PERIGRINATIONS OF A PERIPATETIC PENSIONER

LEARNING TO SWIM IN SHARK INFESTED WATERS

2012-02-17T10:12:00.000-08:00

I self published a novel on the web just to see if I could. Now instead of getting on with the next novel I am trying to stay afloat in this sleazy pool of cyber crime. I shall make a novel of it if I live long enough.

It seems my e mail address was hi jacked and my address list stolen. The lady on Telecom fixed that for me I thought, and issued me a new pass word.
My address book disappeared so I have to build a new one.

This morning I logged on to a message saying there had been 'ünusual activity'on my credit card account, and if I logged on to that message it would be mended. Fortunately the account they mentioned was one I have never used, so I consigned it to the trash bin.If I had forwarded it to my accountant son I could have infected his machine and those of his contacts.

I use my credit card a lot to buy books from Amazon and City Lights, book travel and accommodation, buy and sell things on Trade Me.I take the prescribed precautions, but now I shall have to alter my style of living because of these cyber criminals who are getting away with their dishonesty because it seems to be too hard to catch them out.
There does not appear to be any world wide organisation able to deal with cyber crime. THERE SHOULD BE.

I AM NOT IN SPAIN

2012-02-15T14:08:00.001-08:00

This morning I could not log on to my e mail. My friend Shirley who writes cracking YA novels rang me from Masterton to ask if I was in Spain. Hers was the first of several calls. Evidently someone had ji jacked my e mail site and is sending e mails to everyone in my address book telling them I am stranded in Spain and need money.
I AM NOT IN SPAIN
I managed to get on to face book abd tell people there I would be closing my e mail down until I had dealt with the low life who was trying to make money using my name.

Actually they spun quite a tale, maybe they should turn to writing fiction for a more honest living, they could sell it on Amazon.

IDEAS ABOUT THE ELDERLY

2012-02-08T20:58:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday my eldest son, Frank, turned 68. He did not do a lot of celebrating, he was busy doing his job at the radio station.

Next Satrday my sister Pat will be 91. I don't know what she plans to do but most likely it will involve beer and darts or indoor bowls at her local R.S.A.

Next Wednesday I am going to a lunch party for my friend Rita. She will be 100 years old. I will giver her some fancy salmon lures to celebrate because she likes to go fishing. She still drives her car and reads without glasses.

So to-day I went shopping for suitable birthday cards. Frank's had been eas cards with pictures or beer, cigars, fishing rods, sports cars and busty blondes leaping out of champagne glasses and humourous greetings. But for Rita and Pat's age group nly prissy pastels bouquets and 'improving' verses about being proud of being their age and exhorting them to look back on their achievements Yukk!!!

Card manufacturers, get real, study your market.

Rita's generation grew up in the 'roaring twenties.' They wore very short skirts and silk stockings, they performed indecorous dances like the fox-trot and tango. They were called 'flappers' and 'gay young things' before'gay' changed its meaning.

My sister's generation took over men's work during world war 2. Pat drove a truck in the Army Transport Corps.That is why she likes to drink a beer and play a round of darts at the Returned Dervices Club. We had our indecorous dances too. Jive and Jitterbug shocked our seniors.

And the women reaching their eighties, nineties and 100's now are the people who battled for real women's rights - like permission to wear bikinis on the beach, to wear trousers as everyday wear, to use cosmetics without being labelled 'fast', to go into a bar and have a drink if we feel like it.

They deserve more than bland and patronising borthday cards.I commented to the girl in the stationery shop.
"Wait a minute, I know just what you want," she dashed away and from another section of the card display showed me a cartoon of a middle aged housewife in fluffy slippers making love to her washing machine. It was hilarious.

So Rita is getting that on her birthday.

EVERY BREATH WE TAKE

2012-02-07T10:56:00.000-08:00

I listened to the Maori Party politicians claiming our fresh water. What next?
Well air is made breathable by oxygen expired from trees, trees grow on land and need fresh water, some of it rain much of it from rivers and lakes.
So perhaps we should be paying Maori for the air we breath?

But

If Maori own the foreshore and sea bed, the rivers and lakes, the forests etc as owners should they not be responsible for damage caused by these?

So when a river floods will Maori pay owners of adjoining land?
Tangaroa has been eating away at the coast south of where I live, a road had to be closed. Could the District Council prosecute Ngai Tahu for keeping a dangerous animal on their land? They own the sea bed and have allowed the sea to occupy it. Surely that is comparable with the householder who allows dangerous dogs to live on his property without restraint.

Think about it.

MEN BEHAVING BADLY

2012-02-06T20:58:00.000-08:00

Oh, tut tut, so a crowd of youngsters in London on their O.E. got drunk.
"Shouldn't let them our of the country, bloody irresponsible," said Fred, age 75.
"You never got drunk when you were away?" I asked innocently.
"Course not."
Well maybe my memory is a bit longer and less selective than Fred's, but I remember growing up in the 1940's when the pubs all shut at 6 o'clock and every dance hall had a truck out the back selling beer.
And I remember when my own sons were on their O.E's hearing about how people in Munich had to carry umbrellas to shield them from vomiting drunks on the rides at the Munich beer festivals, and most of these drunks were Australians and New Zealanders.
Binge drinking has been part of the (male) kiwi culture since the whalers and sealers came ashore in the 1820s.
It's a rite of passage. They leave home, drink themselves legless, and if they survive they eventually settle down and become respectable, like Fred.
What a pack of hypocrites we are!

LEARNING SOMETHING NEW EACH DAY

2012-02-01T09:55:00.000-08:00

A moment ago I clicked on to someone else's blog; Up in the tight hand corner a photo of the moon;waxing gibbous65% full'
I must drop that into the conversation sometime

TO WAIATA AND TERRY AND OTHERS - A NOVEL

2012-01-23T12:29:00.000-08:00

Conception was instantaneous, gestation lengthy, labour painful but at last we succeeded. The novel is now available on Kindle.
It is called 'Thorny Glen' a fictional settlement in high country South Island New Zealand. It started when I bought a book about writing a romance novel. The advice was solid and sensible. I also took an on line course from Bob Mayer about writing that read like an Army Training manual. I wrote most of Thorny Glen while I was in Crete two years ago, put it away when I came home, then signed on to a course called 'Finish Your Novel' at the Writers' Centre in Dublin (wonderful place), taught by Connor Kostick, (wonderful teacher).

So there it is, available for U.S.$0.99 for download, (Kindle has sent an e mail saying it will be available free for the first 90 days to Kindle owners.

The story started out as traditional romantic conflict between the flawed hero (CEO of a dairying consortium, and a heroine (Black Fern rugby player)who is married to an All Black, a rather nasty character. My characters developed minds of their own and were twisting the story from day one, and then the Canterbury earthquake happened and I had to accommodate that. But I had fun writing it. I hope my friends will as much fun reading it.

TRYING TO TALK TO THE YOUNG

2012-01-19T11:35:00.000-08:00

I was reading a grand daughter's facebook page. Her generation does not write letters it tweets, texts and twitters. She has a wide circle of contacts and cousins, being twenty three, intelligent and stunningly pretty I am not surprised.

