Autumn Leaves*

7 March 2010
A definite autumnal chill in the air this morning as the cathedral bells rang out across the square from our hotel. The cathedral is about the size of a large parish church back home and is pure Victorian Gothic having been designed by George Gilbert Scott (of St. Pancras Station fame), it was begun in the 1860s and completed in 1904. It has a tall spire and steep roof decorated in the manner of the houses and churches of Burgundy in France but without the polychrome tiles, inside it is a quite pleasing space except perhaps for the pastiche Gothic revival gift shop and cafe built on the side. Christchurch has a lot of neo-Gothic architecture – including the church of St. Michael and All Angels built in the French Gothic style, but strangely entirely of wood, it looks most odd – it also has a few of the original one and two storey wooden houses, still with their corrugated iron roofs, which have mostly become bistros or boutique hotels but there is one outstanding piece of modern architecture and that is where we spent this morning.
The Christchurch Art Gallery is a superb piece of glass, steel, grey stone and wood architecture, the impressive frontage is of curving glass which allows light to flood into the huge atrium from where a grand staircase leads up to the main galleries. The galleries house the collection which spans Maori art from the time of the European arrival, moves through the 19th century European influences to modern Kiwi art including some wonderful paintings by an artist named Bill Hammond who depicts New Zealand before the arrival of humans – a time when birds ruled, and it seems played cellos. A small international modern collection includes works by Warhol, Lichtenstein and Bill Frizell, plus a large sculpture of a bull made out of corned beef tins. There is also a small ceramics collection including wonderful pieces by Alan Caiger-Smith and Hamada Shoji. One of the temporary exhibitions we saw is called ‘The Naked And The Nude’ which attempts to chart the development in art of the acceptable nude to the less-acceptable naked – between works of art that idealise the body and those that try to tell it like it is.

We also visited the Arts Centre across the way from the Art Gallery which was built in 1874 (more neo-Gothic) as Canterbury and Christchurch Girls’ and Boys’ High School but now houses artists’ workshops and galleries selling their work, as well as a theatre, a café and a restaurant. We could quite easily have purchased a number of items but we constantly have to remind ourselves there are still three countries and several flights to go so weight restrictions dictate our purchasing policies.
We spent a very pleasant, hot and sunny afternoon in the Botanic Gardens which helps the city live up to its “Garden City” image which is being promoted to the hilt at the moment as next week is the International Flower Show – and yes, like so much else, we miss it. In Christchurch alone we have missed Cliff Richard and The Shadows (last week) and will miss Tom Jones (next week) and James Taylor (next month). We also missed the ‘Farewell to the Godwits’ festival last week. This is the sort of eccentricity that fascinates G – Bar Tailed Godwits ( a species of bird for our non-ornithologist readers) spend their summer sojourn in this part of New Zealand where they get fit and well fed before departing about now for their long haul flight to their breeding grounds in Alaska and Christchurch has a festival to say “Farewell and See You Next Year” – it also seems to mark the end of summer. And indeed there was a vague hint of autumn in the Botanic Gardens with a few golden leaves fallen to the ground but generally the gardens had a very pleasant, relaxed summer afternoon to them with punts going up the River Avon, which runs through the gardens. The gardens have an excellent and fascinating collection of indigenous and exotic plants and trees and a huge rose garden which was still in full bloom and full of wonderful scents. There is also a large glass conservatory as well as a large area of native bush with, inevitably a number of wonderful tree ferns. One of the specimen trees was a Monterey Pine – we have seen many of these trees in California but never any as large as this – about three times as big as in its natural habitat, another example of New Zealand’s ability to make everything bigger than it is in its native home (even the chaffinches are about half as big again as those at home). We finished our visit in the vegetable garden and grew a little nostalgic for the allotment back home but not for long!

We ate dinner at a Burmese restaurant, to our shame we have never eaten Burmese food before but after tonight’s experience there is a good chance it will become a regular part of the repertoire – always assuming that good Burmese vegetarian restaurants exist in London. On our way to the restaurant we caught part of the Chinese Lantern Festival in Victoria Park marking the end of the two week Chinese Lunar New Year festivities. The Year of the Tiger celebrations were taking place amid hundreds of lanterns hanging in the trees and floating on the water – the statue of Captain Cook in the park surrounded by Chinese lanterns looked somewhat incongruous.

Came across another couple of groan-making-named-places today: the armed vehicle museum – Tanks For The Memory and the game butchers – The Merchant of Venison.
*The Coldcut version of course which was one of the 720 tracks from last years’ music for a virtual birthday party – hope some of you still listen to your cd