Findcate

When ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ opens the year is 1957 and we find our hero has been taken prisoner by a group of Soviets who have infiltrated the US Army’s notorious ‘Area 51′ looking for something the army has secretly stored there.

After Indy helps them locate what they’re looking for he expedites a ‘high speed’ escape before falling into the clutches of the US Army, after almost getting caught in the middle of a major nuclear weapons test.

After all this excitement Indiana returns to teaching only to be told, by his college principal, that because of the FBI’s ‘interest’ in him he is going to be suspended.

As Indy is about to head off on a trip to England he meets a young man  who asks for his help to find his mother, and his old professor, who have gone missing in South America.

Before the professor went missing he was searching for the mythical Crystal Skull of Akatar and this, along with the arrival of a number of KGB agents, prompts Indy to agree to help young Mutt and the pair head off in search of this elusive archaeological treasure.

Shortly after arriving in Peru Indy picks up the trail left by his old friend and he soon finds himself in an old graveyard where he discovered a hidden chamber where he locates the Crystal Skull.

However, the pair have been followed and, once again, Indy finds himself captured by the Russians, led by Cate Blanchett.

Aside from a few more wrinkles, and a tendency to wear his khakis a bit high at the waist, Harrison Ford rolls back the years to reprise one of the roles which made him a Hollywood megastar.

The film is directed by Steven Spielberg and rolls along at a pretty hectic pace. The opening half hour is non-stop and highly watchable although I felt a chase sequence through the jungle looked like it was all done in front of a blue screen, or on a computer.

If ‘Crystal Skull’ has an Achilles heel and it does it’s the story. The plot starts off fairly interesting but turns into complete hokum as it develops, and would be more at home in an episode of ‘X-Files’ than in a Indiana Jones movie.

What you do get with ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ is some excellent chase sequences, lots of high speed action, some exotic locations and the re-introduction of one of the big screen’s favourite characters to the movie going public.

And while the movie is very enjoyable, and well put together, the plot is very weak and unfortunately lets down what is otherwise a very enjoyable adventure romp.

Tags: achilles heel, archaeological treasure, area 51, cate, cate blanchett, chase sequences, clutches, college principal, crystal skull, ford, harrison ford, hectic pace, hero, hokum, hollywood, indiana jones, indy, kgb agents, khakis, megastar, mutt, nuclear weapons test, old graveyard, pace, romp, soviets, spielberg, steven spielberg, us army

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Familiar faces return year after year to 185 in Hope, bringing along buckets and boxes to cram with luscious red tomatoes or a mix of the other pick-your-own vegetables that cover every metre of the market garden.

For many, it%26#39;s become a summer tradition, and they%26#39;ll head home to turn their freshly picked produce into sauces and relishes to fill the pantry for the year to come.
But while the business at 185 Main Rd Hope is best known for its pick-your-own vegetables, behind the scenes is an intensive market garden operation that will keep Gavin and Angela Williams%26#39; noses to the grindstone for the entire summer.
It will be five months before harvest tapers off, the shop closes for winter and they finally get a chance to catch their breath. And they wouldn%26#39;t have it any other way.

A corrugated iron shed is transformed into the shop for the summer months, and it brings a lively atmosphere to the gardens, with 10 staff, several family members and even an 85-year-old neighbour working with customers, bagging vegetables or harvesting the assorted crops outside.

Gavin grew up with market gardening under the wing of his parents, who grew tomatoes in Stoke. Later, he bought a property next door and put up another glasshouse for tomatoes.

When Angela came along, they began selling veges at the Nelson market to save money for a home - 17 years later, they%26#39;re still selling there every Saturday, as well as running the home shop six days a week.

When we first started going to the market, we were taking about six to eight crates along and thought it was wonderful,%26quot; Angela laughs. %26quot;But now we might take a truckload of veges there every Saturday.

In Stoke, subdivisions crept closer to the glasshouses and eventually surrounded them. With that came more and more kids biking along the Railway Reserve to the rear, and too often they had the irresistible urge to throw stones at the glasshouses. It was time to head further out of town.

At the same time, Murray and Helen Wieblitz were retiring after 20 years at the market garden at 185. Gavin and Angela took up the reins and began growing as big a range of vegetables as possible on the 10ha property, to stock the shop.

Gavin couldn give up the glasshouses, though,%26quot; says Angela. %26quot;It took him months to take them down in Stoke and rebuild them here.

Now their fifth season at 185, and the shop overflows with their produce, including tomatoes, strawberries, onions, pumpkins, corn, zucchini, eggplants, peppers, beetroot, beans, melons, parsley and rhubarb. Those are the ones they can remember off the top of their heads, anyway.

There are extras, too, such as the huge plants of basil, which are popular around Christmas.

Being small, you have to do everything,%26quot; explains Gavin. %26quot;We couldn%26#39;t survive by supplying the market system - you really need 100 acres or more for that nowadays.
%26quot;The only time we sell through the markets is when we have an excess of something, but 90 percent of the things we grow we can sell ourselves.

That was the main reason for buying on a main road, where people driving past could easily stop and stock up with vegetables.

As well as cramming as much variety as possible into their property, they buy in produce - locally, where possible.
They buy from numerous small growers of fruit and vegetables throughout the district who are either in the wrong place for their own roadside stall, or don%26#39;t want the hassle of it and are too small to sell through the market system.

Supermarkets control about 80 percent of the produce sales now, which has weeded out the little greengrocers,%26quot; says Gavin.

It all adds to the range of produce that spills out of the shop through summer, tempting those who are picking bucketloads of vegetables for sauces and relishes.

Mostly been an older generation churning out the homemade goodies, but Gavin says he is seeing more and more younger people picking vegetables to make homemade delicacies, driven by a desire to know what is in their food and also for taste.
%26quot;A bought chutney or sauce never tastes as good as a homemade one,%26quot; he insists.

To prove a point, he produces a spicy tomato relish from a Wieblitz family recipe. The relish is now standard stock in the smoko room to dollop on crackers.

One of many recipes the couple have collected over the years, which Angela uses on their only day off to turn surplus vegetables into bottles and jars of goodies for the pantry.

They have numerous recipes packed into a folder at the shop to help customers looking for ideas.

If you can get them started, they%26#39;ll carry on doing it,%26quot; Gavin reasons.

Through the season, his working day starts at 6am and won%26#39;t finish until about 9pm. Even on Sundays, when the shop is closed, there%26#39;s still irrigation and other jobs to do around the garden.

Think winter would be time for a well-earned break after the hectic pace of summer, but when the shop finally closes towards the end of April, it%26#39;s time for planting again. By that stage, the summer staff have gone and it%26#39;s just Gavin and Angela planting and tending crops through winter.

We growing through the year,%26quot; Angela says.
Broccoli and cabbage replace the summer crops, while tomatoes fill the glasshouses. For the onion crop, which produces 70 to 80 tonnes each year, they bring in a team of about 20 hard-working Asian refugees living in Nelson to pick them.

They turn up and there will be 20 of them, and they%26#39;ll have them picked in a couple of nights - they have other jobs in the daytime.

Tags: Food, hectic pace, job, liar, pace

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