The world is full of light: the lights of the valley below, the twinkly lights on the banister of our balcony that we put up for Advent. Stars. Sunsets. Huge moons that look like great gold pieces. Our new home seems to be illuminated in all sorts of ways, especially with the wonderful afternoon and evening light we get here.
Coming home from work is like coming on a retreat: the total privacy of this house wraps itself around me the moment I walk in the door. And yet, it's on quite a busy road (the main road in and out of our hillside suburb) and it's only 5 minutes to the centre of Lower Hutt and 25 minutes to Wellington (without traffic!). Our living room overlooks the valley and Wellington Harbour, and the view is spectacular. No two days are the same - not even two minutes - and it's always lovely. Even when the storms roll in, we can see the clouds coming in over the water, and we get wrapped in clouds up here. No window is overlooked by any other house: the only windows that look onto the street are the dining room, and they are shielded by native trees. Our bedroom looks out onto the deck, and it's shielded by trees from the street so it's totally private. This house is an introvert's paradise!
Returning to our parish church of St James has been like going home again: returning to liturgy, to good music, to good friends who welcome us back into the family. In some ways its as though we never left but in others, we've learnt new things we can offer St James, and the parish has created new traditions that we're becoming part of. One of them was a lovely surprise last week, on the solemnity of Christ the King, last day of the church's year. It was a solemn high mass, concelebrated by three priests, with millions of candles (more or less!), and incense! Lots and lots of incense! The music was the normal St James sung liturgy, although the priest leading it sang the entire prayer of consecration which we don't usually do. It was fabulous. The only slight drawback from my point of view was that I had laryngitis and literally couldn't make a noise at all - the humour of the hymn choice struck me when we sang "Let all mortal flesh keep silence" - I didn't have a choice! It was a relief to sing "rejoice" today on Advent Sunday!
St James has also always had a strong tradition of getting children involved in the liturgical life of the parish. We hadn't been back three minutes when I was asked to rejoin the choir (which I did with joy), and our daughter was asked to be a Herald. The Herald is a tradition peculiar to St James, where a child carries a taiaha behind the crucifer in all the processionals, and is responsible for reading the opening sentence of the liturgy, and leading the processional of the offertory up to the altar. They wear child-sized liturgical robes. It's a sort of junior server: the next step is serving the altar, and then being crucifer or liturgist. Our daughter very proudly did her first service as Herald a couple of weeks ago, and was very pleased that she got to be Herald on the First Sunday of Advent. Hubby has picked up his camera for the parish again, and has been mixing the sound and running the powerpoint (a new innovation for St James since we left). I've also been writing for the parish magazine again, which was pretty cool.
We've also found outlets for most of our other activities: we've found an archery club in Trentham - the only drawback is that they don't have an indoor range so if the weather's nasty, there's no shooting. However, they do have a clout and field range, which we didn't have in Rotorua. Daughter has Linked from Brownies to Girl Guides here, and has had a wonderful term with Guides here (sewing box came out again for yet more badges!). Hubby has returned to the camera club here, and is rediscovering pottery which he used to do years ago. I'm loving having my friends and professional networks back, and the challenge of what I'm doing at work is really interesting.
So, all in all, the move has worked well. It's good to be back!
Showing posts with label Archery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Archery. Show all posts
29 November 2015
28 April 2015
Take a bow
I got to work today to discover that a good friend and colleague from my Kinleith days died overnight - the second Kinleith friend to die in a week (the first was one of our electricians, also a friend). Added to the death of my uncle on Good Friday and it's getting somewhat painful.
I don't have any real words to say, only loss and empathy for his family and other friends. He was an archer, a passionate medieval re-enactor, a larger-than-life person with whom I shared many long and cheerful chats, recipes, and fun. I helped co-ordinate his rehab when he cut his hand at work just after I started at Kinleith in 2012 and we became good friends through that process. It is partly his influence that meant I took up archery, even though I opted for all the mod cons on my compound bow rather than a bare medieval longbow.
