Knocking on winter's door

Temperatures have tumbled since last week and now we're knocking on the door of winter. Those frosts came as something of a shock after such a mild few weeks. It must be time to find the old footie socks to pop over my shoes for better grip on the walk down the hill.

The accompanying fog caused some flight delays and cancellations out at Momona. Up the road, in Christchurch, the drizzly rain and mist meant my Sunday night Intercity bus back to Dunedin ended up running almost two hours late.

The poor driver had to pull off the road and stop just before Dunsandel because the coach's aircon-demisting system was not working. It was almost raining on us inside and he could not see clearly where he was going through totally fogged-up windows.

He did the right thing - but we sat for more than an hour waiting for a replacement coach from Christchurch. We finally made it back into the Dunedin depot about 12.45am yesterday.

Talking of a lack of visibility and peripheral vision, one colleague was even more surprised by the frost and, in a rush to get to work and with no time to go back inside for some warm water, poured her hot chocolate over the windscreen to de-ice it. An interesting option.

A family affair

Still at least the weather was dry for University of Otago graduation on Saturday.

There was a nice family touch at one of the two ceremonies that day.

Prof Hamish Spencer, of the department of zoology and also the current Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment science adviser, was invited to give the graduation address.

But before he said yes, he thought he might check whether his son Ned minded.

That was because Ned just happened to be graduating at that very ceremony, unbeknown to the vice-chancellor, who had asked Prof Spencer to talk.

Ned, capped in economics and now working for EY (Ernst and Young) in Christchurch, was more than happy to put up with his father pontificating on his big day.

Ned's mother, Prof Abby Smith, meanwhile, joined Hamish and Ned to parade down George St together. Abby then took her place among the academics on stage to proudly watch her husband speak and her son graduate.

Strange vegetables

I had a visit from Bill Haar of Kaikorai Valley. He was very proud of a carrot he had grown which was shaped more like a squid, with lots of tentacles and leg-like protuberances.

``I've never had one quite like this before. It looks like the slugs have had a good feed on it.

``I'll probably give it to Sparkle [the sheep].''

Sparkle enjoys a varied diet. ``If I put fish and chips in my pockets, she follows me round sniffing at me,'' Bill says.

Thanks for sharing your story, Bill. Hopefully Sparkle enjoys the mutant carrot.

Building the tower

Andrew Stout writes with his recollections of helping build the tower at the top of Mt Cargill.

``I worked on the assembling of the tower. I was the only one from Dunedin to work up there, as they had a team down from the North Island.

``I drove a crane and picked up the steel parts all along the road and brought them to the centre of the tower, from where they winched them up through the middle of it.

``There were about eight riggers there. We worked through the winter of 1969 and took about four months. Sometimes it had snowed and we could not get up there.

``The other men stayed in a motel in George St and I would meet them there to go up the mountain. I was working for a contracting firm called J. C. Mowat Ltd, an old family firm from Kaikorai Valley.''

Thanks Andrew. Anybody else have memories of building the tower or of being on Mt Cargill? What about anyone who may have worked on the navigational aids on the top of Swampy Summit? It would be good to hear from you.