Things I love about SCD: the music.

There is a very regular pattern to my existence on a Thursday night.

1) Leave work feeling frazzled and grumpy from having to deal with so many silly people (how many stories about oddly-shaped kumara do we need in one paper anyway?).

2) Arrive home feeling even more frazzled and grumpy because I’ve just remembered I was meant to pick up sewing thread/printer paper/kumara for tea (what is it with kumara anyway?) and forgot.

3) Help get tea on feeling grazzled and frumpy because I’ve burnt the kumara (argh!!!).

4) Leave for SCD feeling grumpled and frizzy beacause I actually love kumara but my kumara was burnt.

5) Arrive at SCD freeling frumpled and grizzy – just in general.

6) Leave SCD at the end of the night feeling super-dooper-extra-chextra-woopdie-doodie great!

A major part of this turnaround is the music. You know they’ve done studies (at least I’ve read it somewhere on the interwebs so it must be true) that show the music we dance to actually helps to negate the effects of clinical depression? No wonder it works on me even on a bad kumara day!

I love the perkiness of jigs and the jollity of reels and the romance of strathspeys. Sometimes I just sit and listen to dance music (anyone heard that fantastic CD that was recorded at the Opotiki Queen’s Bday Weekend? Brilliant), and it always makes me feel better.

So, bloggers: what’s your favourite kind of music? SCD or otherwise? Does it affect you the same way it does me? Or am I on my own out here?

Hello?

Hello…..?

A few weeks ago our club, opotiki, had its final class for the year and so to celebrate we had a supper. 

To begin with I should say that we has a delightful evening with contributions of dances from a few different people, and the gleeful ”Mr J” played santa for the evening, after we had danced our feet off we enjoyed a delicious  supper.

Some of the best things that I remember from  that supper are the mini pecan pies which were excellent, also there were some Florentine style  which looked very nice.

But I would have to say the star of the evening were the expertly decorated cupcakes that were served on a gorgeous stand. There was chocolate with orange butter cream , vanilla with lemon butter cream and almond with something else(??).

Last night we successfully tackled all te earands (laundry, dishwashing, showering, shaving and trimming beard) and then slowly went to bed. Thanks to the iPhone I read all the world’s news and shockingly found out that we haven’t missed anything. The media is still massaging the masses with every tragedy or evil they can dig up since good an positive things don’t sell as good.

We wake up to the sound of the Pacific ocean, wind rocking the van gently and sun peaking through the “holes” in our covers. The birds and cycads make their noises. The first song on the radio is Michael Franti – Say Hey (I Love You) so a “trip” on iPhone to iTunes and we buy this lovely tune. Muesli bar, tea and fruit for breakfast. We drive around the town, stop at a surfshop and drive to Kaiti Beach. Then we park the van near McDonalds and take a stroll around town with its lovely buildings from the beginning of 20th century. We have nice lunch on a balcony of a bookstore cafe overlooking the main street.

Then I call a guy who does kitesurfing lessons here and meet him up at a skate park. Nice English fellow who lived in Perth and then moved here. Aparently the surfing culture is so strong here that he had to give up the kitesurfing school idea as no one was really interested. Strange, they’ve got the ocean and the winds but only stick to surfing. Closed minds are rather dangerous in every aspect of life. He also confirm what we have observed within the past 24 hrs. There are many Maori people here but besides the main street it feels a bit dodgy here. Seems that the racial or ethnic division is still rather strong and also encouraged. We have no idea as to how to view this, we simply pass through and take a note of it. The Maori have been here for over 700 years and the whites came some 200 yrs back and took land by killing them. Since it is historically so fresh we can’t judge how it feels.

We drive to the top of Kaiti Hill from where we can see the whole bay with the Dover like cliffs on the other side. This is the bay which Cpt. Cook called the Poverty Bay after he tried to land here, mistaken the ritual the Maori performed as act of war and killed 6 Maori before taking of further north. On one hand I admire him and other explorers for the courage and spirit of exploration but what followed is greed and abuse of the locals and their resources. I bought Cook’s notes to learn more. As we wait for the dude to bring the kite gear I see rain shower moving into the bay over the mountains.

I call him up and cancel the deal while highly appreciating his willingness to let me use his gear. We sit atop overlooking the bay, I read a bit while Katka takes a nap. Many locals swing by and I have to admit some of them look rather intimidating. We drive back down as the weather clears and the wind picks up again and sneak a shower at the campsite from last night. As we walk out we see a group of people on the beach and in the water. We have heard about a dolphins who comes here for almost three years and messes with people and their boards. Amazingly, it’s him and surely enough he “stole” a body board from some kid and is slowly taking it away. As the life guards on a small boat try to get it back he always waits till they are about to grab it before he pops in and takes it away. An amazing inteligence and agility.

After watching te dolphine for a while we walk back to the van and Katka heats up two soups from can. They are actually pretty good. We pack up and leave Gisborne behind. I feel frustrated from my own indecisiveness. As we are leaving the wind is pumping and though I know Katka would be just fine with me kitesurfing, I feel like it needs/can wait and we need to move on. Until now I felt pretty ok with the pace but lately I feel like we are chasing around trying to “see” things rather than enjoy them to the fullest. I wonder if even the people who travel for 2-3 years feel that they are running short on time? I learn about myself that at times I am not aggressive enough to pursue what I want and as a result end up frustrated. Whether it’s kitesurfing when it’s windy or not stopping to take a photo. The bad thing is that the frustration boils into short fuse and anger often.

Anyway, we leave Gisborne with mixed feelings and drive on SH2 NW to Opotiki. It’s only 120km but thanks to Waioeka Gorge and its windy road it takes us nearly 2 hrs to drive without stopping. Leaving Gisborne we first pass fruit farms and vineyards and then the plains give way to grassy steep hills with horizontal lines from sheep. The light warms up and brings the nice shades of green. As we start our decent through the gorge the sides are suddenly covered in what appears to be old native forest of umbrella ferns, palm trees and some other kinds of tree. Very “exotic” look. In Opotiki we fuel up at BP with a nice and gentle guy with hearing aid. Why is it that people bearing such crosses radiate such goodness and kindness?

We drive on on SH2 for a while and in Kutarere turn right to take ocean road to Whakatane. The sun is setting and the colors in the sky go wild. Beautiful shades of light blue mix with orange, red and purple. The beauty reflects in the low tide paddles. We arrive in Ohope and take a right to the edge of the peninsula. We camp under a tree right next to the Ohiwa Harbor.

Sixteen cows were electrocuted  on a Bay of Plenty farm when a twister brought down high voltage power lines.

The tornado ripped through the Jackson Rd area, east of Opotiki, accompanied by heavy rain and hail. It also demolished two barns, scattered trees and wrecked hundreds of metres of fencing.

Farmer Graham Collier said the twister ripped out several power-poles, dropping high-voltage power lines that electrocuted 16 in-calf cows.

“There was a lot of rain and hail coming down and then the windows on the house and the ranch sliders started rattling and moving – some of them by several inches. It was quite scary,” Mr Collier said.

“I went outside and checked the cowshed. A couple of 25,000-litre water tanks had been lifted by the twister. They were empty but lashed to the fence.”

The tornado took the tanks and fence, and dragged them through two other fences, damaging more than 300 metres in all, Mr Collier said.

Mr Collier said he noticed the wires and a gate were still glowing and was not able to do anything until the power was shut down.

Nature throwing a tantrum can be very scarey. And those poor cows, the only comfort is that if they were struck by high voltage wires they literally wouldn’t know what hit them.