We went to the Taupo Medieval Faire that he started last year and grew to very impressive and entertaining proportions this year. We had a good chat there and he showed our daughter his dagger and sword - she was suitably impressed (so was I!). The crazy thing is that I never saw him shoot, even though he was mad keen on his longbow. He made all his own arrows and equipment - he was amazingly clever with his hands and loved making stuff - and he was a very gifted cook. His medieval recipes used to make me hungry just listening....
I will miss him. It's hard to imagine Kinleith without him. May he rest in peace and rise in glory - with his bow to hand.
1 March 2015
Red things go faster
Last week, it was our 14th wedding anniversary. Hubby and I were supposed to go out for dinner to a lovely little cheap'n'cheerful Thai place we really like, but I ended up unexpectedly covering a training course out of town and didn't get home in time. We had a bit of a time-limit - we were planning our date together while daughter was at Brownies. Date subsequently deferred until tomorrow when she's at Brownies again!
Today it's officially the first day of autumn, but no-one bothered to tell the weather! It was an absolute scorcher: it was officially 26degC, but the thermometer was showing that in our hallway (one of the coolest parts of the house) so it was nearer 30 or more in the living room, and more than that outside. They take the readings at the airport! However, the sky is deepening into that gorgeous rich blue you only see in autumn, and the nights are definitely cooler. Waiting for leaves to start to change soon.
This morning, we braved the sun (suitably smothered in sunblock) for a good morning of archery down at the club: groups were a bit wide for my liking but we have had a bit of a layoff. After lunch, we explored the end-of-season sales in search of a new microwave: the one we had was a wedding present from my grandmother and had started to develop some slightly alarming characteristics, such as randomly starting operations when you opened the door, and not stopping cooking when the door was opened.... Obviously the interlock was going a little feral, and it was time to honourably retire it, hence the trip to the sales.
I love 60% off. I also love bright red. We needed a new microwave. Those three things came cheerfully together this afternoon when we found a bright red microwave at 60% off, along with a bright red food processor (of the sort bread-making hubby has been salivating over for two years now) also with 60% off.... Two appliances for half of the standard price of the microwave.
And now my kitchen will probably get a speeding ticket, because red things go faster!
Today it's officially the first day of autumn, but no-one bothered to tell the weather! It was an absolute scorcher: it was officially 26degC, but the thermometer was showing that in our hallway (one of the coolest parts of the house) so it was nearer 30 or more in the living room, and more than that outside. They take the readings at the airport! However, the sky is deepening into that gorgeous rich blue you only see in autumn, and the nights are definitely cooler. Waiting for leaves to start to change soon.
This morning, we braved the sun (suitably smothered in sunblock) for a good morning of archery down at the club: groups were a bit wide for my liking but we have had a bit of a layoff. After lunch, we explored the end-of-season sales in search of a new microwave: the one we had was a wedding present from my grandmother and had started to develop some slightly alarming characteristics, such as randomly starting operations when you opened the door, and not stopping cooking when the door was opened.... Obviously the interlock was going a little feral, and it was time to honourably retire it, hence the trip to the sales.
I love 60% off. I also love bright red. We needed a new microwave. Those three things came cheerfully together this afternoon when we found a bright red microwave at 60% off, along with a bright red food processor (of the sort bread-making hubby has been salivating over for two years now) also with 60% off.... Two appliances for half of the standard price of the microwave.
And now my kitchen will probably get a speeding ticket, because red things go faster!
15 December 2014
Still here...
The calendar reads 15 December and it was Gaudete Sunday yesterday - somehow my brain looks at those two things and thinks, "Does not compute!" I'm not quite sure how it's got to the last working week of the year already. This year grew wings and just took off!
In my last post, I was thinking about little boxes in the spice drawer. Well, now there are little boxes everywhere. My pantry is the tidiest and cleanest it's been for 6 months, and all the kitchen cupboards have all been cleaned and tidied. I've been working steadily around all those little nooks and crannies that seem to create dirt, even if dirt never gets near them!
