Otago to Udny 2 - Nigh
My dear Udny,
'Nigh' is a funny word is it not? We never really use it do we, unless it has; 'the end is', in front of it.
This week we have been working on replacing one corner of our little tin house. An old labourers hut built when the big sheep station needed many men, it has charm and history, but inside it is a health hazard. The roof is galvanised iron and the rusty sides are oil drums cut and flattened to make 3 foot sheets and nailed togethor. We are aiming to replace the old wash house area delicately, and John who helped us last time is coming to guide us in the build and provide muscle. Chris is already missing Bob from Scotland and John has only spent a day here.. Bob, never says anything personal. He only comments on the weather and what materials are needed. He takes breaks precisely, and unless he gets onto the subject of motor racing he keeps schtum. John on the other hand is interested in everything. Its hard to keep him focused. ... He is a fervent believer that the end of the world is coming in 2012. He keeps bees and chickens and has invented a solar hot water system to keep himself safe..but he has no sooner finished talking about the end, than he tells us of his future dream to go to the U.K. and run barges full of wood pellets along the old canal system to take advantage of the predicted surge in bio fuel for household boilers. Holding two contradictory ideas at the same time indicates a breadth of intellect Chris can do without.
However in the eight hours he was here, we demolished the old wash house, dug out the surrounding earth with its mummified rabbits and cleared the site.
On a wet Plymouth Saturday in the 50s I remember a grey gaberdined man walking with a placard saying the end was nigh then. Is it always nigh in some peoples minds or are there different nighs, every now and then? Around that time the New Zealand Poet Hone Tuwhare was writing about bombs being tested on the pacific islands in his poem 'No ordinary Sun', so someones end or at least their homes had been nigh after all.
Whilst we were working this week there was an article in the Otago Daily Times about the restoration of Hone Tuwhare's one bedroomed home where he wrote his poetry. In the four years since he died there have been plans to make it into a writers residency. Funding has been a problem, but now a charity is going to take it on and the cost has been estimated to be between 3 and 500thousand dollars. That is a quarter of a million quid! It takes your breath away.
We are hoping to achieve a lot in our little shed for around 1000 dollars, and then I might write in it too.....
Hone is interesting... (his name is pronounced ho-nay) He was Moari, but was brought up speaking English and apprenticed as a boilermaker in the 50s. (Think Dylan Thomas on the coast of the South Island. I think they are doing up Dylan's writing hut too, I wonder how much that is costing.)
His family had a strong oral tradition and his poetry was of, and for, the people.
In his poetry, he animates objects. A child talks to a stone on the way home from school or a statue of a Maori figure contemplates its surroundings. (see: To a Maori figure cast in bronze).
He is all poetry is old Hone: "Rain, I can hear you making small holes in the silence".
It doesnt sound as if he had much time for any thing else..like house renovation does it? Some of us prefer our working lives to have a seasoning of poetry, like seeing an unexpected clump of primroses, or finding a jelly bean at the bottom of ones hand bag. Poetry may be the heart of man but he has to eat, say some of us. The couple who looked after old Hone in his later years and supplied him with groceries said it was entertaining that he had two home made signs, to put by his door. One said, 'Welcome, come in and we'll chat'. The other was too rude for the kind lady to be able to tell the interviewer. ... I think Chris needs a couple of those signs, when the builder John is here and he starts feeling his end is nigh.
Warmly Yours
Otago
'Nigh' is a funny word is it not? We never really use it do we, unless it has; 'the end is', in front of it.
This week we have been working on replacing one corner of our little tin house. An old labourers hut built when the big sheep station needed many men, it has charm and history, but inside it is a health hazard. The roof is galvanised iron and the rusty sides are oil drums cut and flattened to make 3 foot sheets and nailed togethor. We are aiming to replace the old wash house area delicately, and John who helped us last time is coming to guide us in the build and provide muscle. Chris is already missing Bob from Scotland and John has only spent a day here.. Bob, never says anything personal. He only comments on the weather and what materials are needed. He takes breaks precisely, and unless he gets onto the subject of motor racing he keeps schtum. John on the other hand is interested in everything. Its hard to keep him focused. ... He is a fervent believer that the end of the world is coming in 2012. He keeps bees and chickens and has invented a solar hot water system to keep himself safe..but he has no sooner finished talking about the end, than he tells us of his future dream to go to the U.K. and run barges full of wood pellets along the old canal system to take advantage of the predicted surge in bio fuel for household boilers. Holding two contradictory ideas at the same time indicates a breadth of intellect Chris can do without.
However in the eight hours he was here, we demolished the old wash house, dug out the surrounding earth with its mummified rabbits and cleared the site.
On a wet Plymouth Saturday in the 50s I remember a grey gaberdined man walking with a placard saying the end was nigh then. Is it always nigh in some peoples minds or are there different nighs, every now and then? Around that time the New Zealand Poet Hone Tuwhare was writing about bombs being tested on the pacific islands in his poem 'No ordinary Sun', so someones end or at least their homes had been nigh after all.
Whilst we were working this week there was an article in the Otago Daily Times about the restoration of Hone Tuwhare's one bedroomed home where he wrote his poetry. In the four years since he died there have been plans to make it into a writers residency. Funding has been a problem, but now a charity is going to take it on and the cost has been estimated to be between 3 and 500thousand dollars. That is a quarter of a million quid! It takes your breath away.
We are hoping to achieve a lot in our little shed for around 1000 dollars, and then I might write in it too.....
Hone is interesting... (his name is pronounced ho-nay) He was Moari, but was brought up speaking English and apprenticed as a boilermaker in the 50s. (Think Dylan Thomas on the coast of the South Island. I think they are doing up Dylan's writing hut too, I wonder how much that is costing.)
His family had a strong oral tradition and his poetry was of, and for, the people.
In his poetry, he animates objects. A child talks to a stone on the way home from school or a statue of a Maori figure contemplates its surroundings. (see: To a Maori figure cast in bronze).
He is all poetry is old Hone: "Rain, I can hear you making small holes in the silence".
It doesnt sound as if he had much time for any thing else..like house renovation does it? Some of us prefer our working lives to have a seasoning of poetry, like seeing an unexpected clump of primroses, or finding a jelly bean at the bottom of ones hand bag. Poetry may be the heart of man but he has to eat, say some of us. The couple who looked after old Hone in his later years and supplied him with groceries said it was entertaining that he had two home made signs, to put by his door. One said, 'Welcome, come in and we'll chat'. The other was too rude for the kind lady to be able to tell the interviewer. ... I think Chris needs a couple of those signs, when the builder John is here and he starts feeling his end is nigh.
Warmly Yours
Otago