Happy Matariki!

                                                           (Image by Robert Gendler)

Happy Matariki! The Maori New Year begins with the rise of the Pleidies star cluster in the Southern hemisphere winter night sky alongside the new moon, which this year falls on Saturday June 4^th, or 6^th or 16^th  depending on the source of your information!
Traditionally it’s celebration involved eating, dancing and kite flying. I absolutely love the traditional Maori kites, I think because they remind me of the Angel of the North, except not grounded. You never seem to see them though, except in museums, and though I’d love to have a go at flying one, or even making one I can’t seem to find out much about it at all. 

The Angel of The North , a famous UK sculpture, by Anthony Gormley.

We celebrated Matariki with a special Matariki storytime at the Bishopdale library, Maori tats and Clauds first candle lit dinner.

Claud also went a little more crazed than is probably sensible before bedtime, on her first torch and starlit exploration of the garden. She span and span the torch round giggling and gasping, dashed into the ever moving spotlight, chased the disappearing into the blackness cats with her new tool of put-upon moggy-irritation; was fascinated by the insects-by-night, and all this night dancing to the tune of "ar", "ar", "sar" (star!). Awhh!

 The Southern Cross looked majestic, but the Pleiades were missing? The glow-in-the-dark-star-chart showed the Pleiades low to the horizon so we drove up to the rolling hills at the back of Loburn for a clearer view, but in the 10 minutes that took the cloud came down and the claud went home. Quick to sleep by twinkling fairy lights, and a story of winter (Bramby Hedge; Winter Story, by Jill Barklem,1980) dreaming perhaps of a cat that could be caught.

                Brambly Hedge, a fave from my childhood for the intricate drawings which I spent hours copying.
       (from this great blog http://anillustratorsinspiration.blogspot.com/2011/03/jill-barklem-and-other-animal- %20lovers.html)

Kite flying tommorow (the traditional type), lets hope for wind!