind it a recently erected hockey turf and tennis court. The small playgroup here attracts families from the area and is vibrant with ideas and bright happy children. Plunket (a New Zealand child care organisation) use one of the towns houses for regular nurse visits.












This small community has a book group, they are starting a movie group and they are striving to keep their small community alive despite the losses of the local pub and shop. They support each other with child care, shared trips to town and fun times together.

Matariki: the Aotearoa/Pacific New Year

Matariki is a small star cluster that appears around this time of year in New Zealand and marks the change of the seasons. It is seen as the beginning of the Maori year.

This seven star constellation appears on the predawn horizon in late May In Western astrology is known as The Pleiades.

Two interpretations of the name are Mata Riki = Tiny Eyes, or Mata Ariki = Eyes of God and when you see these stars they do look like small eyes looking over the hills.



As this is the start of the cold season in Aotearoa, it is a time to pause and reflect, to renew connections with whaanau (family), prepare the land for crops and to plant trees.

It is said that the brighter the stars appear the better the crops will be in the coming year.

The Rocket Into Reading Poster advertised the Summer Reading Programme held in the Masterton District Library (and about 23 other libraries in the North Island) over the Summer of 2007 and 2008.

A few years ago I went to a small inflatable planetarium which was erected at Aratoi, our local art gallery. By lying on your back you were able to watch the constellations moving across the sky and learnt to identify Matariki as well as hear legends of this cluster. I'd love to do that again!

This celebration is increasingly celebrated in New Zealand and in town at present the UCOL art students have a Matariki exhibition. There will be a Matariki Fair in the coming weeks. Looking forward to that!

Block Heads!

This dog has sat outside it's owners house in Dixon Street, Masterton for over a year advertising the fact that his home is insulated.

Now on the way to Tinui, a small settlement 40 kms from Masterton, this handsome chap has appeared.

I can't decide if his downturned mouth is because the hill behind him has been clear-felled or if he has been stung by bees from the hives.

Perhaps he is meant as a warning to all those thinking of trespassing on the site for either honey or firewood.

Balloons, blankets, storytellers, the lost Dominions are found and the army is in town!

Last Friday night saw me inflating 200 balloons for our library event on Saturday. Janelle had a Heart Felt moment when she saw them and rushed off to get her camera. They spilled out of my office and I eventually managed to corral them along a space on the balcony. The pops of balloons as the heat and rough textured wall claimed some provided many gasps from the customers working on the ecentre. Worth it though, as on Saturday we had




Mary Kippenberger and Peter Charlton-Jones to entertain with stories and music. To start with it looked like a small audience of toddlers and babies but once they got going numbers quickly grew to enjoy the hilarious fun - it's always good to see the adults enjoying themselves as much as the children.


We had a melt in the mouth, rich, sticky mud cake from the 10 O'Clock Cookie Company, Clifford the Big Red Dog made a brief appearance and then we let the balloons tumble down to create more colourful chaos. And then we looked out the window and saw a rainbow that sat above the town for about an hour. We had expected a really cold southerly, with snow, from Antarctica but straight after the wonderful event I felt as if we had been blessed by a very special visit.



The balloons and the blankets from the Operation Coverup Blankets created a wonderful splash of colour and shape under the Hadlow School mural of local history. We have had a great week of gifts of blankets and wool.

Barbara Udy is finishing her eighteenth ladder design blanket. She has fun experimenting with colour and the children in the Ukraine and Moldovia who receive them will be so grateful for such a wonderful gift for their life.

This project has been very humbling and wonderful to be involved with as people create blankets for children who often have only light cotton eiderdowns in well below freezing point temperatures. Some knit Peggy Squares, some strips, and some whole blankets. Some sew the blankets. The project is fortunate to have the support of Mission Without Borders who every year help with the shipping and distribution of the blankets, $3.00 per blanket. I love the colours and patterns and every blanket is individually created. The blankets are given as a gift to the children and will remain as their own property for life.


If you want to start knitting - use pure wool please. Acrylic is too cold. They recommend 8mm needles, double knitting wool, and 40 stitches. Knit in garter stitch ( stocking stitch curls) and you may choose to make a square or a complete strip the length of a single bed (allowing for tuck in at the end and blanket to cover the face.) Several strips are stitched together to form a blanket (single bed, tuck-in at the sides and end.) Of course you may also want to make a complete blanket and it is fun to see the themes and styles people choose for these.

I took Meg and Skip for an early run around Lake Henley to try and beat the front coming through. To my right I could hear the football crowd having a wonderful time as Carterton and Pioneer fought it out. It got really exciting with cars being reeved and horns tooted. Quite a different sound from the usual birds and running river. The Ruamahunga was brown shouldering at it's banks, as if the garment it was diving into had suddenly shrunk. The large gully that has been constructed to take the overflow was already filling from the rain in the hills.

Saturday night we had a huge thunder storm through the night. (Jeff said it was motorbikes! There's got to be a story there about a storm god on a motor bike- I'm off!). The chimney leaked from the pressure and angle of the rain. It only happens occasionally and we always forget to get it repaired when we have normal rain.

Meg's blankets spread a little out of her kennel last night so when I was taking them out to dry in the wind that had come up, I found the missing Dominions. For weeks we have been losing the Dominion newspaper which is tossed from a passing car into our garden. She has been gathering them up and taking them to her kennel, still perfectly wrapped in plastic. We had searched and searched the property for where she was putting them - didn't think to look under her blankets.







Had fun with our four and a half month grandson looking at "Who's there Spot?" He was fascinated with the large black letters and kept scanning the pictures. He especially liked looking under the flaps once he got the idea.







Our walk around the lake tonight was a little late and it was disconcerting to arrive and find the army there, walking around with a small red lights from their night vision equipment, like moving red buttons, and the dark shape of trucks, port-a-loo and tents. They were just inside the gates of Lake Henley and appeared to be either camping on the ground there or about to pack up. Each year they arrive here for a training exercise so I presume that's what they are doing. You almost didn't know they were there. It was eerily quiet. Just as with babies, balloons and storytellers, their presence, their slicing red lights, and their shadows transformed the space.

Percy's Mart at night 4.6.2008

Promise of an interesting search!

Percy's Iron Pot Display

Percy's Mart, 19 Queen Street Masterton
often has interesting collections of items.

As you never know what you will find,

lunchtime foraging can be very interesting. Spotted this display out of the past recently.

Queen's Birthday Holiday

RUBY SPARKLES - GREYTOWN

I walked into a treasure trove in Greytown today,
Ruby Sparkles.

I had stopped to photograph the church spire behind the butcher shop when I heard some teenage girls behind, trying to attract my attention by loudly commenting that there was nothing worth photographing in Greytown.

Live in a town and don't see it's beauty.

As I tried to explain that to them this display outside
Ruby Sparkles caught my eye.

I headed across the road, stepped inside and lost my breath. It was like walking into Aladin's Cave; so bejewelled, lush and lovely! Fabric and jewellery, a huge candellabra and a very interesting space. Then the battery ran out on my camera! Promised myself I'm going back to this feast for my eyes might have girls afternoon next week.

Further down the valley I had earlier come across this wonderful car waiting for someone to love it again.