Goodbye Cerego!

You may have noticed that I've changed my blog header.  And my Instagram bio.  I wouldn't be telling the truth anymore if I'd kept it the way it was.  You see, we've moved off the boat, but not only that, we SOLD her!

My old blog header (in case you couldn't remember!)

Many people didn't see it coming.  To be truthful, I didn't see it coming either.  But when my husband and I decide to do something, we do it.  We discussed selling the boat, it made sense, so we listed it that evening.  And several weeks later, she no longer belongs to us.

Cerego is a big boat, and she is an old boat, and she is a wooden boat.  All things that add up to a fair amount of ongoing work and maintenance that we realised we were not going to keep up with if we weren't living on her.  Plus we really didn't need such a big boat if we were only going to go out on her for weekends and holidays.

We're really happy for the new owner.  He's just the right guy to take over the love and care of her.  And yes, we are a little sad for ourselves.  We won't be able to watch her steam up and down the harbour without some nostalgic feelings.

However...

We then decided we really needed a house instead of an apartment.  Somewhere with a garage for the man, a studio for me, room to park our 4WD 'The Hippo' and the runabout trailer-boat, not to mention our two cars.  Oh, and room for the children of course!  And the dog!  The apartment is great, I love it here, but I had to acknowledge that if we were going to live on shore, then we really should have the full range of conviniences available to us.

So, as I said earlier, once we decide to do something, we do it.  We looked around for a few days, found the house we wanted and within another few days we had a conditional agreement all signed up.

Unfortunately, this means I'll be moving house.  Again.  Setting up my studio.  Again.  Going slightly mad with the stress of it all.  Again.

Happy memories from our time on Cerego.

On a cheerier note, I'm really enjoying reading everyone's name suggestions for my latest heron quilt.  Some are funny, some are beautiful and Daisy's is particularly moving.  Thank you and keep them coming.  You have a few more days before I draw a winner from everyone who participated!

What it's like to live on a boat

I read a blog post by Mary Fons today (she writes the best blog, by the way) about what it's like to live in a condo.  And I realised how utterly foreign that would be for me.  Doormen and garbage chutes (just calling rubbish garbage is foreign to me!).  So I've lived on a boat for three years, and I realised how utterly foreign that would be to someone who lives in a condo.

So do you want to know what it's like to live on a boat?  Well, my boat in particular, because certainly there are boats and then there are boats.  And my boat is tied to a wharf most of the time, not floating in the wild sea or bobbing on a mooring.  It's not a sailing yacht or a super yacht, but it's home.

1. I sometimes hear penguins at night and they sound like donkeys.
2. I hear seagulls ALL the time and they sound like seagulls.
3. It's a lot noisier than you might think.  I have a set of earplugs next to my bed because I need them when the gangplank squeaks.  Or it's particularly windy and waves are slapping the hull beside my head.  Or we forgot to tie the dog up and she has insomnia and her little claws are click, click, clicking around on the deck above me.  Or the seagulls and the penguins are having a party.
4. We need more fiddles.  Fiddles are the raised edges on benches and shelves that you have on boats to stop things sliding off when it rocks from side to side.  Last time we took the boat out I realised we need more of fiddles, more tie downs, more latches, and then hopefully we will have less stuff on the floor.
5. We don't get power cuts.  When the houses on shore lose power because someone has crashed a car into a transformer or a tree has fallen on a line, we don't notice because our system automatically switches over to using the boat batteries. 
6. But you can't use the microwave and the heater at the same time because the fuse blows.
7. There are rust stains on all our bedlinen.  Old wooden boats leak and we are always finding tiny leaks and fixing them.  These are rain water leaks that find an old bolt or something and just a tiny bit of water runs down it, picks up a bit of rust and whammo, there is a drop of rust stained water on a pillow or a duvet cover.  It sucks.
8. If we want to go away for the weekend, we can just throw the ropes and leave!  No packing a car or a camper van, no booking motels or putting up tents.  My home is totally portable and that is pretty cool.  We just need to make sure we've have got enough groceries, fuel and bait for fishing and we're good to go.
9. But it's all dependent on the weather.  Bad weather and boating just don't mix.  And if you forget to shut the portholes before you leave and there is a bit of a swell running, ugh.  
10. I'm a lot more aware of weather and tides.  When it's a really low tide, the gangplank is on such a steep angle that I take off my high heels if I'm wearing them to traverse the gangplank.  Some people won't visit us on board if it's like that and I don't blame them.  The dog can't make it up - she slips and slides and yes, she has fallen off into the water.
11. I have really interesting ceilings.  There are planks and bolts and beams and funny shaped bits of wood that I think are called knees (or is it elbows?)
12. I can tie a bowline knot.
13. I get seasick, but since living on a boat I'm much better, except I can't use the computer or read a book when there is an easterly wind because that makes us bounce around a bit.
14. The beds are a pain to make because they are tucked into corners.  The kid's beds are particularly weird shapes because they are fitted to the hull and they are up in the bow where the boat is pointy.
15. If you leave lightweight things lying on the deck there's a good chance they might end up in the water.

And it's cool fun to live here, and so different, I'm glad I gave it a chance.  But the kids are getting bigger.  My son is almost as tall as me and his feet have been bigger than mine for ages.  It's starting to feel a little cramped when four of us are trying to use the galley all at the same time.  

