Just the usual, thanks

Manly Takeaways is our local fish n' chip shop whenever we are up at the family beach house on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, just north of Auckland. The beach house was built in 1959 I believe, and almost all flat surfaces are covered in Formica, my grandfather was a Formica salesman. (I am not entirely sure about these facts, family members may correct me).
I have been going to the beach house ever since I was a baby, and I therefore assume eating fish n' chips from Manly Takeaways since then too. At the beach house I do the same things I have always done - swim for hours, go boating, eat large amounts of plums from the trees in the garden, do puzzles, read low-brow detective stories and do numerous sketches of Kotanui, the island that lies in the centre of Matakatia Bay, where our house is, always from the same angle. It has a misleading appearance: from the front, it is like a witch's hat settled on the water, but from the side is more like a rather prominent nose protruding from the sea.
Beach house holidays are a time for doing the same things I have always done. The menu boards at Manly Takeaways do nothing but add to the dingy 70's charm of the place, as I always always order the same thing - a fish, a hot dog (in the NZ fashion - a battered sausage on a stick doused in sauce) and a helping of chips. Actually, I think my entire family still all order the same things they did ten, fifteen years ago.

The map is one of two aerial photos which hang in the fish n' chip shop. Here it shows Matakatia Bay around the early 1960's, with the beginnings of the reef which stretches out to the island. Every time we get fisn n' chips, I make a point of spotting the beach house in the photo. Ritualistic, almost, just like everything else about my weeks spent up there.

Blå bilder

Eugene and Chris Carr fishing off the rocks / the queue of people waiting to board the ferry from Rangitoto / Kris surveying the landscape while walking towards Islington Bay, Rangitoto / reclining rods on the wharf near Okahu Bay, Tamaki Drive. Taken with a Konica C35 EF.


After months of dulling grey Malmö skies, which seem to have seeped into my head and clouded my memories of my trip to Auckland like a heavy fog, things are looking up. The Spring equinox has come and gone, officially opening the season, and with daylight savings beginning tomorrow evening and positively balmy temperatures of 14 degrees, blue skies and long light evenings loom ahead of me. And finally, showing some photos of my 6 weeks in New Zealand doesn't feel like looking at Oz from the greyscale of Malmö's Kansas.

Though the actual weather in Auckland left much to be desired (daily surprise rainfall, blustery gales,constant cloud cover) I cannot help but associate the holiday with the colour blue, spending days clambering over rocks of Rangitoto, having 2 hour swims in the sea two times a day, fishing around the rocks at Matakatia and failing to catch anything, following the bays around Tamaki Drive, kayaking on the sailfish built by my uncle and grandfather, or rowing in the dory before it mysteriously vanished from the beach one morning never to be heard of again. Fate to this day, is unknown.
I could never live anywhere that wasn't near the sea. Swimming in the rain is one of the best feelings, and so is swimming in the early morning.

Looking at these is making my feet itch, wanting to take my new Marni for H&M swimsuit down to the beach for a dip. I now have three pairs of togs, and all of them are blue. Must be something subconscious about wanting to blend into my surrounds.

Colour field

Multi-coloured: home-made chorizo pizza on handmade oven towels, and a wooden puzzle of the British Royal family - King George V and Queen Mary of Teck. The puzzle was deceptively hard, as none of the pieces were cut in the same manner - just a series of bizarre splotches of colour. Wonderfully, the maker had deemed it inappropriate that a member of the Royal Family should be subjected to half a face on a puzzle piece, therefore all heads are given their own complete piece, and the rest of the pieces sort of congregate around them. It makes one think that the design for these pieces was most likely done by hand.

Pizza devoured and puzzle completed while staying at my Granny's apartment (note the Focus de Luxe cutlery).
It feels as though my summer holiday pursuits nearly solely consisted of eating delicious food, drinking New Zealand beers, swimming, rowing, reading and puzzling.

Interiors (New Zealand)

Seeing where people live, how they display their possessions and what to them makes a livable and harmonious environment are a never-ceasing area of interest. I think my extended family have always had impeccable interiors, successfully reflecting their personalities and aesthetics.

Granny's flat, complete with many amazing artworks installed Salon-style. There was nearly no free wall space, every available square inch utilized for displaying her collection.  Staying here for one week while in NZ made me fully appreciate framing works/pictures, and I have been scouring second-hand shops in Malmö hunting down suitable frames with which to house my few prints and drawings, mainly done by myself.

Harriet and Chris' living room at their flat in Onehunga. A great mix of leather, lacquer and vinyl. Wooden floors, wooden walls, open brick fireplace. The best thing about houses in NZ is the abundance of wood, something sorely missing in our Swedish apartment. Swedish apartments have lots of things going for them - double glazed windows, central heating, ornately plastered ceilings - but linoleum floors and concrete walls are not the best sometimes.

Both these interiors made an impression on me, knowing as I did, that after my holiday in NZ we would be moving rooms to the largest on the in flat, complete with walk-in wardrobe and an opportunity to arrange and rearrange my still rather meagre but slowly growing collection of possessions presented itself.

At Home with Camouflage

Rock Stars at home with their parents and colour co-ordination. While attemping to high-light the marked generation gap and lifestyle differences between rockstars and their 'olds', Olsen also seems to inadvertently blend his subjects into their not so staid surrounds. An interesting balance between a subject 'at one' with his environment, and 'at odds' with the others he shares it with. Frank Zappa with ma and pa and David Crosby with the old man.


Photos by John Olsen for LIFE.

A whiteness of swans

Suddenly found myself surrounded by feathered fellows on my first Swedish/winter christmas.
Metal Swedish bird decoration circa 1970's / drawing of a Tui by my father / coloured paper peacock decoration.

different names for groups of different birds:

A raft, flock, colony, covey, dissimulation, fleet, flight, parcel, pod, volery, sedge, chain, bellowing, wake, tok, mews, peep, brood, cletch clutch, clattering, chattering, cover, commotion, covert, rasp, swarm, gulp, hover, murder, muster, parcel, storytelling, head, herd, trip, dole, dule, piteousness, pitying, prettying, dopping, plump, padding, team, fling, convocation, mob, cast, charm, trembing, stand, wedge, gaggle, nide, skein, drum, troubling, lek, pack, bazaar, confusion, screech, aerie, kettle, moulting, screw, stream, seige, hedge, rookery, train, band, party scold, deceit, desert, exaltation, ascension, bevy, tiding, tittering, tribe, congregation, lute, flush, puddling, sute, sord, richness, watch, parliament, stare, company, pandemonium, psittacosis, bew, warren, muster, pride, ostentation, creche, huddle, bouquet, Nye, pheasants, kit, loft, bunch, rush, knob, run, conspiracy, unkindness, crowd, building, clamour, hill, sea, cloud, squabble, doading, exultation, walk, wisp, host, quarrel, ubiquity, numeration, scourge, phalanx, eyrar, bank, drift, game, lamentation, sownder, squadron, whiteness, whiting, diving, spring, mutation, raffle, rafter, coil, trip, fall, descent.

Skriv om din familj

Granny receives her new ride

Min far kommer från en ganska stor familj också. Han är ett av sju barn, och han bodde i ett gammalt hus i Wellingtons höjder. 1964 vann min farmor en tävling som heter 'Mini for Mum' och hon fick en ny bil.
Hon kunde passa in sju barn och en livlig hund i bilen.


The family get ready for a day at the beach

An excerpt from a piece of text I wrote for Swedish class. I now study Swedish every weekday morning and spend my time fabricating family histories to read out in class. The tale mentioned above might even be true.
It is nice knowing I can say "she could fit seven children and a lively dog in the car" in another language.