Fond rememberances

Hi y'all

Our recent spate of nice weather has moved on leaving us with classic wintery grey skies, overcast and sunless. The forecast is for rain. The great thing about weather like that is that its perfect for sitting at the computer and keeping warm.

Life has been ticking along nicely since my last post and there's not a lot to report. One highlight was a lovely visit from Trudie, our friend from Kiapoi (which is a small community to the north of Christchurch). Another highlight was the utterly awesome pumpkin soup and cheese toasties Witchy brewed up for dinner last night. You know how some meals are just perfect for the weather and the mood? Well this was one of those - delicious! (Or 'devicious' which is a special Wizitch Word meaning 'Divinely Delicious).

I'm happy to report there's been some progress with technical matters too - we can now plug the laptop through the big TV (it's a beautiful monster Mitsubishi Diva which is just old enough to not have an HDMI input). I've also finally succeeded in getting trueSpace (my favourite 3d modelling software) installed on the laptop and configured to use with both dual and single monitors. So far tS seems to run beautifully with Windows 7 on my laptop. This means that almost all of my favourite softwares for graphics, 3d, and sound are now installed and set up to use on the laptop anywhere I go. We've really only had the laptop for 6 months and it's great to have it finally configured the way I always wanted it to be, and, as an added bonus it just works like a dream!

Today's old photos were taken (an unremembered number of) years ago. As a younger man in my twenties a common way to spend a nice day was to take my camera out into the countryside to see what results I could gather.
In those days I used either a Pentax K 1000 or, later on, a Pentax ME Super both of which were very nice camera's. I 'developed' (photographic pun there!) my love of photography from my Father who was a keen amateur photographer himself. My Dad is a Newspaper man and from as long as I can remember he has been a font of information about photography.
I can still remember as a child hanging out in the heat and red light of his little darkroom watching the ghostly images slowly materialise out of the developer chemicals.

Window

At the time this photo was taken I was using AGFA slide film which I bought in bulk and developed in the kitchen. After a day out (either on motorbikes or in my van) with fellow photographer-biker-workmate-buddy Razz (more about him in the future no doubt as he was a central character in my life during my twenties and thirties) taking photos I would return home and load the days films into a developing tank and process them with the necessary chemicals. Once the developed films were dry I would cut them up into single frames and mount them in individual slide mounts then project them up against a screen. All the photos in this post were done like this.

This photo was one of a series of shots taken at the old Dovedale Railway Station on the long disused Kawatiri line. New Zealand has a history of old train lines which sadly no longer exist. This railway station is one of the relics from that past era. Situated at 41'38'51.13"S by 172'38'59.76" at an elevation of 381M's (according to Google Earth) this old structure still stands surrounded by sheep paddocks and an aura of forgotten sadness and neglect. There has always been talk of a restoration project but this hasn't yet happened as far as I'm aware.

Frost on the fields

 Photo number two was taken one frigid morning on the Tadmor Hill road looking north toward Tapawera. This area in the northern South Island is quite beautiful. Good soils, plentiful water and sunshine makes this area good for farming and for forestry. Golden Downs State Forest is nearby, a large plantation of mostly Pinus Radiata which grows extremely well here.
I was working in a cable laying gang running a new telephone cable down the hill when I took this snapshot.
Just out of frame to the right is the tiny village of Tadmor. At the time this was taken there was still a manual telephone exchange at Tadmor. I recall talking to one of the locals whose phone number was "Tadmor 2". He had recently returned from a holiday in Hong Kong and had been unable to phone home as the International Tolls system at that time had no way of recognising that number.
I was one of the Telecommunications guys who converted the old manual party line phones (with the crank handles on the side) to modern DTMF push button phones. We spent many months in this widespread rural area and got to visit every house in the district in order to replace their phones. I have many happy memories of my time working in this lovely area.

Window

The last photo was taken looking at the reflection in the window of an historic church in the village of Wakefield (where, incidentally my sister and brother-in-law live today). My paternal Grandmother is buried in this lovely spot and you'd be hard pressed to find a nicer resting place.
Not far up the road from here is the small farmlet that belonged to my Parents. This was another beautiful spot now sadly slowly being absorbed by suburban expansion from the nearby village.

These photos and memories are all twenty to thirty years old now - a sobering example of how time move inexorably on. Echoes from the last millennium these photos connect me to places and times that were particularly beautiful for me.
Even though this selection of snaps are not intrinsically the most interesting of photos I do hope that you who are taking the time to look closer will absorb some of the serenity and sunlit beauty of that increasingly distant time.
After all, memories are meant to savoured and shared aren't they?

~W~