A few days ago Ceiridwen complained on her facebook page about headaches. Not the light throb that tells one they have been reading too long, or their period is due, but it read like the kind of headache that can signal a serious maladjustment in the brain.
I put on my grandmotherly voice (bossy) and said she should see a doctor immediately.
Her facebook friends, including several of her cousins, sent her commiserations and advice, like DRINK COCA COLA; FANTA;Tea instead of coffee; water, that is not so bad, but those friendly messages were from kids making diagnoses (addiction loomed large) they should not have been making. They were happily passing on medical misadvice mainly based on their personal experiences or things they saw on TV and that can be dangerous.

I told her to go to a doctor because headaches can be a sign of a number of serious
maladies, or just emotional stress. Her response? She 'liked' my message.

I retired from teaching before Ceiridwen began school. I and other teachers of my generation worked extremely hard to teach children how to think critically, to examine evidence, to distinguish solid fact from suburban myth, to develop the skills that would let them make sensible decisions. Well it seems the snake oil merchants and the peddlers of superstion have won. Warm fuzzies and snake oil is so much easier than facing reality.

I am concerned about this because two of Ceiridwen's father's cousins died of undiagnosed brain tumours.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS!

2012-01-14T17:55:00.000-08:00

Thank you the kind people who sent me e mails about the watering holes south of Christchurch. One suggested that I move the venue to Dunedin to avail myself of the really interesting and historic pubs on the way down there. Another suggested travelling across the Canterbury plains to take advantage of that big blue hotel at Methven.

Filling in the bald spots has been really interesting. I have learned a lot about funerals, country roads, the physics of what happens when a van overturns on a bridge. Like how long does it take a laden milk tanker to stop when the driver sees an accident blocking the road? What is the likelihood of fire? You don;t want to hear about what bodily functions do after death, but when mothers tell their daughters to always wear clean knickers in case of accidents - don't bother.

And I have had to listen to my characters; Ask myself, "What would they do?" my heroine's bossy mother, would she move in and start directing the funeral arrangements? Of course she would. And the wealthy Dairy Corporation owner who fancies the heroine, what does he do when her rat of a husband finally dies? They can't fall straight into each others arms, or beds, can they? But it has been fun working it all out.

Yesterday son Joe with his partner Kim brought a tall dark and handsome young man, with an inexplicable American accent, to lunch. They were travelling to Dunedin for Grandson Jed's other grandmother's seventieth birthday. Jed talked me through downloading things on to my Kindle reader, Joe put an icon on my screen to let me open Facebook, and they all had second helpings of the kumera, coriander and chillie soup I was trying out on them. I don't know where Jed got the accent from, but it's fascinating. My ten grandsons are all tall, handsome with I.Q.s like telephone numbers. Makes me wonder what the generation after them will be like!

HELP!

2012-01-07T20:37:00.000-08:00

I have been consulting Google maps all afternoon. The novel is finished, or at least the third draft is finished, except when i read the draft I find I have some serious gaps in my knowledge of vital spots in the locality.

The lead up to C.J. Spencer's demise is this. There is a charity rugby match between Canterbury and Otago Veterans. Men in their forties playing a match to raise money to rebuild AMI stadium. His nine year old son is going to kick off and so C.J.is taken to the venue in a mobility van to watch. After the match the van is stolen by some hooligans and driven down S.H.1 on a pub crawl. It will probably come to grief on the bridge over the Rakaia. near Hinds. End of a nasty character.

But, not being a drinker, I have no idea what pubs there are en route. I know the towns, Burnham, Rolleston, Dunsandel, Leeston, but I haven't the foggiest what the pubs are like.

Now, if anyone knows something that will give one or more of these stopping places character please post a response, A sharp, narrow entrance to the car park, a mounted trout above the bar, a moth eaten stag head,historic photographs of the area, a licensee who doesn't like selling beer, anything relevant that will round out the scene please tell me about it. Just a few words would help.

And if you should be familiar with a rugby ground near Christchurch which could host a large charity match please tell me. The venues I have found on Google are either too far away or look like a farmer's paddock with a collection of tin sheds on it.

People sent me some wonderful suggestions for C.J.'s actual death, including one from India suggesting a knife fight. At the moment the driver loses control when one of his drunk mates spews inside the van. Thanks DHJS, you gave details that nearly sent me into the same state, but that is what will be in the book.

I KILLED THE ALL BLACK

2012-01-05T21:35:00.000-08:00

He deserved to die, and people suggested some really grizzly endings for him. But oh boy! It was fun. He went to the rugby match and watched his wife become the darling of the crowd, but he did not fall off the grandstand. If you want to know what happened, I shall only tell you that alcohol was involved.

Now I can add the final chapter which I wrote in Dublin last August, Will the heroine marry the hero now she is free? Well, if I was thirty three and beautiful, and had just escaped from a terrible marriage I would think twice, several times before taking on another relationship. But my heroine might not see things that way. After all she is a blonde, and they are supposed to be a bit dim.

My next reading project is "How to Format Your eBook for Kindle" by Paul Salvette

OICHE NOLLAIG NA mBAN

2012-01-02T17:57:00.000-08:00

The Irish Writers Centre newsletter told me about 'Little Christmas'.
Shakespeare called it Twelfth Night, we mark it on the calendar as January 6th, heave a sigh of relief and say, 'Thank Goodness it's as far away as ever it will be.'

Not the Irish. On January 6th, in recognition of all their work over the previous year,Irish women are allowed to stay in bed and be waited on by their menfolk.

I can just imagine it, Irish women toiling for days to make sure the cake tins are full, the meals cooked and the house clean enough for them to take a day off. And their menfolk?
"Don't you worry, Pet. You have a good lie in and I'll see to everything."
"Sorry to wake you pet, but I can't find any clean towels. No, don't get up. We'll be right now. Go back to sleep."
"Just tell me Darlin', where do you stow the tea bags? Right. Go back to sleep."
Imagine the bairns, peering round the bedroom door.
"Mam, do we have to eat Da's porridge? It's all lumpy."
"Mam, I told you I needed my best blue blouse to-day and you haven't ironed it. No I can't wear my green."
"Mam, Da's hidden the remote.He says we ca't watch the cartoons."
"Sorry love, but the new puppy's peed on the livin' room carpet. How do I fix it?"
A day off for women? In their dreams.
But the Irish Writers' Centre is having a women's literature day on June 6th with readings and workshops by and about noted Irish women writers. Their hearts are in the right place.
If I was rich I would charter a plane and fly there, just for that day.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL

NEW YEAR REVOLUTIONS

2011-12-31T14:35:00.000-08:00

2012 I resolve to make no New Year resolutions.

But I want to acknowledge a few things like
MY PARENTS' GENERATION
who had to leave school at twelve, but never stopped learning.

THE EDUCATIONAL REFORMS OF DR. CLARENCE BEEBY
which abolished the Proficiency exam so all children could go to High School.

