Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Delwyn's Mistake


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Hi ~ it's great to be back ~ in the warmth, in my home and in my own bed!
I have missed all my blogging buddies and thank you for the comments left in my absence. I will attempt to reply via email to some of your questions.


Now I have to thank my pal Alden from Whangarei, New Zealand, who was, way back in time, my Teachers' College buddie in Christchurch.

Alden has quite correctly identified Delwyn's Mistake, in the post where I showed the photograph of a rainbow over Sumner and labelled it as Clifton Hill. It is of course Taylor's Mistake Hill and to show that I am convinced by Alden's eagle eye I have found a photo of me taken in 1973 on the spit at Brighton with my back to the hill that I originally wanted - Clifton Hill, showing the brown house we lived in.







And here is another photo, with troublesome hair,
that shows the hill Alden named Taylor's Mistake.





And here is my dear Beloved, just a boy... with his back to both hills.
So Alden there is no doubt that you are correct. Thank you.



P.S. Aren't the 1973 yellow jeans just simply "cool, man..."


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37 comments:

  1. Very cool indeed, man. I remember so well how they were fashionable at that time. And you look cool too.

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  2. hi delwyn, i enjoyed your new zealand pics. with those churches, trams and beautiful surroundings, if you said those pics were from somewhere in europe, i would have believed you.

    i think the yellow jeans are the most beautiful of all. beats any of the scenery around it.

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  3. Blinding yellow, that is!

    Wondering how it came to be called Taylor's Mistake Hill?

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  4. Awesome post! You were gorgeous, Delwyn. Loved it.xx

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  5. Your glowing! Awesome photos and what an interesting name for a hill!

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  6. Manofroma,
    Thanks very much...I have been to your place and left a message...

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  7. Hi Priya,
    yes much of NZ and particularly Christchurch has a very English look to it. They were after all the first white settlers and planners of towns. Unlike Australia the NZ settlers were all free emigrants looking for a better life. Many of the early Australians were convicts coming to penal colonies.
    Happy Days

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  8. Hi Violet,
    Mellow yellow!!!

    I have a feeling it was an error in thinking that the bay was Lyttelton - the port, but lets throw that open to Alden - authority on all things Sumnerian....

    Happy Days

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  9. Hello Natalie,
    thanks for the compliments, and nice to talk to you again
    Happy Days

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  10. Hi Tulsa
    those jeans really do look on fire don't they!

    We often drove over the hill with surfer boyfriends looking for waves...
    happy days

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  11. Delwyn I am so happy you are back!..I have missed you.

    What a great clean place New Zealand is ,you look a bit in LOVE on the pictures BEAUTIFUL you!..The yellow pants are great in combination with the Bordeaux jumper!

    xxx Mona

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  12. I used to have a pink pair of flares that my Mum, on seeing me wearing them in a shopping precinct with me hair flowing and my uncordinated apparell , ran the other way!

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  13. Hi my Mona

    NZ is quite clean and fresh looking...

    I don't know if I look 'in Love' or just silly - posing??
    Happy days forever

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  14. Hi Mr CJDuffy,

    I don't really blame her!!

    I do remember when I was 14 years old, sewing my first boyfriend a pair of tartan bellbottoms.
    He had a beatles haircut and we met at a friday night dance at the local church hall.
    Another one of my friends married him!

    Thanks for the visit
    Happy Days

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  15. A while back your buddy Alden posted an interesting photo of his OK Dinghy. Everyone seemed to be more interested in the foreground of that picture.

    Same thing here. What hill?

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  16. Oooh, gorgeous Delwyn in those very mellow yellow jeans! I've loved your brilliant photographs and posts on your New Zealand trip - thank you so much for sharing those. (The thing that really struck me about NZ was how EMPTY it is - miles and miles of stunning scenery, but not a living creature to be seen. Well, apart from the occasional flock of sheep!)

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  17. So glad you're home safe and sound. Love the trousers! And your hair was beautiful, wild ... troublesome? Not to my eye.

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  18. I'm not sure how mellow the yellow was -- it looks pretty insistent to me.

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  19. Welcome back - I am particularly interested in you coming over to my humble little place and answer the question "I am..." today - or go one step further and enter the contest (see the details at the post) bring your friends with you ;)

    I thin your answer intrigues me most

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  20. Welcome back. Love the cool yellow pants!

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  21. Welcome back. Talk about the joys of one's own bed, I've changed 4 in 6 days!!
    I love those photos and the yellow jeans are a vintage must. Glad you're back, ciao my friend.

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  22. Hi Dan,

    A pair of yellow jeans takes centre stage!!
    Thanks for your email.
    Happy Days

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  23. Tessa,
    you have summed up NZ well ...it's still like that, stunning scenery, diverse geography, lots of sheep, and only a few over 3m people.
    I'm glad that you enjoyed the photos and I have a new batch to form into posts now for your further enjoyment.

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  24. Reya,
    Thanks - my hair had the tendency to range from wavy to wild - and still does, depending on the humidity.
    Happy hair days

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  25. Meri,
    I was thinking of the Donovan song Mellow Yellow which seemed appropriate to the era however like you I thought the jeans to be on the electric side of mellow...

