It’s the last day of August, and I’m sitting on our terrace in warm Springtime sun writing these Locked Downnotes. Winter is apparently over already. It has been a disappointingly mild winter for me: I prefer my seasonsextreme – what Central Otago does best – but this past one has seen far too little snow, … Read more

As we all learn to accommodate Covid’s assault on previous notions of normality, it has been interesting for Fi and I here at Cambrian Valley: our chosen life-style of near-voluntary isolation has meant that our daily activities have barely altered through these last few months. Although we know it’s been very challenging for many, we … Read more

Firstly, this week we are finally facing up to the 21st century and joining both Facebook and Instagram where I will be occasionally posting new paintings and photographs. So before you read any further: ‘Like Me!’ It’s a lush and luridly green Central Otago from which I write this early summer Newsletter: our farming neighbour … Read more

It has been more than two years since my last newsletter, an unintentionally long absence which I find hard to believe thanks to the days and years dashing by with worrying, uncontrollable speed. I feel like I’m on a fast racing bike, careening down a steep highway slope, hunched low over the handlebars in my … Read more

Several significant events have occurred since the last newsletter about this time last year. On the professional front, the book on which Fi and I had been working for the previous 18 months, in tandem with Robbie Burton of Potton and Burton Publishers, finally made it onto the shelves of bookshops around New Zealand in … Read more

We’re settling in for winter once again, wood-shed stacked to the ceiling (thanks to Fiona) and the veg garden slowly turning to perma-frost. I’ll have to get those spuds bagged before the soil turns to cast iron! Contained in this edition: Download to read the full newsletter

It’s an early Spring here in Cambrian Valley, potentially dangerous to plants (and expectations) as experience has taught we can have major snow events even through to October. Our last summer was a glorious one, once the New Year wind disappeared, and winter has been comparatively mild, with the exception being a fabulous snowfall in … Read more

It’s been more than a year since our last newsletter, so herewith a brief account of the intervening months and some of the works completed during that time. Contained in this edition: Download to read the full newsletter

Winter was a long time finding us this year, with no snow and few frosts weeks past the expected due date. The mountains which form our horizon from here – Dunstans to the West, Mt St Bathans to the North, and Hawkduns to the Nor’East – were all quite bare until a southerly storm hit … Read more