MAGNIFICENT, GIFTED TEACHERS
who taught ignorant young kiwis to love Maths.Science,Latin,Literature. and above all LEARNING.

THE NEW ZEALAND HEALTH SYSTEM
which delivered my eight babies free of charge,even though three of them involved lengthy hospital stays.
PLUNKET NURSES
who gave mothers guidance and assurance.
PUBLIC HOSPITALS
who set broken bones, removed ruptured appendixes, healed burns and twice saved a son's life by knowing how to treat emergencies. All without charge.

THE WELFARE STATE SET UP
for all its faults it paid all mothers a benefit towards raising their children; delivered milk to letter boxes at 4 pence a pint; and supplied milk in schools for free; provided cheap (if not comfortable) rail travel throughout the country; allowed kids to stay at school longer, paid students and apprentices living allowances while training to provide world class housing, education, health care and social infrastructure and finally provided a modest retirement pension at sixty.

I have much to be grateful for and I am.
Now go away and have a great New Year, I want to practice on my Kindle Reader.

HOW TO GET A KINDLE FOR CHRISTMAS

2011-12-25T20:16:00.000-08:00

It takes a long time..

Start in your youth, search for, find and marry a quy who is kind, reliable and generous.

Marry him and have lots of sons.

Bring them up the best way you can.

Make sure they marry lovely girls.

Let them mature for fifty years or more.

On Christmas Day visit at least one of them, Having mentioned on your blog that you wan a Kindle for Christmas.

And remember to thank them when you open the package.

Simple!

Merry Christmas Everybody.

TIPTOE THROUGH THE LUPINS

2011-12-25T12:09:00.000-08:00

The best way to spend yet another birthday, one's 86th when one cannot drink alcohol or eat sweet foods? Solution, have a neighbour like my friend Don who took his two springer spaniels and me into the high country. Perhaps I should explain,Don fits somewhere between by eldest son Frank and my second son Richard He looks after my garden and I let him use my broadband. Being kind to the elderly is only one of his virtues.

On my birthday we drove through miles of lupins growing wild, explored small towns, finding settings for they current novel, lunched under pine trees by the lake at Tekapo and Don cast for trout in the rivers and canals we crossed during the day. It was idyllic.

A MOST UNUSUAL OPERA

2011-12-18T06:54:00.000-08:00

SATYAGRAHA by Philip Glass is a three act opera, sung in Sanskrit with no relevant subtitles. What subtitles we do read are translations of meditations.Its hero is Mohandas Ghandhi. Not an easy experience to understand and of the opera lovers in Oamaru, some twenty of us, only five people attended the screening yesterday afternoon. Of course they will all be attending 'The Magic Flute'next week, where they will be seen and recognised as culture vultures, but four hours of incomprehensible singing one week before Xmas No thanks. Well they missed a treat.

Richard Croft,sings Ghandi with his beautiful tenor voice. He begins as a young lawyer in South Africa and over three acts develops into the stick figure man in a loin cloth I remember seeing in newreels as I was growing up

The whole opers is highly symbolic, Shiva of the blue face, and Mohammed in a red fez sing a tenor baritone duet in the first act. I think they were arguing the merits of their holy books, but cannot be sure, I had to infer that from the acting.

A lot of use is made of newspaper. In the second act a choruus of South African men sing 'Ho,Ho.Ho'on one note for just about the entire act while boys in rags polish their shoes. Behind them giant puppets that look as though they were constructed of newspaper, stir the ridicule until the chorus atacks Ghandi physically, and he lies bleeding on the stage. Enter a mezzo soprano who berates the men and rescues Ghandi. All based on historical events.

In the third act, which begins with the burning of identity passes, a brilliant scene, Ghandhi and his followers prepare to march. One by one his friends are dragged away by police,leaving him alone as he sings a final meditation,

There are excerpts from SANTYAGRAHA on Google.

In the Metropolitan Opera's production there is a balcony at the rear of that stage, throughout this final song it shows a the back of a young, black man in a blue suit miming his presidential address. At the end it all morphs into the Lincoln memorial..

The whole opera is incredibly clever,visually beautiful,intellectually demanding, and musically satisfying.

A KIWI's KRISSMAS

2011-12-15T10:55:00.000-08:00

Driving North on Christmas Morning

Soon after sunrise I shall drive
north on the empty highway
around bends and over bridges

through silent towns
past shuttered shops
abandoned petrol pumps

parking meters will stand
at attention along deserted streets
where I shall surf green waves

perhaps I shall see
some ecstatic six year old
wobbling on a brand new bike
across a daisied lawn

but otherwise the world
will dream in sabbath serenity
and sunlit silence until

I reach that familiar gate
turn in and stop
alone for a moment

until a medley of grandchildren
sons with beaming wives
a cacophony of dogs
will gather round the car

together we will surge
like the receding tide
back into the house

the tree the tinsel the turkey
the silly gifts all wrapped
with so much love

and Christmas will begin at last.

This poem is destined for 'Eightyfive @Fortyfive' which I did not get finished in time for publication before Christmas. I read it at the Bristol Poetry Festival in August and at Poetry Kit's World Poetry Night in Liverpool in September. And Ruth Arnison kindly included it in this summer's POEMS IN THE WAITING ROOM pamphlet.

If you would like to share it at your Christmas party please feel free to do so. Last year Waitaki Hogmannay, ('Over and Out From Down Under') was shared at New Year gatherings in New Zealand, Australia, Greece, France, Britain, and several U.S. states. The readers kndly e-mailed me (waiata.davies@xtra.co.nz)to tell me how it was received. I had to buy a bigger hat.

SERENDIPITY ON LINE

2011-12-13T11:02:00.000-08:00

Thus morning I did some surfing,having decided to find out more about those incredibly kind total strangers who have become regular followers of my blog. I found that if I clicked on their little icons information about them would come up, including a list of other blogs they follow.

One of these was about knitting, and posted on it was a video made by the crew of HMAS OCEAN. The story line :- They heard they were returning to Australia for Christmas, so they made a lip sync of 'All I want for Christmas is You' starring just about every crew member, so I imagine it was made for them to send to their families. The cutting and editing was really good with comic touches like the officer drinking champagne in his bath, crew members wrapped as gifts and a Xmas message spelled out by human letters at the end. It was a happy video.

So I shall sign off now because I want to look at it again, and to all those people who find a way to enjoy their lives, in spite of tough living conditions and inept governments, my very best wishes for 2012 -

AND MAY ALL 366 OF THEM BE MERRY AS DECEMBER 25TH

HOW TO KILL AN ALL BLACK

2011-12-12T07:45:00.000-08:00

C.J.Spencer is not a nice man. He got selected for the A.B.s when he was still in hid teens, married the daughter of a Rugby administrator and treated her abominably.
As his wife remarked, "Cops and rugby players are notorious wife beaters."

Now he is in a wheel chair, paralysed after a scrum collapsed, and his wife has met a really nice guy, two nice guys in fact, three if you count the Irish priest who rides a red motor bike and C.J. has to die.