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  26. Hi Jules,
    I will come and visit you after I return from Body balance class and see what you are chatting about there today...

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  27. Rosaria,
    It's so good to be back and find my friends are still roaming about close by...
    happy days

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  28. Lola,
    I was lying in bed this am thinking about you out on assignment wondering how you were coping...
    There is nothing like your own bed! I have needed to put the doona on since my return - the temps have dropped suddenly...it's cuddle up time...
    Happy working days

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  29. Delwyn, considering the flagrant and outrageous statements you made regarding my stove pipe jeans on my blogspot it does not surprise me that you complement this with a full frontal photographic attack in what I will from now on refer to as the TW (trouser wars). - let me first remind you of the Geneva Convention regarding battle engagement! My photograph was black and white - yours are in snowblinding colour, this is tantamount to a mustard gas attack - and might I add that blinding people with the colour of your pants is also a dubious fashion statement, let alone legitimate TW action. The colour of your jeans are so bright I had to look at them through a wielding mask.

    I hope you never ever wore these incandescent yellow jeans close to any motorways as the effect may well have been an inverted form of that old saying " Stunned like a possum being caught in the headlights"

    I see your beloved Jim is fully armed in his own form of trench warfare colours, although to give him credit, his colours are a little more muted. I guess this is to give the enemy a fighting chance - he is a fair man (and a man) after all.
    A less kindly person would say that two people displaying such vibrant and blindingly evocative fashion colours deserve each other but my lips are sealed.

    As to the mistake regarding Taylors Mistake it is an easy one to make - after all Captain Taylor thought he was rounding Godley Head and sailing up into Lyttleton Harbour and that is precisely why the bay is called 'Taylors Mistake' - So Godley Head, Clifton Hill and Taylors Mistake in fuzzy old photos and after 30 odd years is an easy mistake to forgive - even your old pal Alden has made that mistake recently in another context - BUT, forgive seeing yellow pants that burn holes in my retinas - NEVER!!!

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  30. Alden
    I am so thrilled that I have given you the opportunity to apply tit for tat...
    It is a good thing Jim doesn't have his red cords on then we would look like 2/3 of a traffic light.
    Does this TW thingie mean we are now going to be subjected to an even tighter pair of stove pipes on your part...

    Thanks for clearing up the reason behind the naming of Taylors Mistake. I thought I had it right but as you have seen age does funny things to memory and vision...

    So thanks for sorting out those errant hills Mr Schoolteacher.

    I see that there are walking tracks over the Taylors Mistake Hill and further afield. I will have to do some walking one day.

    The "cool man" expression reminds me of a time when we had a party in that very same brown house in the photo and a hippy looking bohemian idled up to me and a friend saying, "oh, wheres the toilet man?"
    My witty friend casually replied, "He's the one with the brush in his hand."

    Happy mistakes

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  31. Nah, I think we will call the war a draw, mainly because I would have to haul myself into a pair of very tight leotards and photograph myself and post it on my blog - and I am quite fond of the current pitch level of my vocal cords.

    Taylors Mistake is a very interesting hill. The road on the Sumner side zig zags steeply up to the top - but if you go straight ahead at the very first turning in the road another very wide sealed walking track takes you out and up around the headland. About half way up (back in the 1970s anyway) there was a Retreat House that was owned by the Anglican Church. It was a place of silent retreat/meditation for those inclined that way in a very beautiful setting.
    As you know Taylors mistake itself was a great surfing beach and I am sure Jim knows it very well - but if you like walking you can go where I went many years ago with my dad and a schoolfriend to the southern end of the beach and then climb up into the Port Hills proper. We tramped out to the top of Godley Head and then clambered down through tunnels to the base of the cliff to where a lighthouse was - and it has just occured to me - why would you have a lighthouse at the bottom of the cliff rather than at the top where it could be seen better?

    The other intriging thing about Taylors Mistake that you might remember is the large number of small weekend holiday baches built into caves at both ends of the beach. There was a lot of controversy a number of years back when the city council insisted on pulling them down as they were apparently on crown land - It caused a fuss similiar to the refusal to extend leases to people who had baches on Rangitoto Island close to Auckland - it is that Historical Heritage versus Conservation of the natural landscape argument. ( Not unlike a kind of TW ).

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  32. Alden
    what a relief... leotards no thanks!
    Yes I have walked into the park at the top of that road and seen the walking tracks.
    I can't remember the baches in the caves. Jim's family bach at Whareama is also on crown land, but so remote no-one probably knows its there...

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  33. Love the yellow jeans! Glad you are back safely & in your own bed. I love my bed!

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  34. Very cool! I think they are making a comeback this season. I came by way of Willow, xv.

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  35. Hi Lizzy - we are kindred spirits I can tell...

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  36. Hello again Vicki,

    Really - do I have to go and find some more? Horrors...

    Happy days

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  37. Splendid!
    I enjoy the past & present of you Delwyn:)
    Style and comfort all under one belt!

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