October 2006 - the month that was

Wave Wahines .. finally

7 weeks later, here are the few shots I managed to take on the Wave Wahines film shoot on the 16th of September.

I won!

got a call yesterday avo.. I won a raffle!!!

A big grocery hamper.. from a ticket I bought at the Wakari Art Groups exhibiton in the Community Gallery.
Its amazing how things come exactly when you need them, as I had no idea how I was going to buy food this week.

Heres an insight into my girls though, I told them they could pick any ONE item from the hamper for themselves ( but not the wine or the Cadbury Favourites)..

Amber chose a jar of Sundried Tomatoes and Caitlin picked a can of Condensed Milk :0)

Caitlin shooting Blackhead

Blackhead today Caitlin on the digi camera, me on the vid camera, both got some okay shots, although overcast and grey for the 2 hours we were there, high wind chill factor too.

St Kilda morn ..

Ran out of milk this morning, so had to make a dash to couplands to get some stocks, and swung by St Kilda, two guys out at 7.30 overcast but a warm glow happening. just a few pics, before I had to rush breakfast liquid back to the girls.
Uploaded on my laptop so they look a bit yuk, but got my new computer back 10 mins ago from its second trip back to prosouth where they had replaced the motherboard which was faulty.. ( way better than waiting 8 weeks from Harvey Normans, they did the whole process in a day and a half.. now I ask myself why I get computers that spit their motherboards??
Well I am assured now that I will have no more probs at all. SO this afternoon I will give it a test with the storm card and my new copy of Premiere Pro and do a surf edit on the film footage I took on Monday at St Clair.

El Nino.. yeah

I know I haven't ventured much past my back door the last few weeks, but my locals St Clair and Blackhead have been pits of mush, maybe I shouldn't even use the word pit.. yesterday I had a lovely long post all written out with graphs of the presence of the El Nino southern oscillating weather pattern we are currently experiencing and how its affecting the surf, wind and rainfall.. and the computer froze I lost it all. SO imagine it..
so heres a few shots form the last month I never got up on the blog.

My Daughter Amber bought her first car today, part of her plan to leave home before xmas and live in Ashburton with her boyfriend, and last night my son texted me to tell me he was moving to OZ to live.. haven't heard from him since, maybe he didn't like my reply.. one of my favourite sayings from many years ago I held on to when life sucked and I wanted to run away.. "Wherever you go.. there you are" it was on a telecom postcard with a cartoon of an oldschool Ford Falcon. Now I don't need to run away, my kids are running away from me!! Floyd loves me though :0)

Commercial Development of St Clair

If you have a short drive around the immediate area of St Clair Beach you will discover some newly erected signs advertising 2 proposed new commercial developments.

Firstly between The Esplanade Restaurant in the Hydro Building and the Startfish Cafe is a large sign erected in the middle of the vacant lot informing the public of the development of a three storey commercial food/cafe buliding with day/spa and offices above, expressions of interest in future tenancies of the new building is also invited. This development has been in the pipeline for over 3 years where it was initially going to be a Thai Restaurant.

The previous building on the vacant lot was demolished in 2001 where it had lived its life as a dairy since 1923. Then it was known as 'Thomas Holloway Walker's fruiterer and confectioner' .. in 1927 it changed hands and became T. and E. Saager then from 1935-45 it was the 'James Algie Dairy'. In 1948 it was run as the St Clair Milk Bar till 1976 when it changed hands and name to 'The Shoreline Milk Bar', then 'Leishmans Dairy' till its demolition in 2001.

Around the corner on Bedford Street a sign was sneakily erected on the back fence of 236 Forbury Road which declares an application for Resource Consent for the demolition of the existing dwelling and commercial building which currently houses a flat and Wendys Hair Fashion. It is proposed that a new commercial building be erected to house a Beauty Therapy Business.