How shall I dispose of him?

He could choke on a fish bone; not dramatic enough and not in keeping with the conventions of literary structure.

Some of his 'rugger bugger'mates could take him to watch a game, lose control of his wheel chair and send him plummeting off the stand.

Or the same mates could be taking on an after match pub crawl. The driver could lose control when one of them, full of beer, spews over him. The van overturns, down a cliff and/or into a rive.

Decisions decisions! I wrote the final chapter in Dublin. I just have to insert Chapter thirty one, where a nasty character who got idolised too young and couldn't hackit gets his comeuppance.

Once I kill the All Black the book will be finished.
.

LESSONS LEARNED

2011-12-10T11:10:00.001-08:00

I once heard Lawrence Ferlinghetti, when discussing Alan Ginsberg say 'His poetics are different to mine.I have no problem with that.' It is exactly how I feel about John Locke's novels. I will not become a devoted reader, but thousands of people are, so I will not criticise his writing.But 'How I sold a million e books in 5 months' is a manual for writers who want to publish on the internet and his advice is pure gold.The first step for a would-be novellist, 'Write the best story you can.'Obvious isn't it. But that does not mean following the pattern of someone else's writing; putting Pride and Prejudice into the twenty=first century, or War and Peace into Afghanistan.So I am finishing my current novel, not with 'How to Write a Novel at my elbow, but by watching my characters without thinking 'That won't sell' whenever they do something unexpected or original. Thorny Glen is a romance between Harry Field who left school at fourteen to take over his father's dairy farm and who now owns a consortium like Fonterra, and Meryn Spencer who plays rugby, was a Black Fern in fact.And I am finding that these two have a lot of friends, enemies and associates who do interesting things which I record. John Ralston Saul, in his book 'Voltaire's Bastards' talks about the writer being 'a faithful witness'and I find myself being just that for my characters. Maybe this time I shall finish the novel, publish it and then resurrect the other four that are on disk in the bottom drawer of my desk.

LEARNING SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY

2011-12-03T10:22:00.000-08:00

When I came home in October several copies of Writers News were waiting for me. Among them a feature on John Locke. No, not that one. This John Locke is a writer who is the first self published author to sell 1,000,000, that's right,one million e books.
And he has written a book about how he did it.

So I downloaded a free Kindle Reader and bought the book. (How I sold a million e books in five months.)

I also bought two of his novels. One is a western called 'Don't Poke the Bear' about a Dodge City sheriff and his animal loving sweetheart who manages a string of prostitutes. 'The Love You Crave' is a thriller about a CIA assassin called Donovan Creed. Locke himself says they are not great literature. I would class them as Penny Dreadfuls. But they are competently written, have some original characters, like the post rapture security guard,who offers, for a fee, to look after pets for the good people who will leave earth when the Rapture begins. But at $0.99 each the cost equates to buying the daily newspaper. As Locke himself says they reach a niche of readers who want to be entertained.

But "How I sold a million...." is worth every penny of the $2.99. His style of writing is informal, rather than declamatory as in recipe books, almost like a newsy letter from a friend. Its introduction is entertaining and encouraging to unpublished writers.

His business plan is explained in a methodical, but entertaining way.

And I have now downloaded two more e books 'How to Publish and Sell Your Article on the Kindle' by Kate Harpwe and 'How to Format your e Book' by Paul Salvette, and all five books have cost me less than $10!

The free Kindle reader is great for reading at my computer, but I am now saving up for one that I can slip into my pocket when I travel. Big expensive airport novels have become outdated. When my son Frank and his wife went on their world tour recently they took e readers, loaded with dozens of books, and it weighed less than one conventional airport novel.

Please Santa Claus, you know what I want for Christmas!

MAKING A CHOICE

2011-11-24T19:27:00.000-08:00

I heard someone say that people spend more time choosing their new car than they do voting for their government. They probably do. But if I am to believe my neighbours there are two sure ways to cast one's vote effectively. They are

1. Vote for the best looking candidate. Last election I heard a lot of young voters (female)say they voted National because 'John Key is so nice looking.'

2. Vote against the most experienced candidates. "Oh, she was all right, but it's time for a change."

My letter box has been stuffed with cards and fliers and leaflets from minor parties, and they raised some interesting issues, not the text of the leaflets, but the meaningless generalities heavily laced with weasel words, designed to attract voters without informing them of attitudes to issues or giving any hint of who, or what interest paid for it.
In fact, any electioneering printed on expensive paper automatically loses my vote.
Doesn't leave much choice does it.Perhaps I could do a 'write in' vote for a candidate who made us proud to be New Zealanders, who lead his team with modesty and panache, and it better looking than our current P.M. who?
Richie McCaw of course!

I WISH I HAD WRITTEN THESE

2011-11-11T15:12:00.000-08:00

George McDonald Fraser was a screenwriter and the author of THE FLASHMAN NOVELS, a series of picaresque comedies using the amoral character from Tom Brown's Schooldays as the narrator.
IVAN DUNN is a New Zealand journalist. He describes his nove
THE LEGEND OF BEAU BAXTER
as a work of 'faction' a mixture of fiction and historical trutch.
'what might have happened on the 1924 tour'.
Remember 1924 of course not, Not even I was born then, but if I say 1924, the INVINCIBLES tour, anybody who knows what an egg shaped ball is for will say,
'1924 of course THE INVINCIBLES tour of England Wales Ireland Scotland and France, they went through unbeaten.' Yeah Right!
IVAN DUNN, who knows his rugby, and its history, has invented BEAU BAXTER, eighteen years old and son of a Cherokee Indian who is snatched from a labouring job in a timberyard to play rugby, gets selected to go on tour with Waaka Nathan, the Brownlees and all that crowd, visits a stately home and learns fox hunting, dines with Royalty. The blurb on the back says, 'more sex and less etiquette than Rugby historians would have us believe.'
BEAU BAXTER is a joyful romp, in the most hilarious Flashman tradition. I can't wait for the film to come out and I do hope Ivan Dunn writes more novels.

THE LEGEND OF BEAU BAXTER by IVAN DUNN ISBN978-1-86950-823-4 pubolished 2010 by HARPER COLLINS

PELE'S CHILDREN by JAN VERNON is a chapbook by reclusive Temuka author and poet Jan Vernon. It is a poem that tells a story of Pele and Merlin, obsessed with volcanoes, and their children, not forgetting the tuatara. Jan shared it with some of us, privileged to be her friends, and we all responded in the same way, 'THIS HAS TO BE PUBLISHED'in fact another writer friend sent Jan an e mail that said 'Don't you dare die before this is published.'

Easier said than done as Jan is not young and was awaiting hip surgery.But Jan Hill did the editing, another friend painted the illustrations,and the result is
PELE'S CHILDREN by JAN VERNON ISBN 978-0430-19409-3

Now I am not going to tell you any more of the story, or comment on the strength of the poetry, but I shall reiterate what we have been telling Jam,

this is a significant piece of work, a new direction is New Zealand writing.' Some time in the future it will be a classic.

