Summertimes – and the entertainment is easy to find

Every year early in the summer, I pore through the Summertimes catalogue excitedly, even exclaiming out loud to anyone within earshot about all the exciting things that are coming up to see and do over the warmer days.

Every year I only seem to see a fraction of what I want and in particular there is one event I just miss every year! The Chinese Lantern Festival is something that I have tried to go to for years and years, ever since they started having one. I imagine that it will remind me of the time I spent living in Hong Kong, not only the lanterns, but the food. For too many years, even if I put in on my calendar, I forget until the week after, and last year, earthquakes conspired to prevent it even happening. I also forget the Kite Day, most of The Breeze Lazy Sunday Concerts and I must have not only been under a rock but a large pile of sand to have missed the Sandcastles this year!

This week’s goal is to get to at least some of the Busker’s Festival. I’m keen to go inside the Le Tigre Bleu tent and see what lurks.

Shakespeare’s As You Like It at Mona Vale is a must see for me, as is The Anthony Harper Summer Series of The Complete History of Christchurch – Abridged by The Outwits. This is the last Abridged show this talented group is performing. This is one event I have been to regularly most years. We take the folding chairs, food and a little bubbly and we laugh ourselves silly.

So I challenge you all, do a better job of living in this wonderful city than I seem to, and avail yourselves of all the amazing Summertimes and other entertainment on offer until well into March.

 

Corsair Bay summer: Image of the week

Summer at Corsair Bay, 1964

• View images of Sumner and New Brighton from our collection
• Our Flickr page has photos of summer and the beach
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Barrington Big Fun Day – Sunday 26 February 2012

Several months back I went to a community fun fair in Addington which had everything a big (meaning adult) or little kid could ask for. I really felt the benefits of attending a community get together after all we have had to deal with in our EQ times. It left me feeling the importance of sticking together and the need to connect with those in community more often. Barrington Big Fun is another opportunity for this so I thought I’d  encourage you all to come out on the day. Last year saw a huge turn out of around 2000 people and an atmosphere not to missed!

Barrington Big Fun offers a very entertaining day for the whole family. In years past, more than 50 local musicians, entertainers, cultural groups, sports teams, crafts people, local businesses and non-profit organisations have pooled together with great community spirit. Christchurch City Libraries will be there running a story time session and displaying information on our fantastic services. The mix includes live performance, activities, information stalls, and of course yummy food!

Stage Line up!
It is great to see a community event drawing on local talent and offering something for everyone, a lot of different acts has been packed into the 3 hour duration of the event. Everything from classical, band music, clowns, martial arts, Irish, swing and zumba dancing; rock music and more.

FREE ‘Have-A-Go’ Activities
I still get excited at the thought of trains, kites, bouncy castles and the like. Activities include: Lil’ Puff Train, Climbing Tower, Skytes Kites, Pony Parties rides, Bouncy Castle, Face Painting, TumbleTimes (Council Gymnastics) and StoryTimes (Christchurch City Libraries).

Food
Barrington Big Fun Day offers a good mix of healthy and local produce along with the regular treats one would expect to see at such an event: hot dogs, kebabs, cakes and candy floss. The information tent will also have free water and fruit.

Find out about more local community events in the Summertimes  Family Fun programme and their events page.

 

Help for frustrated music students

If you’re a student these are frustrating times. The damage to libraries in Christchurch means limited access to printed material making study just that much more difficult. Christchurch City Libraries is building online resources to help students in the Source and our latest acquisition has completed a very useful set of online resources for students of music.

Oxford Music Online has been a stalwart part of our collection for some time. Containing the venerable Grove Music, The  Oxford Companion to Music, The Oxford Dictionary of Music and The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, it is a pretty comprehensive reference source just on its own.

However, when you are studying you need more than reference books, so we’ve supplemented it with the Fine arts and music collection which contains a wide range journal articles in the music field.

Now we have added the Oxford History of Western Music by musicologist Richard Taruskin, which is considered a landmark study on western music.

Then there’s Naxos Music Library which, although primarily about listening online, also provides study resources designed for both school students and children.

To supplement these specialised resources students, could also try some of  our more general online resources, as these also include music journals. Try:

• Proquest Megasearch
• Ebsco Megasearch
• findNZarticles

 

Most popular stuff for adults 2011

You love me, but love Lee Child even more ...

Here’s Christchurch City Libraries’ top 100 items from last year for adults.