I've also been doing lots of practice with The Thing, my lovely compound bow (okay, that's my name for it), and my groupings have been getting quite close. The next piece of kit that's on the radar is a proper release aid - I've got a wrist release and want to move to a hand-held one. I tried one out the other day and it was gorgeous: the only problem was that it was for three fingers only and my pinky felt like it was waving uselessly around. I prefer the four-finger ones because all of my hand feels engaged and there's less pull through the wrist. Now to find one I like! Unfortunately the one I found that I liked doesn't come in a four-finger model....
Small daughter has had a good time recently, with another gold medal in her final trampolining competition of the year, and a wonderful report from school. Hubby has nearly finished trolling through the piles of final marking for his students, and I am trying to get my desk cleared before the office closes on Friday. The directors decided that they would give us the three days before Christmas as paid days off that aren't leave, which is rather nice. Good timing too - can finish off those last-minute preparations before Christmas!
In my last post, I was thinking about little boxes in the spice drawer. Well, now there are little boxes everywhere. My pantry is the tidiest and cleanest it's been for 6 months, and all the kitchen cupboards have all been cleaned and tidied. I've been working steadily around all those little nooks and crannies that seem to create dirt, even if dirt never gets near them!
I've also been doing lots of practice with The Thing, my lovely compound bow (okay, that's my name for it), and my groupings have been getting quite close. The next piece of kit that's on the radar is a proper release aid - I've got a wrist release and want to move to a hand-held one. I tried one out the other day and it was gorgeous: the only problem was that it was for three fingers only and my pinky felt like it was waving uselessly around. I prefer the four-finger ones because all of my hand feels engaged and there's less pull through the wrist. Now to find one I like! Unfortunately the one I found that I liked doesn't come in a four-finger model....
Small daughter has had a good time recently, with another gold medal in her final trampolining competition of the year, and a wonderful report from school. Hubby has nearly finished trolling through the piles of final marking for his students, and I am trying to get my desk cleared before the office closes on Friday. The directors decided that they would give us the three days before Christmas as paid days off that aren't leave, which is rather nice. Good timing too - can finish off those last-minute preparations before Christmas!
24 November 2014
Pottering, and potting
This weekend was full of doings. I've had a list of things that I want to get done, and we knocked off quite a few of them. The most satisfying was organising our herb and spice drawer. Years ago, we got a whole lot of round pots (the sort you used to get Chinese takeaways in when we were kids) and put all the herbs and spices in them. We needed a lot of pots because we have a lot of herbs and spices and we buy them in bulk because it's cheaper (and we use a lot of flavours in cooking).
The problem started when we moved to Rotorua. The drawer we use here for herbs and spices is smaller than the one we had - narrower and not so deep. We had to stack pots two high, and they stuck on the drawers, the lids flicked off, herbs and spices were self-combining in unplanned ways in the bottom of the drawer. It wasn't working. So we've been watching for a while until our favourite little stacking boxes with clip-on lids came on sale again and we got little pots and boxes. We relocated herbs. I wrote lots of neat little sticker labels. Boxes won't come undone. They stack - neatly. The whole thing looks like a work of art and it is so easy to find the herbs we want when cooking now.
We also weedmatted and barked another chunk of the front garden, I tidied the bathroom cupboards, and pottered around making things. Planted a lot more herbs (we like them fresh as well as dried!), and am hoping the oregano will stand up and be counted soon: it's looking a bit dismal...
Yesterday was also my first time shooting my compound since it became mine. I bought it off a club member who was selling it for her son: it was an astonishingly good buy because it came complete with arrows, sights, bow bag, release aid, quiver - the whole lot, pretty much. I shot it outside at 25m - my first time outside and at that distance - and it felt good. Took a while before I got the sights in but then the groupings began to come together and it started to get tidier. I love the total presence that I have to be to the bow and the arrow: it is very contemplative. The more still I am inside, the better my shot. At least that part of archery is not something I have to learn!
This coming weekend is the welcome of our new Bishop to the Bay of Plenty part of the Diocese of Waiapu. Looking forward to meeting him, and it's quite appropriate that it's on Advent Sunday too!