CAROL AND TONY ARE YOU OUT THERE SOMEWHERE?

2011-11-04T13:35:00.000-07:00

I moved down here from Wairarapa in 2001. When the carrier delivered my seventeen cartons of books and carefully bubblewrapped box of pictures this was among them, obviously left in the packing of someone else's belongings. How to find the real owners and return their treasure? I scrolled through the every internet page I could think of, but got nowhere, put it carefully away and forgot about it because I was getting ready to visit Turkey and Greece.

So now I am trying to clear my house so my daughters in law will not have too much clearing up to do when I finally leave it.

so CAROL CHIN and TONY PADUJE

who were married on

APRIL 24 1993

I would like to return your beautiful stitched wedding souvenir to you.

I hope you still love and cherish each other as the panel suggests and if you will ring me at 03-431-3911

and give me an address I shall pack it and send it..

With apologies for not returning it sooner.

BUGGEUR LE RUGBY !

2011-10-30T06:45:00.000-07:00

Now the teams have gone home, the cup has been paraded through Rugbyland I have something to say.

WHAT WAS ALL THE FUSS ABOUT?

Millions of dollars spent although we were in a global recession.How much more in debt are we?

The news media clogged with gossip and statistics, nobody was interested in what the Government was doing. They could have slipped all kinds of legislation through and as long as it did not concern Rugby nobody would have noticed.

ALL FOR A TEAM WHICH WON BY ONE POINT

ONCE IN TWENTY-FOUR YEARS

Now, cast your minds back:

1998 Netherlands

2002 Spain

2006 Canada

2010 Somewhere

NEW ZEALAND WON THE WOMEN'S RUGBY WORLD CUP

FOUR TIMES IN A ROW

but of course they don't count.

They're only women. And don't try and tell me we are not a nation of chauvinists.

WILL WE ALL GO INTO A FRENZY IN FRANCE IN 2014?

IN CASE YOU ARE WONDERING

2011-10-25T19:14:00.000-07:00

I have been reading

ULYSSES by James Joyce and it's a great book; that is a great book for sending me to sleep at night. Conor Kostick at the Irish Writers' Centre told me to read it for the humour, well I have not found it all that funny. But in spite of knowing the locations Joyce talks about, I find myself yawning. Oh dear, I am evidently a lowbrow in spite of all my efforts. and I shall whisper this very quietly

I ENJOY A GOOD MILLS and BOONE MORE.

The editorial snoop on this site has just tole me AMPERSANDS are not allowed. Yah Boo!
The weather is still cold and wet!

And for the three people who have read my other blog (or maybe one person three times? there is another 'editor regrets' on Waiata's Witterings. It's about small town New Zealand, written years ago after spending a weekend in Pleasant Point and thinking, 'What would this place be like if it was by the sea?'

FROGS vs ALL BLACKS BUGGEUR!

2011-10-22T21:25:00.000-07:00

LONDON 1999
I stood all the way from Peterborough to Waterloo. Everywhere there were hoardings showing Taine Randall leading the haka. No doubt about it, the All Blacks were going to bring the Rugby World Cup home.

Four years before we had watched the unthinkable happen as they had staggered about losing to South Africa. This time would be different.

Youngest son Ivor met me at Waterloo. He hopped on and off the escalator with the ease of a seasoned Londoner. I clung to the rail, white knuckled. At Waterloo East Ivor's cell phone rang.

"Hello, Ivor Davies. What? Nah, you've got it wrong." He disconnected with the look that Australians term 'stunned mullet.' and looked at me.
"The All Blacks lost."
"No! You must have heard it wrong."
"I'm telling you. The Bloody Frogs beat us."

We stared uncomprehending at London gearing up for the twenty first century; the highest ferris wheel ever built, the OXO tower, Londoners riding the train, reading their papers, unconcerned.

Up until then English newspapers had been full of the awful things those perfidious French did. The fed their cows and pigs on unmentionable fodder made from sewage. They blocked imports of healthy British products. Overnight British perceptions changed, they became Europeans. Girls from Cockfosters to Cambridge were seen wearing French Rugby shirts.

I wasn't that concerned about Australia winning the cup. After all one of my grandfathers was born in Echuca.

A DAY FOR DUCKS AND DAIRY FARMERS

2011-10-17T18:43:00.000-07:00

A Southerly squall has spent last night and to-day racing up from Antarctica and making a nuisance of itself here. Even the cows across the road look cold and miserable.

But one event has turned my day to sunshine. A friend sent an e mail.

SHE READ MY OTHER BLOG

SHE LIKED THE SHORT STORY I POSTED THERE

WAS I GOING TO POST ANY MORE?

My grand daughter in Canberra disapproves of shouting on blogs, but this is an occasion .

Somebody has read my other blog!!! So for you, Ruth, I have posted another 'editors regret' a short story I wrote twenty years ago. And I hope you enjoy it.

If anyone else likes outrageous tales my other blog is WAIATA'S WITTERINGS.

I am going to sit by the fire and do some knitting. That's a nice, calming occupation for a cold day.

COMING TO A CINEMA NEAR YOU

2011-10-16T11:16:00.000-07:00

RUGBY WORLD CUP? Forget it.
If you want colour, spectacle, drama and music go to the opera. Last year I seriously thought of cancelling my trip overseas and enduring a Waitaki Winter, because if I took off to Crete I would miss the final three productions of the 2011 Metropolitan Opera Season, and one of them was Das Valkyrie, second in Wagner's Ring Cycle.

In Oamaru? Exactly! The Met films its operas so skilfully that I believe we get a better view of everything that the actual audience at the Met does.

When I returned to my crib after four months overseas I found the booklet for the 2011-2012 season on my table.(Thank you Glennys) This season will show eleven operas, most of them classics like Mozart's 'Don Giovanni';Verdi's 'La Traviata'; Wagner's final two from the Ring Cycle, Siegried and Gotterdammerung; but also new opera like Glass's Satyagraha, it's about Ghandi.

So this year, every three weeks or so, I shall be at MOVIE WORLD 3 in Oamaru. If enough people book seat I shall be watching grand opera on a huge screen and listening through a magnificent sound system. Otherwise I shall be in a comfortable arm chair in their drawing room cinema watching a smaller screen, but still worth while.

ree programme booklets are available from participating cinemas. I have already alerted sons in Petone, Paraparaumu and Sumner. The operas will be shown in small towns, like Arrowtown, Geraldine and Martinborough.

Maybe one day somebody will make a grand opera out of the Rugby World Cup, before Jonas Kaufman gets too old to sing Richie Macaw.

LEARNING SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY

2011-10-14T01:31:00.000-07:00

I have been having fun reading
WRITING MAGAZINEwww.writers.online.co.uk particularly interviews with
JOHN LOCKE and STEPHEN LEATHER about e books.

JOHN lOCKE sells novels on KINDLE for 99cents per download

He is selling them by the million.

And he kindly shares his business format with readers of Writing Magazine.