Factoids and observations:

• Road Code – number 1. Essential stuff.
• Wow -  check out the number of James Patterson titles in the list (7?)
• Passion for Scandinavian crime is so not melting away
• Oldies like Wilbur Smith can still cut it with the new fellas
• Looks like people do want to know about Paul Henry, as his memoir What was I thinking is the top NZ book (after the Road Code) … but closely on its tail is The Conductor by Sarah Quigley
• About 15 out of the 100 are New Zealand books

Any observations or surprises?

 

Getting the garden through a watering ban

I‘ve just started converting my patch of liquefaction into a garden, so I was dismayed to read in the paper that watering gardens might be completely out of bounds if the summer gets dryer. Determined not to give up my morale boosting project, I started thinking about how I could get my new garden through a watering ban.

Twenty five years of gardening on sand in Sumner have taught me a couple of things about dry gardens.

• Water less often but more deeply. This encourages the roots to go deeper and makes them more drought resistant. This really seems to work and I am preparing my garden by doing that now.
• Mulching really does work. I always put down dampened newspaper underneath to discourage weeds as well.
• Get the right plant in the right place – especially if it’s a difficult spot. I have always found Roy Lancaster’s books invaluable for help with this.

A friend in Ashburton, where they have regular watering bans came up with these:

• Attach a hose to your water outlet pipe. In true kiwi no. 8 wire fashion you can do this by using a funnel, that feeds into a hose, which feeds into a drum. My friend has bought a large water container with a tap on the side because this makes getting the water out again easier.
• The old “bury a plastic bottle beside drought prone plants” trick. You put holes in the bottle and keep it full of water. This makes very efficient use of your water, although I don’t know if this contravenes a watering ban. I’m hoping to use this to keep my lemon tree alive.

And from the Australians

• Apparently in Melbourne they take a bucket into the shower with them to collect excess water for the garden.

Of course we have lots of books in the library to consult on water wise gardening there are also some good water saving tips on our website. Maybe some of you have already done the research and have other ideas to contribute. If so I’d love to hear them.

 

Do you remember the one where the policeman ate the murder weapon?

As a young kid I remember a short story that completely enthralled me. It was by Roald Dahl and involved a woman serving up a leg of lamb to her local policeman to eat. It was the same leg of lamb that she had used to club her husband to death! I can remember thinking just how clever that was, but I could not tell you what is was called until I stumbled  upon Short Story Index!

Short Story Index allows you to search for short stories by author, subject or title of the story. It is a great little resource to track down worthy reading material in a time when our attention spans are not what they were.

Oh and the name of the story? Apparently it is called Lamb to the Slaughter and we  do have it in the library!

The point of this blog?

1) Read short stories
2) Search for them through Short Story Index
3) Although lamb is expensive it can be used for a multitude of sins apart from gluttony!

 

Celebrating Chinese New Year

One of my favourite times of year is Chinese New Year also known as Lunar New Year. This year it falls on 23 January 2012 and is the Year of the Dragon in Chinese astrology.

I am a fan of lanterns – Upper Riccarton Library is re-opening on Monday 23 January, and on their opening day they will have a Lantern Making workshop.

This year the Lantern Festival will be at the Carlton Corner end of North Hagley Park on 11 and 12 February 2012. Bring along your loved ones for a vibrant colourful spectacle with delicious aromas and exotic performances.

Learn more about Chinese New Year  and the history and cultural background of China and the Lantern Festival.

Do you have a burning desire to learn to speak Chinese or travel to China?

OverDrive has free  resources on these subjects available to download to your computer, CD, eBook reader, iPod and mp3 player.

If you already read in Chinese did you know we have resources in Chinese language and you can read 17 Chinese newspapers for free with your library card and PIN number through Press Display?

So let’s join in the Chinese New Year celebrations!

 

My New Year’s booky wook resolution

You know it – that book you will read this year. Because – you should have read it, it has intrigued you for ages, or … whatever. Mine has long been Crime and Punishment.

But this year I don’t need anything depressing, so have dropped the Dostoyevsky and gone nautical.

Yes, it’s Three men in a boat by Jerome K. Jerome:

Martyrs to hypochondria and general seediness, J. and his friends George and Harris decide that a jaunt up the Thames would suit them to a ‘T’. But when they set off, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead with tow-ropes, unreliable weather-forecasts and tins of pineapple chunks – not to mention the devastation left in the wake of J.’s small fox-terrier Montmorency.

What is your 2012 book resolution?

 

Life savers: Image of the week

Senior 6-man teams at Canterbury Surf Life-Saving Association’s third carnival at North Beach, 1962.

• View images of Sumner and New Brighton from our collection
• Our Flickr page has photos of summer and the beach
• More local images on the blog
• Browse our image collection