Thursday, July 31, 2008

Nelson Weather Report

I did go to see Pete yesterday, no apologies, but he'll try to fix them as I knew he would. Then I went to the gym, then went to the bookshop to find they made a mistake and ordered Dr Jill Bolte Taylor's audio book rather than the book, which was like a gift from heaven! I took a cab home in strong wind and rain. The wind got stronger, but I started weaving, and noticed that the shaft problem was more sporadic than I had imagined; sometimes it was Shaft 12, sometimes 13 or 6, that weren't lifting, and sometimes 7 lifted when it wasn't supposed to. In addition, the wind and the rain grew stronger and we had several power surges in quick succession and my setup kept looking its place, so I quit weaving.

I resurfaced, fully intending to hem the pieces already woven, but the gusts shook the whole house and I kept going outside to move my potted plants or just to have a look. It reminded me of typhoons in Japan, and at one point I did get worried we might lose part of our house or have something big come crashing through our window, but nothing dramatic happened. While speaking to Andrea from the museum, however, I gasped because I saw a big chunk of my neighbors' tree fly across the sky. So, no hemming, but a bit of cooking and baking, and I'm 75% through with the JBT book.

In Nelson, quite a few trees went down, including one on a man's room at a rest home, but luckily he wasn't there at the time. Because Nelson is usually spared of truly bad weather, and because there was damage to the water pipes, we made the national news, but elsewhere, including Marlborough, there have been more serious floods and landslides, and the storm is traveling south.

It's eerily still this morning; in fact, I'd say the silence is deafening. We are expecting a bit more rain. I hope I can force my way and finish this piece.

Come to think of it, yesterday would have been a perfect day for Mary Poppins to land at my front door. Anyone seen her?

EDIT: we made national news; here's a link to the clip that was sent to a TV station.

3 comments:

  1. Sounds like a dreadful storm and you've alerted me to email the Marlborough friends to see how they fared. They've just gone back this morning after a week in Sydney so I hope they haven't gone home to a disaster. So pleased Pete is going to redo your work.

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  2. Hi Meg, What problems you're having. My loom is a manual dobby but when my wee "plasticy" things?? wouldn't behave (I think due to damp and humid weather) it was suggested I sprinkle talcum powder or a silicon spray might help.
    That warn white plastic arm looks very similar to the ones on my Mecchia dobby. At least with my dobby I can keep weaving through power cuts :)

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  3. Carol, get in touch with D&A. Picton's camp ground was flooded and evacuated!

    Dianne, I was thinking about you; I hope you've managed to stay dry. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse... Do please send me some pics of which part you apply the talc or spray. I was kind of hopping it was something as simple as the basement being too cold, so I had the oil heater going all day, but alas, that wasn't it.

    I have started to wonder if I'm going crazy, if I'm not seeing something blatantly obvious, but thus far, the computer is fine, the draft is fine, the simpler mechanics of the loom are fine, so I think it's time to unscrew the screws and open the boxes. Yikes.

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