So I did some research on e books in the wonderful
WRITERS AND ARTISTS YEAR BOOK
published by A&C Black,

and as often happens I ended up reading widely on all sorts of other things, in particular an article on WRITING A BLOG

If you want to have a look at he result go to my other blog
WAIATA'S WITTERINGS
I have re formulated the short story I put on there with

LOTS OF CAPITALS
LOTS OF BLACK
AND
lots of white space throughout,

AND I WILL BE VERY GRATEFUL IF ANYONE COMMENTS ON THE FORMAT.

WHAT BECOMES OF THE VULNERABLE?

2011-10-12T22:58:00.000-07:00

Allow me to introduce Rosemary and Audrey, two women I met at the Citihostel in Dublin. Audrey is Irish born, but lived in Canada long enough to develop an accent. She told me her daughter is studying for a masters degree in music performance at Trinity College and Audrey is concerned, to the point of obsession, because her daughter is diabetic, needs special diet, and Audrey feels she is not getting the guidance with her studies she should be. Her field is the concertino, a lively little folk instrument which I remember from childhood. No matter what topic began a conversation Audrey would always work it around until we reached her daughter's problems. She has a kind heart though, After I left Citihostel, following the episode of horizontal P.E. mentioned in an earlier blog, Audrey trekked across Dublin to bring me a book she had found in a charity shop, written by an English woman who had cycled from England to India in the 1960's. It made fascinating reading.
Rosemary was approaching forty and had recently split up from a relationship. She had no job and was hoping to train as a volunteer in a charity shop. Evidently this is the first step in Ireland for getting back into work.The first time I met her she was mid epileptic seizure in the hostel kitchen. She later told me that as a child she had been given the wrong medication and it had left her epileptic and without short term memory. She was a pleasant girl until she found hair in the bathroom basin. That was her fixation. The hair was not always there but if she thought there was that would set off a tirade.
But what concerned Audrey and me was seeing her each evening scanning the pages of the newspaper and ringing 'businessmen' who promised to find work for her. And almost every week end she would iron her blouses and set off to meet a 'business man.'
Here was a forty year old woman with the naivete of a fourteen year old.
Talking about it to friends in Liverpool later I was told that people like Rosemary were often dumped in hostels by welfare agencies because there was nowhere else for them to go. Sad, isn't it?

SERENDIPITY STRIKES AGAIN

2011-10-11T18:39:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I arrived home from four months of peregrinations. Son Terry drove me down in his cute little company car, cheeky and bright red. In my carport was a silver grey Mitsubishi Gallant which my neighbour Don had located for me, reasonable mileage at a reasonable price. On Sunday I rearranged four months of dust cleaned the windows and got rid of the mountain of mail waiting on my table.

ON monday I set off to Oamaru to put the price of the car into Don's bank account, renew my A.A. membership and buy things I could not possibly do without for one more day, like Vogels Bread, lambs fry, real Marmite (The Irish version is revolting). Then I realised I was now driving a car which did fewer k's to the litre than my former car, a little Ford Festiva, so I began thinking tactically. If I called at the AA office on my way in to town I would not have to cross all the traffic lanes in Thames Street, no waiting at lights, engine idling and drinking gas. So I stopped at the A.A. office, renewed my membership and returned to a dead Mitsubishi. The A.A. mechanic arrived in seconds and diagnosed a flat battery. One hundred and twenty nine dollars later I was on my way, did all my errands in town and called at the B.P.station to fill up. Ouch! of course the Mitsubishi is bigger than my
ford Festiva but $89.00 was a shock. I shall not be dashing in to Oamaru to pick up a paper, or to explore the bookshops in town in future. Trips to town will be carefully monitored. It's all about saving the planet.

HOME AT LAST

2011-10-08T14:14:00.001-07:00

No picture. I have been busy dusting, vacuuming and clearing a mountain of mail off my table. Son Terry drove me from Christchurch to home. I found a Mitsubishi Gallant in my carport, so I am mobile once more, thanks to neighbour Don. Also, thanks to Don my back yard looks much more like a garden than it did before I went away. Lettuces, silver beet, radishes, and all sorts of things growing in orderly rows, my precious Loganberry vine taking possession of a frame, and a walkway cut from pieces of discarded plastic laid to keep my boots out of the mud.
Terry brought in armfuls of firewood. It is still cold here. So now I am removing four months' dust from everything while I listen to a wonderful Jazz DVD called 'Greenwich Village' which was waiting with the post. It features Dave Amram & Friends performing live at the Cornelia Street Cafe and it begins with 'Take the A Train', continues through improvisations of 'Splendour in the Grass' then a Collaboration titled 'Pull My Daisy' featuring Amram improvising to readings of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Cassidy. There are jazz tracks by musicians I am unfamiliar with, (but Frank nodded knowledgably when I read them out to him.} and it finished with twelve minutes of 'Meanderin' in Mandarin' A wonderful home coming surprise.

WESTONBIRT ARBORETUM

2011-10-04T20:22:00.000-07:00

A century and a half ago, in the 1850s wealthy Victorians planted trees. They collected trees from all parts of the world and made huge gardens. Did they know they would not live long enough to see their efforts reach maturity? One of these efforts is the Westonbirt Arboretum, about twenty miles from Bath.
The oldest tree is a 2,000 year old lime. There are collections of oaks, maples, cherries, English native trees all now managed by the Forestry commission www.forestry.gov.uk/westonbirt. The commission has a well publicised programme of events i.e. walks and talks like 'The Healing Power of Trees', Autumn Fruits and Berries'; Family events like a reindeer trail at Christmas and workshops like 'Advanced Digital Photography'and Çhair Making'.

Lesley and Stuart took me there for a Sunday stroll. Mid September was a perfect time to see the trees turning from green to gold and red and yellow. We walked about five kilometres around the original planting of that Victorian, had tea at the out door cafe, listened to birds and came away feeling rested and refreshed. But I knew I had seen less than half of that wonderful place.It would be a perfect place to bring a young family for a day.

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MORE THOROUGHLY NICE PEOPLE

2011-09-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

Stuart is an English poet his wife Lesley a 'retired'teacher of dance. I stayed with them in Chipping Sodbury, a beautiful English town near Bristol. Their idea of being retired is they now have time to help their community. As well as being a prize winning poet Stuart is an official starter for athletics. He was on duty for the Bristol Half Marathon when I was there. He and Lesley are very much involved with encouraging athletics. Lesley is one of those unassuming, but enormously capable people who make everything easier for other people. I saw her welcoming some shy newcomers to the Yate Athletic Club, making them feel welcome, without appearing to make any effort. It's a rare gift.
Thanks to the3m I have seen Bath, Bristol. the Forest of Dean, the Saracen's Head on the river Wye and Tintern Abbey. This picture was taken at an arboretum near where they live, planted two centuries ago and now a breathtaking place of forested walks.(The name escapes me and my notes are in my suitcase. I shall get back to it).

And they have a beautiful garden, full of interesting flowers and plants, in particular a David Austen scented rambler named 'Jude the Obscure' the perfume is wonderful.