The problem started when we moved to Rotorua. The drawer we use here for herbs and spices is smaller than the one we had - narrower and not so deep. We had to stack pots two high, and they stuck on the drawers, the lids flicked off, herbs and spices were self-combining in unplanned ways in the bottom of the drawer. It wasn't working. So we've been watching for a while until our favourite little stacking boxes with clip-on lids came on sale again and we got little pots and boxes. We relocated herbs. I wrote lots of neat little sticker labels. Boxes won't come undone. They stack - neatly. The whole thing looks like a work of art and it is so easy to find the herbs we want when cooking now.
We also weedmatted and barked another chunk of the front garden, I tidied the bathroom cupboards, and pottered around making things. Planted a lot more herbs (we like them fresh as well as dried!), and am hoping the oregano will stand up and be counted soon: it's looking a bit dismal...
Yesterday was also my first time shooting my compound since it became mine. I bought it off a club member who was selling it for her son: it was an astonishingly good buy because it came complete with arrows, sights, bow bag, release aid, quiver - the whole lot, pretty much. I shot it outside at 25m - my first time outside and at that distance - and it felt good. Took a while before I got the sights in but then the groupings began to come together and it started to get tidier. I love the total presence that I have to be to the bow and the arrow: it is very contemplative. The more still I am inside, the better my shot. At least that part of archery is not something I have to learn!
This coming weekend is the welcome of our new Bishop to the Bay of Plenty part of the Diocese of Waiapu. Looking forward to meeting him, and it's quite appropriate that it's on Advent Sunday too!
16 November 2014
Contemplation and finding ghosts
Today was an interesting day.
This morning's 8am service (which we finally made! Yay!) was an oasis of peace, focused liturgy, and a wonderfully challenging sermon on the necessity for being open to change and challenge, and finding the flexibility to allow that to happen even if it isn't that comfortable. It was a real affirmation for me that I am on the right path in seeking Sophia, because it isn't comfortable. It feels awkward, difficult, strange, but at the same time, it is a large spacious place that I am invited into. I know it's right for me to be open to her and to follow her, but I also know it's awkward for other people sometimes...
From that, we went straight to the range. One of the things I'm loving about archery is that it is not something you can do while thinking about other things. It requires total focus, total presence to the body, the bow, and the arrow. It is very contemplative in some ways. I was shooting recurve again today, which I haven't done for a couple of weeks, and it felt very different. I was just beginning to get the feel of a compound, and switching back was a bit of a challenge, but a good challenge. I was focusing on body form: on how my body moves and stabilises and balances through and after the draw. It felt good, but what I was truly surprised by was that I didn't feel at all sore after it, and the recurve was really easy to draw after the compound I've been using.
And this afternoon, I flew down to Wellington: I am delivering a course here over the next couple of days (standing in for a colleague who is sick). It feels a little odd to be back here - I am staying in Plimmerton to be closer to the venue, so not back in the Hutt, but it was strange driving through Wellington from the airport. There are new roads and even a new tunnel that I didn't recognise - and we've only been gone not quite three years. So here I am: in a motel room in Plimmerton, hearing fireworks going off directly across the road, and thinking how odd it is to be back, to be here but not here, to see these places I grew up in, but not belong. It feels like a ghost of my former life in some ways.
I hope they finish up with those fireworks soon: I think I need to go to bed.Com I need to remember to account for traffic here....!
This morning's 8am service (which we finally made! Yay!) was an oasis of peace, focused liturgy, and a wonderfully challenging sermon on the necessity for being open to change and challenge, and finding the flexibility to allow that to happen even if it isn't that comfortable. It was a real affirmation for me that I am on the right path in seeking Sophia, because it isn't comfortable. It feels awkward, difficult, strange, but at the same time, it is a large spacious place that I am invited into. I know it's right for me to be open to her and to follow her, but I also know it's awkward for other people sometimes...
