Now Hear this.

Author: Literacy Waitākere

  • Here we go again!

    Christmas has come round again. Where I come from (Ireland), it’s a cold time of the year. The trees are bare, and gardens go to sleep for the winter. But here in New Zealand, it’s summer, it’s hot, and trees and gardens are in bloom.

    The two trees above are flowering right now; the red one is a pohutukawa (sometimes called the Maori Christmas tree), and the purple one is a jacaranda from South America.

    The trees below, however, don’t flower. They’re Christmas trees in the centre of the city at the bottom of Queen Street outside the train station. There are three trees in the picture below, but only one of them is the real one. Can you guess which one it is?

    You can see the true tree below (it’s the one on the right above), as well as the three big Christmas balls. People love taking selfies here, especially when the sky is so blue.

    Also, this year on Queen Street there are these interactive boxes. You can touch them and things happen. There are five boxes, and each one of them is five metres tall.

  • Like Flies On …

    In the two pictures below, one is nice and the other one not so nice. You can see two insects: a bee on the left, and a fly on the right. In the left-hand picture, the bee is resting on a flower in a garden, and in the right-hand picture, the fly is resting on a little present that a dog left on the pavement.

    The bee was attracted to the flower, and the fly was attracted to the dog’s leftovers. As soon as the dog was finished with its business, the fly came in and did its job.

    A blank wall in the city has a similar effect on some young people as flowers have on bees and dog poo has on flies. Blank walls attract people who want to leave their mark, but sometimes what they leave is like the picture on the right, not the one on the left!

    Here’s a wall near where I live. One day it was blank, but the next day it looked like this. Not too bad.

    Then the next day, more “flies” had gathered to produce this.

    Again, still not too bad. But there was another blank wall behind this one, and this is what the “flies” left on it.

    I think this just looks ugly. Usually, the young “flies” come along when it’s dark and just write their name. And they don’t ask for permission.

    But other people who paint on walls are more like bees. They produce something useful and nice. Recently, I was in Henderson in West Auckland, and I saw these two guys making art. They had permission to do it in a special area.

    Here are some other examples in the same area. These are nice to look at, and I often wish I could do something like this.

    Give me bees any day of the week.

  • Perfect Timing!

    On Saturday mornings, I have a routine. I follow the same routine every Saturday, rain, hail or shine. Today, it was all shine … a lovely sunny day.

    At 7.30, I go to my letter box to pick up Saturday’s paper. The local newspaper is called the New Zealand Herald. But today, I got an unpleasant surprise. It wasn’t there! It usually is, but today there was nothing in the box when I opened it.

    At first, I was angry, but then I calmed down. It wasn’t the end of the world after all! And there was something I could do about it. It’s better to take action and fix something rather than just getting angry.

    So I went back into the house and phoned the Herald. I didn’t talk to a person, though. Instead, I was answering questions from a recorded voice, for example: “If you are calling to report an undelivered paper, please press 1.” So I did that.

    Then I had to answer more questions, and in the end, this is what I pressed: 111111. At the end of the phone call, the recorded message said that the paper would be delivered soon, and I thought to myself: Yeah, right!

    So that was the first part of my Saturday routine. The next part is walking to the local Post Office at 8.30 to pick up any mail from my post box. Usually, there’s only a weekly local magazine called the Listener, plus maybe a bill. Today, it wasn’t a wasted journey, because the magazine had been delivered. And better still, there wasn’t a bill.

    I walked home, wondering if the replacement paper would be in my letter box when I got home. Actually, I didn’t think it would be, but as I approached my house, a car very quickly turned into our car park. Then it reversed very quickly and stopped outside the letter boxes. A guy got out with a paper in his hand. I stuck out my hand and told him my address. He gave me my replacement paper and drove off. How’s that for timing!

  • It’s not what it looks like.

    I was walking through my local park early one morning, and I saw these little birds flying round and round. I stopped to look at them, wondering why they were doing this. I thought they were playing, and I thought to myself that was nice.

    I’m not a bird, so I don’t know what goes through a bird’s brain or why they do what they do, but later, I thought about their behaviour again, and I changed my mind.

    On second thoughts, I don’t think they were just playing. I think they were feeding! The birds were small, but they were big enough for me to see them. But in the air, there were hundreds and hundreds of small flying insects that I couldn’t see, and the insects were the birds’ breakfast.

    When I left the park through a gate, I saw some of these small birds sitting on a wire. I think they were tired after flying round and round, and their little bellies must have been full, so they needed a rest and time to digest. But I don’t know for sure. I was wrong the first time, so maybe I’m wrong this time, too.

  • Game On!

    There’s a new artwork in Aotea Square. You can see it until October 5. It’s called Checkmate. It’s made up of 14 very tall chess pieces.

    Here are some pictures from different angles.

    I don’t understand chess, and I have never played it, but even if I did understand the game and wanted to play, these pieces are too big. Some of them are 11 metres tall!

    If you can’t go and see them in person, you can watch a short video here.

  • It pays to check.

    Before I went to sleep last night, I set an alarm for 4.30. My plan was to get up early, have breakfast, read the paper online and then walk to the swimming pool and be there when it opened at 5.30.

    But I didn’t hear the alarm. Why? Because I turned it off before 4.30.

    It was raining all night, and the rain woke me about 3-o’clock. I tried to get back to sleep, but I couldn’t because an annoying bird in the tree outside my bedroom window started “singing” and wouldn’t stop. So I cancelled the alarm and got up.

