Summer continues here in Christchurch. The weather has been unsettled - at least to my Canadian eye - but generally warm and sunny. Shelley is knee-deep in bumblebees (as she teases apart how the relationships between plants, flowers, and their pollinators will be affected by global environmental change), I am getting bleary-eyed from staring at my laptop (as I grind through a decade of data that I've ignored and experiments I've been less-than-loyal to, in an effort to wrest scientific papers forth), and Aya and Rowan are simply enjoying the summer and each other's company (it is nice to seem them playing together, inventing all kinds of things, living the spontaneously imaginative and proximate lives of young children). Good times, for the most part.
We've moved house. This was largely inspired by the children's book "Mouse Moves House". It looked so fun, when Mack the Mouse packed up his books, his blue-and-white dishes, and his beautifully framed paintings of cheese into cunning wooden crates, and moved across the hallway using the back of his friend Fat Cat as a sort of furry lorry. Sadly, the reality is somewhat more pedestrian. We're now settled into our new house which is, luckily, very close to the university and Rowan and Aya's daycare.
As such, do not mail anything to our old address. Email me for our new address if you are planning on either mailing us a parcel or visiting.
I am hoping to get to the beach this weekend. I'd like to go swimming, but it hasn't happened much this summer.
Well, back to work. I need to email my (incredibly) young friend Tracy N. this afternoon. I am hoping that she is interested in co-authoring a paper on the role that riparian leave strips play in maintaining understory riparian vegetation in coastal temperate rain forests. I'm hoping she says 'yes'. I'm going to offer to do almost all the work (detailed outlines for introduction and discussion, the methods completely written, the results completely written (including analyses and figures)). Tracy knows more about understory vegetation than I ever will, though, so the paper would benefit greatly from her writing. I will even offer to let her be the first author. We'll see if I am persuasive enough.
Lately I have been missing all my climbing friends. Especially - but certainly not limited to - Laurie S., Greg T., Marco L., and Brad T. It's hard to climb a lot without people to inspire you. My hat is off to you!
Finally, does ANYONE know where I can find a good toque / tuque? A nice, Canadian toque? Long enough to roll up the bottom edge, a nicely-sized pom-pom, knit from acrylic (or wool, even)? If you look, you will see that this, the most quintessential of all Canadian garments (well, one of them, anyways, if you include the anorak, the amauti, the coureur de bois sash, the cree beaded moccasin), is being largely supplanted in our retail establishments by American-style 'beanies', which are mass-produced in China. A disgrace, really.
Take care!
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Happy Holidays!
Hello Everyone! We hope that you have had a wonderful holiday, and have a terrific 2011! We miss you all terribly, and hope to see everyone in 2011! First will be the family visiting in February! We are all excited, especially A!
As most of you know my mom and honourary Aunt came for a visit, which was wonderful! Everyone had a fun and relaxing summer holiday. They started with a tour of the North Island, and were ready for a bit of Christmas and relaxing in Christchurch. We went so see the endangered yellow-eyed penguin (Hoiho) in Oamaru, and poked around in Otago for a couple days. The penguins were the highlight of the trip for all! We also went to the famous Moeraki boulders (round boulders on the beach), which were cool but there were too many people there for my liking.
We went for a punt ride through Hagley park on Christmas eve, which was quite relaxing and lovely! Rowan keeps asking when we get to go on a little boat again. I felt like I should have seen Toad 'pooting' by in his motor car, and ratty and mole picnicking on the shore...
I don't think my mom and Aunt were too impressed with our boxing day aftershocks - only a 4.9, bt it was centered under Christchurch. Did more damage downtown, and the shops lost even more business on their busiest day! Many places downtown were closed but have since reopened.
Next on the to-do list is to find a place to live - our lease ends in early Feb, and we will have to leave our 'villa'
more later!
S
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