Blogger's block.

It seems time to do another blog, but I am suffering from blogger's block: not at all sure what I should write about. It's like writer's block--a failure of inspiration. How on earth do these columnists do it every week? Discipline, I suppose, and an uncanny knack of writing an exact number of words, acquired after loads of practice, made easier these days by 'word count.'

I thought I might say something about zebra crossings here in New Zealand. If you are crossing a street, you can put one toe onto the crossing and even if an oncoming car is only ten yards away and moving at 50 mph--it WILL stop. New Zealand drivers also seem to be able to anticipate that you are going to cross--even if you are only toying with the idea. They can sense it. And if you stand back a little and wave the car on as a courtesy, your gesture will be ignored and the car will stop.

Yesterday we did an urban hike here in Wellington, mainly through parks, but occasionally on roads, partly to get a better understanding of the geography of the city. Hills surround those parts of Wellington overlooking the harbour, but major areas of the city are over those hills; and getting to them generally means climbing up those steep and winding roads and then driving down equally steep and winding roads on the other side. We got lost a couple of times on our hike, but Joan's map-reading skills got us back on track, and the views we had over the city from the numerous outlooks helped us to get a much better idea of how to get around.

At the Cable Car Museum, which we hiked to at the top of the Cable Car track, we saw a video about Wellington's private cable cars. Private in the sense that home owners have had them installed to get them up to their houses perched on the steep hills. There are apparently over 300 private "cable cars" in Wellington. The rubric covers a lot of elevator devices that may or may not be using cables. Some are installed by older people who can no longer face all the steps up to their houses: a few others have been installed by home-owners who have no other access to their houses. We can see a couple of these cable cars from our apartment, and one of them was featured in the video. The people have three quaters of an acre on a very steep hill, and their house can only be reached from a sea level road by the cable car. They have garage at sea level, where a main road follows the sea around the bay (Evans Bay for anyone who knows Wellington.)
And a propos winding roads, the other night I had to make a tight turn on a very steep road, and it took me three 'bites' to do it--forward, back, forward, back etc. while holding up a stream of traffic behind me.
New Zealanders seem to have the British penchant for understatement, and this extends to the Met Office in their description of the winds. First thing this morning, with Joan refusing to run because the wind was howling, the Met Office told us--last ten minutes 25 km/h gusting to 55 km/h. This was described with what I thought was irony as "moderate." Later in the morning, after we had started beef stew in the slow cooker, and just before we set out on a perambulation into the town, the speed was up to 35 km/h, gusting to 78 km/h--described as "fresh." When we came back from the town, after some fighting with the wind, the speed was 50km/h, gusting to 94 km/h--and now the Met Office did concede "strong." A day or two ago we went into an art gallery when the weather was "fresh." I remarked on the wind to the proprietor, and he responded--"Bit draughty today." (Aside to my brother, John--sorry I did not fall into the 'drafty' trap--I know you would have loved to correct me).
I think that does it for today. I was going to do something on the electronic travellers (us) with the I-pods and I-phones, Garmins, and computer, cell phone and charger, MP3 player (my music for walking alone), Blackberry, whatever. Heavens, what gear we have. And I have not mentioned two digital cameras, and their connections to the computer. And yet--all has been used to good effect (though the GPS could have let us down by getting us hopelessly lost on our drive here). The computer has been invaluable, though it's use has been almost exclusively on the Internet--the exception the OED, which I have installed. Next time, I would buy a net-book: much cheaper than a serious laptop like the one we have, which is heavy and a bit of a load to cart around. A net-book would get you into the Internet and cover almost all our main uses.
I mentioned the beef stew in the slow cooker. The oven here does not work, and our landlady brought us over a slow cooker. Where did we get the recipe? From the Internet, of course.
And Google maps have been very helpful in plotting routes. And the New Zealand Department of Conservation (not "Environment" as I said in an earlier post) has a site with all the information one needs on walks and national parks.
And then, of course, blogging helps fill the time when we are cooped up in our glass box and beginning to get a bit of cabin fever.
Posted by David at 5.00 pm NZ time Jan, 2, 2010 (twenty ten, I suppose it is being called)