    When I left the house, it was still raining, but I didn’t care because I had waterproof shoes on, along with waterproof over-trousers and a raincoat. I also had a big umbrella. But I still got soaked!

    Because of the rain, there were big puddles everywhere on the footpaths, and you couldn’t walk in a straight line. You just had to jump from one “dry” spot to the next. That didn’t matter, though, because I was going to get wet in the pool anyway. But that’s all by the by.

    I scanned my membership bracelet, and I noticed that I had 9 swims left in my account. But while I was swimming, I kept thinking that I should have 10 left.

    On my way out of the building, I asked the lady at reception to check, and I was right. Here’s what the problem was: when I scanned myself in, the scanner was slow, so I must have scanned twice. As I said, it pays to check.

  • I Could Kick Myself!

    I’m a reader. I like reading for pleasure, but I hate reading for study. I keep buying books, so I have loads at home but nowhere to put them. My bookcases are full, so I decided to make room.

    Yesterday, I walked to this second-hand bookshop near where I live. 

    I asked them if they wanted some of my old books, and they said they were interested. These are the books I want them to take.

    If they take your books, they don’t give you money; instead, they give you a token or a ticket so you can “buy” books from their shop. I’m happy with that.

    On my way home, I walked past another bookshop, but this one sells new books. About two weeks ago, I ordered two books from this shop online. Usually, you have to wait from 7 to 10 days before the books arrive.

    Yesterday before I left the house, I checked my e-mail to see if the books had arrived, but there was no e-mail from Paper Plus. As I was walking past the shop, I stopped. I didn’t know if I should just go in and ask if the books had arrived. I decided against it, and just walked home.

    When I got home, I checked my e-mail again, and there was one from Paper Plus saying that I could collect my books! If I had gone in and asked, I could have picked them up there and then. That’s why I could kick myself.  I was too tired to walk all the way back to the shop again yesterday, so I waited until today to go back and pick them up.

    Now all I have to do is find the time to read the books. These are some of the ones I still have to read.

  • On your bike!

    One week ago, I was walking along the road. It was early Saturday morning, and it was quiet. There was no one else on the footpath, and there were no cars on the road. It was a nice day. Then a guy on a motorbike passed me on the road. I walked on, but then I heard a loud noise.

    I stopped and looked behind me. The young guy on the bike was lying on the road. He’d had an accident. The road was a little bit slippery because it was raining during the night. His bike went in one direction, and he went in another direction. What should I do? Should I run back to help him?

    Luckily, there were no cars behind him and the road was quiet, so he wasn’t in any more danger. He quickly got up, and moved his bike to the pavement. When he fell off the bike, his helmet came off his head, so he picked that up too and waited with his bike at the side of the road.

    He looked OK, so I walked on and did my business. On my way back home about 20 minutes later, I wondered if he would still be there, and he was! He was on his phone, so he was probably waiting for help.

    I was going to say something kind to him as I passed, but another man stopped and talked to him, so I so I just walked on.

    That was a bad start to his day, so I felt sorry for him, but as I turned the corner, I saw this rainbow. A rainbow is a sign of hope that things can be better. I hope that young guy’s day got better.

    But on a negative note, while he did have a crash helmet to protect his head, he wasn’t wearing the best clothes on his body. And that reminded me of a photo of an advertisement I took on Queen St in the city about 14 years ago.

    The advertisement gives good advice. But looking at that photo again today, I noticed for the first time that there’s someone on a yellow motorcycle on the road beside the ad, and they’re following the ad’s advice!

    ON YOUR BIKE

  • Listen Here.

    I don’t listen to the radio, but many people do. Lots of people listen to the radio in their cars on their way to work in the morning.

    There are many radio stations. One of them is called The Hits. In Auckland, you can listen to it on 97.4 FM. 

    But if I never listen to the radio, how do I know about The Hits and where to listen to it? It’s because the station advertises on billboards and posters, and in newspapers and magazines. You can see some advertisements for one particular early-morning breakfast show below.

    I like the name of the show. It’s called Funny Side Up. But what does the name mean? Sunny side up is a saying in English. It means a fried egg. There are different ways to cook eggs, and one of them is to fry an egg without turning it over.

    In the pictures below, going clockwise from the top left are: a fried egg, scrambled eggs, a boiled egg, and a poached egg. In the fried egg, the yellow-orange yolk looks like the sun, and the sun usually makes us happy, so I think Funny Side Up is a good name for the show.

    That radio station has another show in the middle of the day. The show is called Laughter Noons. Again, I think that’s a catchy name because Laughter Noons sounds like Afternoons.

  • I’ve got the blues!

    This is my old swimming card. Before you can use the pool, you buy 10 swims and put them on the card. Then you scan it at a special machine every time you use the pool. The machine remembers how many swims you have left.

    If you also want to use the sauna, the steam room or the spa pool after your swim, you have to wear a coloured paper band on your wrist.

    One day, I had no swims left on my card, so I bought some more. The lady at reception helped me, but she took my old card and didn’t give it back to me. She gave me a new one, but it wasn’t a card. 

    You can see the new one at the top of the picture above. In the new system, the swims and the coloured wrist band are now two-in-one. This is easier and quicker. There’s a chip inside the band, and it takes one swim off every time you scan it. To scan, you just hold the chip part of the wrist band near the red dot on the front of the scanner, and it tells you how many swims you have left.

    You put the plastic band on your wrist, and you can make it as tight or as loose as you want. I like mine tight. It’s very light, and when you’re swimming, you don’t even know you’re wearing it.

    I’m happy with my new blue wrist band, so I’ve got the blues.