I can see a time in the future when we will move off the boat and look back on our time here with fondness and nostalgia.  But for now, this is home.

Hitting the Wall

I am so buggered.  Just mentally and physically exhausted.  Over the last few weeks I've finished four quilts to exhibition standard, the last one today.  I delivered that one to the exhibition this afternoon and then I suddenly felt deflated.

I didn't realise how much I had been running on adrenaline, but boy, I realise it now!

So what's been going on?  The NZ Quilt Symposium exhibition submission deadline was midnight Thursday (yesterday).  And Wednesday afternoon I got a call from my good friend asking me if I had anything for the Matariki (Maori New Year) exhibition they were holding at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds where she works.

A while ago I had agreed that I could probably have something for that exhibition and then promptly forgot all about it.  So I asked Monika when she needed the quilts by, and bless her heart, she said, "Friday!"

So not only was I hurriedly finishing, photographing and documenting symposium quilts, I also had to rustle up another quilt or two for the Matariki exhibition.

I sat down and took stock.  First up, did I have anything in my collection that would fit the bill?  And actually I did.

Matariki occurs when the Pleiades star cluster rises above the Eastern horizon.  There are lots of stories associated with Matariki and it is a time of year for reflection and celebration.  One of the Maori myths is about how the Matariki cluster was formed.  When Ranginui (sky father) and Papatuanuku (earth mother) were torn asunder, Tawhirimatea (one of their sons, the god of winds) was so angry that he tore his eyes out and cast them into the sky where they formed the Matariki stars.  Cool story, huh?

And I happen to have a quilt that has Ranginui and Papatuanuku featured as a subtle quilting design.  It's called "I don't feel lonely".

Phew, so that was one quilt, and it was completely finished with hanging sleeve and all.

Then I looked over everything I was working on.  I had four quilts lined up for symposium exhibition, and one that I had decided not to finish for symposium.  But now that I looked at it with Matariki eyes, I could see it would be perfect.  Matariki is a time when people say goodbye to the loved ones passed away the previous year.  It's a time of renewal, a time of remembrance and a celebration of the harvest along with holding portents for the coming growing season.

Here's my artist's comments that I wrote for the quilt:

Matariki reappears, Whanui starts it's flight.  We say goodbye to those we lost in the year gone.  We look towards the new season and send our hopes flying to the stars.

In the close up you can see the star cluster that I hand embroidered (with metallic thread - never again!).  Maori often flew kites at Matariki, so the birds are a fitting symbol of that, along with being symbols of remembrance as well as hopes and dreams for the year to come.

So everything got finished, photographed, documented, uploaded, delivered - whatever had to happen to each quilt happened and now I'm done.  I'm sitting here, writing to you, drinking a comforting hot chocolate (it would have been wine, but I forgot to put some in the fridge) and thinking that I could easily not sew another stitch for at least a week.  My brain hurts, my shoulders hurt, and my hand-sewing finger has holes in it.

I was listening to a podcast by Tucker Harley the other day and he said something that resonates with me today.  Creativity can be like breathing.  Sometimes you are breathing out, creating, giving, making, sharing.  And then sometimes you have to stop, and breath back it.  That's what I feel like today.  I've breathed every last drop of air out of my creativity lungs and now I need to pause, and take a big breath in.

So I'm going to go relax and breath and when I next write I'm sure I'll be feeling more alive!

PS - I feel like I never share photos of my boat, so here's the wheelhouse/office where I'm sitting right now.  It's full of boat thingies but my computer, printer and paperwork crams in too.

Last night there was a possum on our boat

Yes, possums are tree-dwelling marsupials who eat vegetation and fruit.  So what was it doing on our boat?  Who knows?  Maybe it wanted to go sailing!

It arrived dry, so I believe it walked down the gangplank.  And it left wet, very wet.  Possums can swim apparently.

There are no action photos to accompany this post.  After all, who wants to see pictures of my husband in his night attire (it's too hot to wear pj's at the moment...) chasing a stinky possum round the back deck with the scoop net he uses for fish?!

He didn't get it in the net but he did scare it overboard.  And here's the funny part.  It swam to our port side jetty, climbed the poles, ran along the jetty to the back deck of the Store.  I thought we were in the clear then because it can get from there back onto dry land.  But no, the stupid thing turned the corner and ran back down our starboard jetty and jumped onto the neighbours boat!

We woke them up (their hatches were open so we thought it was best they didn't meet a possum face to face in bed) and the first thing our neighbour asked - in his very English accent - "Am I dreaming?!"  The next thing he said was, "Where's my camera?"

The possum hightailed it up the sail on the roller furler.  It kept going higher and higher and even unrolling the sail didn't dislodge it.  It made it to the top of the mast (which must be a good 15 metres or 50 feet) and sat there.  Probably changing it's mind about the wisdom of a life at sea.

We all gave up at that point.  Closed all our doors and hatches and went back to bed.  This morning it's gone.  And yes, we checked the anchor chain locker ;-)

Here's a photo of possums my sister took in Australia, where they are a native species and protected.  They may look cute, but in New Zealand, where they were introduced for hunting for fur, they are considered noxious pests which destroy our forests and eat native birds eggs.