Our property consists mainly of kauri and rimu, with manuka, punga, niku and various native ferns. The mahoe's shedding leaves are aptly called "fairy wings" as they disintegrate on the forest floor leaving a fine lace skeleton and are fun to gather and spray different colours for craft type projects.
Anyhow, the last week there's been a lot of clagg around here, the bush has been dripping constantly, the chooks are huddling under the house and the cats are bored being inside all day.
Clagg, now there's a good South Westland word to add to your vocabulary. I'd never heard it until I met Chris Brown, my traveling companion from Westport to Haast. ( See earlier posts).
As we drove through Hokitika down to Haast, Chris kept saying , 'looks good now but it could clagg in at any time; glad we didn't fly down.'
The next day he looked to the hills and confirmed, 'yep its clagging alright.' The day after, Tuesday, while walking around Jackson Bay Chris looked back to the mouth of the Arawhata River now hidden in a heavy mist, and he searched the horizon saying, 'its difinitley clagged in.'
Ian Rendell from Haast General Store and local historian said 'its all claggy' it in a fine Scottish accent on our way up the cattle road alongside the Jackson River. Mike Bennet never said it while I was interviewing him, he would probably say it in a Shakespearean dramatic type way, draw out each part of the word c-l-a-g-g in a rich tone.
I did a quick google and clagg is possibly derived from klagg a Danish or Scandinavian word that was also in use in the north of England and translates as: dirty, muddy, sticky, clinging as mud; that sort of thing. In South Westland's context its when the weather closes in.
Maybe it came to our shores from the settlers at Jackson Bay? Whom were a mixture including many non English speaking people from parts of Europe (cited from The Encyclopedia of NZ website) including Italian and German immigrants.
Well, where ever it came from and how it got here... its an interesting word. Another word I heard a lot down south is the synonym for goodbye - cheerio or just cheery. I think I'll be using it, it has a lovely old fashioned warm scones just out of the oven sincerity to it.
So then...cheerio !
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| All clagged in at Jackson Bay the mouth to the Arawhata River lost in the soup. South Westland October 2011 |