From that, we went straight to the range. One of the things I'm loving about archery is that it is not something you can do while thinking about other things. It requires total focus, total presence to the body, the bow, and the arrow. It is very contemplative in some ways. I was shooting recurve again today, which I haven't done for a couple of weeks, and it felt very different. I was just beginning to get the feel of a compound, and switching back was a bit of a challenge, but a good challenge. I was focusing on body form: on how my body moves and stabilises and balances through and after the draw. It felt good, but what I was truly surprised by was that I didn't feel at all sore after it, and the recurve was really easy to draw after the compound I've been using.
And this afternoon, I flew down to Wellington: I am delivering a course here over the next couple of days (standing in for a colleague who is sick). It feels a little odd to be back here - I am staying in Plimmerton to be closer to the venue, so not back in the Hutt, but it was strange driving through Wellington from the airport. There are new roads and even a new tunnel that I didn't recognise - and we've only been gone not quite three years. So here I am: in a motel room in Plimmerton, hearing fireworks going off directly across the road, and thinking how odd it is to be back, to be here but not here, to see these places I grew up in, but not belong. It feels like a ghost of my former life in some ways.
I hope they finish up with those fireworks soon: I think I need to go to bed.Com I need to remember to account for traffic here....!
9 November 2014
One of those moments
I had one of "those" moments today. I have recently taken up archery, after hubby urged me to give it a go. He used to shoot when he was a schoolboy and always wanted to try again. There is a good club here and he joined it a few months ago, and suggested I come along to try one day. I did, and was instantly hooked.
I've been shooting recurve since I started, using the club's equipment. However, when I got to shooting this morning, the head coach beckoned me over and set me up with a compound bow: he thought that it might sort out my laterality problem: I am strongly left-handed but my right eye is dominant, which has been making aiming on the recurve tricky because I keep trying to sight with my right eye (I've been closing my right eye but my left eye is significantly weaker). The other option was wearing a patch!
Getting set up for compound shooting is much more complicated. The bow itself looks like a spider web, with three strings, two pulleys (cams) and much shorter limbs. There's also a heap of equipment: front sight, rear sight (peep), stabiliser, and string release. I was shooting without the stabiliser (I was happy about that because the bow itself is pretty heavy and I found that it made my shoulder tired!) and it took some doing just to get everything sorted and draw it. But once the cams turned over and the string let off (the cams take up to 85% of the draw power once they turn over), and I sighted and released, the power of the thing just blew me away!
I was shooting from 5m just to get the feel of it and the arrows were at least 20cm deep into the target. And it was astonishingly accurate: the sights helped but it also felt incredibly natural to draw and shoot. My first grouping with it had all six arrows touching and I nearly hit one with another one. It felt like someone had handed me the moon....
I have felt a little bit dazed all day, actually. I can't quite believe what happened this morning. In fact, I'm not sure what happened but it felt good!
I've been shooting recurve since I started, using the club's equipment. However, when I got to shooting this morning, the head coach beckoned me over and set me up with a compound bow: he thought that it might sort out my laterality problem: I am strongly left-handed but my right eye is dominant, which has been making aiming on the recurve tricky because I keep trying to sight with my right eye (I've been closing my right eye but my left eye is significantly weaker). The other option was wearing a patch!
Getting set up for compound shooting is much more complicated. The bow itself looks like a spider web, with three strings, two pulleys (cams) and much shorter limbs. There's also a heap of equipment: front sight, rear sight (peep), stabiliser, and string release. I was shooting without the stabiliser (I was happy about that because the bow itself is pretty heavy and I found that it made my shoulder tired!) and it took some doing just to get everything sorted and draw it. But once the cams turned over and the string let off (the cams take up to 85% of the draw power once they turn over), and I sighted and released, the power of the thing just blew me away!
I was shooting from 5m just to get the feel of it and the arrows were at least 20cm deep into the target. And it was astonishingly accurate: the sights helped but it also felt incredibly natural to draw and shoot. My first grouping with it had all six arrows touching and I nearly hit one with another one. It felt like someone had handed me the moon....
I have felt a little bit dazed all day, actually. I can't quite believe what happened this morning. In fact, I'm not sure what happened but it felt good!
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