Next time anyone makes comments about 'Poms' I shall think of Stuart and Lesley, or Jim Bennet who gives enormous amounts of time to the Poetry Kit website and its attendant magazines, Poetry Kite and Caught in the Net, Angela Keaton, experimental poet who drops everything to show me around Liverpool, and dozens of other wonderful people who made my latest journey memorable.

WINDING DOWN

2011-09-23T07:02:00.000-07:00

Sorry, no photographs, I am using the computer at the |bris Hotel Liverpool and can't browse my photos.
However. liverpool is still my favourite English city. Chipping Sodbury is my favourite English town but liverpool is quirky and its architecture imaginative.
And of course the people, though different from Irish people are helpful and friendly. I HAVE WORKED OUT HOW TO CATCH THE TRAIN FROM lime street to MANCHESTER Airport next Sunday. so the last part of my four montgh 'Escape the winter and the World cup' is beginning.
I shall post my photos when I GET HOM

Tarra!

WHILE I WAS OFF LINE

2011-09-17T01:48:00.001-07:00

After my 4 a.m. adventure, (it turned out they were not even hostel residents) I moved for one luxurious night to a single room in the Arlington Hotel on the bank of the Liffey For an extra 30 euros I could dine in dim Victorian light and watch Irish dance and listen to Irish folk music. The three young Dutchmen in the picture were my table companions, over for the weekend. The dinner was excellent, and the dancing exuberant, especially when the dancers got three diners to join them on stage in an Irish square dance. The Folk music was great, traditional toe tapping fun.
Next day I returned to Abraham Hostel on Lower Gardener Street, Less aggressive plumbing and better breakfast than that available at citihostel, and because I agreed to share an eight bed dorm much cheaper. When people start ranting about "To-days's Youth (as they have been doing since Adam was a teenager) I want to tell them about the girls I shared my last days in Dublin with. Two French 2 German a Spaniard, a Brazialian and a couple of Irish. They were Trinity College students hunting for accomodation and helped each other search. In the dormitory they were quiet, courteous, and along with the other young people I met on this tour, made me feel very confident about the future of this world.
Friday, I had booked a seat on the bus to the airport, and found I was the only passenger on the minibus. The driver was from Bulgaria,conversed in English and was very helpful with my luggage.
I landed in Bristol and followed the arrows from plane to baggage claim. Incredibly, my case made its entrance through the curtain on to the carousel like a veteran actor. I followed the pointers to customs and then thought,'I'm not an EU citizen and I haven't been through Immigration,' so I asked an airport policeman.
"That's all right,'she said and I walked out of the airport to greet Stuart, (the sort of friend every one should have) who took me to his home in Chipping Sodbury where I was cossetted by Stu and his wonderful wife, Lesley, for the next five days during which I visited Bristol, Bath, a Saturday market, The Forest of Dene, an arboretum and Tintern Abbey. Whew!
More about this later, and more about out Poetry Kit evenings. Nxt Sunday I fly out of Manchester and come home. That is if nobody questions me about being in England without an entry stamp in my passport.

HORIZONTAL P.T. IN A DUBLIN HOSTEL

2011-09-04T03:22:00.000-07:00

4a.m. Revelers were spilling into the streets and making a huge racket.
"H ere we go again," I thought, turning over in my bottom bunk. It had taken me until after midnight to fall asleep.
The dormitory door openedA strong smell of alcohol and tobacco preceded the two shadows who slid into the dorm. TWO SHADOWS?
The girl, in dark pants and horizontally striped sweat shirt was definitely 'tired and emotional as a newt.' She leaned against her companion, so he picked her up and lifted her into the top bunk.
That's nice, I thought, he's seeing that she gets to her bed safely. I waited for the door to open and let him creep out. It didn't.
Twenty minutes later I had to get up and go to the bathroom. Carefully I stepped out of my bunk and nearly fell headlong over a pair man size jeans and size eleven sneakers discarded on the floor.
'" Well they were discrete and quiet. Good luck to them I thought and pretended to be asleep when he crept out of the top bunk and slipped out of the room.
But her next visitor was neither discrete or quiet. Maybe it was the same guy and he had gone out somewhere for a condom. What they are doing is one of my business,"I reminded myself, until our bunk started rocking and creaking. Less than a metre above my head the 'horizontal P.T.'got noisier and more vigorous. I was wondering what would happen if the welding on the top bunk gave way. But it all settled down and he crept out. A few seconds later she came down her ladder and sat on my bed, on my left leg in fact.
"Hey, I;m awake."I said quietly.
She climbed back to her upper bunk. Five times between 4.40 and 7 a.m. she crept down, went to the door, opened it, closed it and returned to her bunk.

So I decided enough was enough,I have booked a single room at a hotel where I can get some sleep.
AND NO I AM NOT JEALOUS, WELL NOT MUCH!

SOMETHING NOT NOTICED UNTIL NOW

2011-09-03T07:33:00.000-07:00

This photo was taken outside my favourite cafe at the junction of Harcourt St. Harcourt Rd. Victoria St and Charlemont St. The pantechnicon parked on the footpath opposite is unloading furniture into the building on the corner. The first sign of life I have seen there in two months.And it started me thinking. Traffic pours around this junction all day and all night, noisiest time is about 4a.m. when the party goers congregate under my window waiting for taxis. There are taxis, private cars of every kind, about one in ten passing vehicles is a van and very occasionally a large lorry delivering bread to the supermarkets BUT I HAVE NOT SEEN A PETROL TANKER. Nor have I seen a petrol station selling BP or CALTEX or SHELL I keep a special watch now when I go for walks or bus rides.
Any Dubliners who know why I am not seeing cars pulling in to fill up, or the big signs showing the day's petrol price please post a comment.

aMy e amil is currently refusing to send anything. I don't know why, but Stuart, if you are reading this I shall be catchinbg the 3.00 flight from Dublin to Bristol next FRiday. Mary Ivor Tollah is your cousin Ivor and Lynn who is about to embark on her firsgt trip out of the States TRAFFIC IN BRITAIN DRIVES ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE STREET. so watch it.

SEE ALL YOU P.K.S soon

and night

SAYING GOODBYE

2011-09-03T02:43:00.000-07:00

After two months in Dublin I am still making discoveries. The city authorities have, for some reason, changed the bus routes. 19 and 19A no longer runs down Camded Street through the city centre and into Parnell Square. So when I set out on Tuesday evening I asked the Driver,
"Do you go to the City Centre?"
he harrumphed and it was not until he turned left at the Connolly Street Bridge I realised that for him the City Centre was Trinity College, not the Spire. And the next stop was a long way down the quay, past the Halfpenny Bridge, past the Millenium Bridge.
I knew I was going to be late for Connor's lecture on writing about sex (don't ask!) but I was also going to have to walk through a part of Dublin I had not seen before.
On the way I found this pretty sculpture of a Viking Longboat. My guide book says is is by Betty Maguire and was erected after the 1079 discovery of the first Viking settlement.
I walked over the millenium pedestrian bridge. The tide was out and the Liffey was a series of puddles around flat black rocks between concrete walls with reminders of previous centuries, like steel ladders, and mooring rings long abandonned. On the other side of the river market stalls were closing up, people were hurrying along to bus stops. I walked past the General Post Office, the spire, on past Abbey Theatre, the blue steel gates of the Garden of Remembrance were locked. I haad to wait at both crossings and finally I tramped up the elegant georgian staircases at the Writers Centre to the third floor and crept in with whispered apologies.
WriConnor's examples from literature were definitely from a male point of view, and I thought he was brave even tackling the subject in only one hour. And because I was late I did not hear what he said.
It was very dark when we finished, so John hailed a taxi for me. This involves standing in the middle of the roadway and hailing approaching headlights. The driver was a cheerful Irishman called Oliver who told me about the resurgence of Camden Street from a derelict slum to the busy, interesting village it is to-day.