This is rather a sad demise of such a long standing St Clair building, which is currently the longest running commercial buliding in the area. It began its life as a store in 1884, and during its reign it switched hands many times alternating between a grocers and a telegraphist/telephone office until in 1961 when it became a hair salon 'Salon Susan' and then in 1965 'Kaylyn' Hairdressing Salon, then switching to the current tenant 'Wendy's Hair Fashion'.

(Although I must say that the building is rotten, and I have personally in the last few months been in the back flat where I have put my foot through the bathroom floor right down to the ground below. ) Yes, he building is old and rotten and probably due for demilition.
But what do you think of the idea of a beauty salon? I thought perhaps a more community based dwelling would serve the St Clair area, but the submisson period for this resource consent closed on the 13th October unfortunately, and it looks like this project will be going ahead unless unknown to me there were some protests see DCC consent page here

So whats up? seems St Clair appears to be becoming a bit of a mecca for beauty therapy, hair art and wellbeing..
Well nothing new for St Clair, as of course the medicinal properties of the salt water bathing in the area was declared over 120 years ago. In 1884 the council at the time developed and enlarged a natural depression in the rocks at the site of the current hot salt water pool to provide 'the baths' where strict hours were kept for separate bathing of males and females. Over the decades it was heralded as a healing place where many ailments were claimed to be cured such as rheumatism, sciatica and nervous diseases. Massage and physiotherapy was practiced there too.

Various constructions of bathing buldings have sprung up and been demolished, burnt down, or revamped and now the area houses a top class Hot Salt Water Poll, a cafe 'Classic Cafe' with the most unique view/vantage point for sipping lattes I have seen in NZ, with some pretty cool artworks on the wall (unashamed plug).
The pool opens again this weekend for the 2006-7 season.

Danny milking St Clair chop

This avo three out at St Clair, with Danny Carse milking every inside shorey for what he could.

XMAS pressies? 16 phoam trademe $1 reserves...

Been busy tonight listing sixteen $1 reserve auctions on trademe to clear some stock..
lots of bargains to be made with framed photography, photo blocks, and an acrylic surf artwork on box canvas. Click through to check them out, remember christmas is coming, and these would make great pressies, yeah yeah big self promotion, but I want my new 50-500 sigma lens for xmas too :0)

a little black surf

a quick swing by Blackhead this avo, cold overcast 10 out.

10,000 hits!

Celebrating 10,000 individual hits on my blog which was reached last night at 10.17pm

Been transferring my archive pics onto my new computer today, and found a few shots that I didn't realise I liked, and have never put on the net/blog.. so here they are: aren't dated

St Clair Walls

Bit of a lost day today.. managed to muck around doing everything but nothing in the end till 3pm, and then took a drive to Middlemarch to check out a car same as mine for daughter.. advertised as warranted and registered, in great condition inside and out, a sweet runner etc, got there, it had no warrant, needed a list of things for it.. ding on the drivers door, messy inside, and ran like a sack of broken eggs. Aren't people nice.

Yep that someone in the barrel there above.. anyway got back at 5pm and caught some shots of massive lines moving in to St Clair about 6 out the back riding the 6-8 foot larger sets, and three on the reforms inside. Was cold, very windy and overcast. Just a few pics from that sesh..

NEW COMPUTER!!!!!

Its now 8 weeks ago my ACER went away to get 'fixed', which it didn't, then i eventually got my refund, and ordered my new machine, which I picked up last night, and set up till 1am, and now I have it all configured/set, and I'm ready to go! my Storm Card os installed, I have my 2GB ram, and two 250GB hard drives my fav programmes installed.. etc etc,
above pic: a series of closeups of 'Fish' for the guy at the pool to show his wife, as requested :0)

5 New Surf Artworks at Classic cafe

This morning I removed the previous hanging at the Classic cafe at the Hot Salt Water Pool, and replaced with 5 brand new artworks!!

Pics of each here, if you are keen to see them in the flesh.. pop in for a great coffe, and good food and see up close, as pics of paintings always look flat viewed on the internet.
Also work is well underway with cleaning the pool and surronds out ready for the season opening labour Weekend.