Reporter’s diary

Press, 19 September 1985, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Still there A LOCAL historian, Mr Bill Brittenden, says the rhododendrons that seemed to have gone missing from the Gloucester Street end of the Provincial Council Buildings are there after all. They could not be described as beautiful and have been pruned back, but they are there just the same, with lots of buds. They no longer rise high enough to be seen from a distance over the hedge. Mr Brittenden, an executive committee member of the Canterbury Provincial Buildings Board, said ■ the landscaping aim was to enhance the Victorian Gothic architecture, not to hide the Great Hall or any other part. The general principle was to replace tall, shrubby growth that obscured the architecture, replacing it with lowgrowing shrubs. That would be apparent before long on the Durham Street and Armagh Street frontages. By this time next year, the rhododendron fan would be able to congratulate the landscaper. Mr Brittenden said that the Gloucester Street hedge would be taken out and replaced by a Gothic-type fence. Passersby would be able to see into the grounds all the way along from the river bridge. It would .be a shorter ver-

sion of the security fence that now protects the buildings’ quadrant. That fence is based on a design by the architect, Benjamin Mountfort, who wanted a fence to go round Christchurch Cathedral. Be-bop boy MOST of us do our best to ignore canned music coming at us from lifts and ceilings, but a teen-aged boy in a Christchurch supermarket the other day decided to go with the Muzak flow. The musical background was from either a ballet or some television show. The boy was dancing and dipping his way down the aisles, blithely tossing things into his shopping cart. Secure picnic THE 1984 picnic was a lot of fun, and so the Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Society is getting ready to have another on Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. All you have to do is take a plate. Drinks will be provided. The indoor picnic will be held in the day hospital at The Princess Margaret Hospital, a place that will be locked and secure so that people suffering from memory loss and confusion will be all right. The public are also invited to a meeting at 12.30

today in the Health Planning and Research Unit, Colombo Street, opposite Christchurch Women’s Hospital. The Citizens Advice Bureau has more details. A sign DINING OUT in Queenstown is reflecting the tourism upswing so much that local councillors have been asked to consider a biogas plant that would recycle the boom town’s restaurant waste into fuel. Chief cook THE ONLY South Island member of the Enterprise crew that will compete in the Whitbread round-the-world yacht race starting on September 28 has been appointed chief cook for the voyage. David West had complained about the mess in the galley and now has a chance to do something about it. His stepmother in Nelson said that he was dining out at the best places, at a cost he could not afford, when he was not yachting or doing some other sport. Now his lifestyle will be a bonus for the Enterprise crew. Mrs West said he cooked a lot for his friends in Christchurch. In the last few years, he had baked Snoopy, Smurf and Garfield birthday cakes for his young sister, who is now 10.

Ultra-iron men THREE MEN have completed an endurance feat by crossing from the Mackenzie Country into Westland on skis. They made the journey at the week-end in 18 hours, 15 minutes. The high-rise and long-fall ski tour was organised by Gottlieb Braun-Elwert, of Lake Tekapo. With him were Franz Waibel, of Governor’s Bay, and a Swiss man. They left the Godley Valley’s Rankin Hut half an hour after midnight, tramping and ski-ing up Rutherford Stream to Armadillo Saddle. Down they went to the Harper Glacier, then up the Murchison Glacier to Tasman Saddle by 10 a.m. Then it was down the Tasman Glacier and up the Rudolf Glacier to Graham Saddle by 4 p.m. From there, they went down and up, across the Franz Josef Glacier to Newton Pass. From there, they crossed the Fox Glacier to reach Chancellor Hut by 6.50 p.m. They walked out to Fox township the next morning. During the traverse, they had stopped for half an hour to eat a light lunch of sandwiches and chocolate. Otherwise, they relied on a mixture of tea and honey. They used German-made touring skis while travelling 47 kilometres, skinning up I.2km and ski-ing down 914

Extant IN A recent Peter de Vries novel, the oldest character delights in telling those who ask how he is that he is still extant. That is how a Christchurch man feels after a Timaru funeral this week—extant, not extinct. The man, who is on the young side of middle age, saw many people at the funeral whom he had not seen for 20 years. A man in his mid-30s whom he had known as a child came up to him and said, in all seriousness, that he thought the man had died years ago. Oh well, the man thought, word of one's fighting fitness sometimes fails to do the rounds the way it should. Then a woman in her late 70s approached about an hour later and said she thought he had died a couple of years ago. That did it. The man was shaken enough to let a friend drive his car back to Christchurch, where he plans to watch the newspapers carefully for news of his demise. —Stan Darling