Settlement site. I crossed the Liffey on foot over the millenium bridg.

THE IRISH WRITERS' CENTRE

2011-08-31T08:22:00.000-07:00

Over the past two months I have felt privileged to have access to the Irish Writers'Centre, and not just because of the strength of their coffee. For the last seven Tuesday evenings I have been part of Connor Kostick's group of people who are finishing their novels. Conor has been patient but demanding; who is our intended reading audience, where is the story going, how about this character, why is he in the story. Each week the first hour was studying some aspect of novel writing as dealt with in great literature; Pride and Prejudice, War and Peace, Heart of Darkness, and others.In the second hour half the group reads from work in progress and we discuss points raised. Once I got used to the Irish voices, (soft spoken and rapid) I was fascinated by the very high level of work presented. I am sorry I will not be in Dublin for the final three sessions because the stories are developing; last night I heard about a servant girl summoned home not knowing her young sister was to be married. That probably happened often in the days before universal literacy and postage. I heard the final chapter of a detective story, a clinical psychologist's report, and others read by people with madonna like faces and names like Clodagh and Nu sala and Maighred. I don't know if all this effort is because of the coming 'Novel Fair'planned for the centre on March 10th 2012, but they would all gain a high placing in any Novel Competition.
The concept of the novel fair is brilliant. A Novel Competition will close on November 11th and is designed to give 'novelists q chance to by pass the The terms and conditions of this opportunity are on the centre's website www.writerscentre.ie/novelfair.html. Oh how I wish I was sixty years younger and Irish by birth rather than ancestry.
As well as learning the structure of novels, I learned a great deal at Charlie Connelly's Travel Writing course, and met his wife, swapping reminiscences of the Blue Hotel in Methven.
Fridy afternoons is Ink Slingers, a group of writers who meet at the Centre under the inspiration of another angelic colleen who poses suggestions for us to write about. I am going to miss them all when I leave next week, even though I shall be with my old friends from the Poetry Kit list and of course I am looking forward to seeing them.

THERE WAS I WAITING FOR THE BUS

2011-08-30T08:06:00.002-07:00

THE number 19A bus no longer runs, so this morning I decided to go exploring, using my bus card which permits unlimited travel. The first bus at the stop was an 88 somewhere or other via City Centre the sign said. My plan was to stay on that bus until it got back in to town. It headed North away from the Liffey and into suburbs, housing estates and new towns. First we drove through streets lined with plane trees and Victorian brick mansions; an early 'stock broker belt' semi detached villas of brick and stucco, tudor windows still sparkling but the paint work looking decidedly scruffy. Then concrete and timber 'eighties functional' stacked like boxes'; housing estates; a university village; motorways and waste ground. Then far away from anywhere a huge concrete building with I.K.E.A. painted on it.
Good, I thought, now we will turn around and go back. But we didn't. The bus joined several dozen other óut of service'buses in the Dublin Bus yards. The driver was nice about it and showed me where to catch the next bus back to the to city.

I must confess I was relieved to see the spire when it came into view.

FEELING HOPEFUL ABOUT HUMANITY

2011-08-29T00:53:00.000-07:00

TV channels have been showing the violence in Tripoli until yesterday when preparations for Irene became news. Before then it was riots in London. The general impression being that violence and mayhem is all that it happening worldwide.
Yesterday evening I sat under a tree in Parnell Street watching people returning from a football match. Near me, on the grass, some young folk were sharing take aways and beer. Groups of people, families, couples, friends, in yellow and green strolled towards the city centre as did similar groups in blue. A passing nine year old in yellow turned jubilant cartwheels.
"Ah Donegal was looky," called one of the young folk. The nine year old, and his family waved before getting into their estate car and driving away. The banter continued as other groups strolled past, then the group on the grass gathered their wrappings and beer cans and continued down the hill. No confrontation, no abuse. It was wonderful.
At the Writers 'Centre Fergal poured me a cup of his special coffee, guaranteed to keep Sleeping Beauty awake for a hundred years. The second floor had been transformed into a 'Poets'Pub. this being the night people came along and shared pieces of their own work. It was a very high standard indeed. First a man sharing his work in progress, a stream of consciousness in polished prose,James Joyce would have enjoyed it; then a young woman poet, followed by a balladeer who read a rant about Dyslexia from his newly published book and sang songs accompanying himself on guitar and harmonica, reminding me of Tony Chad . Another older man also played guitar but he played, as opposed to strumming a beautiful melodic tune. High point for this bracket was not the elderly New Zealander who felt completely out of her depth, but the ordinary looking, auburn haired, middle aged woman who read excerpts from her book about surviving chemotherapy, in Irish. The audience obviously understood her, they listened with that special silence which shows people are engaging with what they hear.
That was the first bracket or performers, two more brackets to come. But it was nearing ten o'çlock and although Fergal's coffee was keeping my brain spinning my physical body {especially feet in new shoes) kept nudging me and pointing to the clock.
As I tried to sleep I thought, 'Maybe this is what the world is really like? Not the bloodshed and mayhem hyped up by television, but people sharing what they are with each other.' Must have been the caffeine.

SATURDAY MORNING STROLL

2011-08-27T06:58:00.000-07:00

To day I planned to use my bus card to travel randomly on Dublin Buses and see more of the city. Fate, or more the state of my internal regions decreed otherwise. Dublin certainly is a lively place, especially when one can't sleep and lives on the edge of the club belt, full of less than sober revelers hailing taxis, talking politics in incomprehensible languages, saying good night to girlfriends in the next county, and the girls shrieking responses. I finally got to sleep about five and re-surfaced at 10.30. Too late for breakfast at the hostel, so I set off to O'Brien's cafe where Laszlo and Kristina (thanks to their friend who sent me their names) filled a sesame sprinkled bagel with bacon, egg. tomato and relish, and served it with their strongest coffee. Fortified, and feeling much better I continued my walk. Harcourt Road connects Harcourt Street with Camden Street. It is now a one way double lane with double yellow lines down both sides sod there is absolutely no where to park. The the little shops that once flourished there are now boarded up or are clinging on to existence. I find that sad, because little shops are part of Dublin's appeal.This morning I walked a left handed circuit from the hostel, turned into Harcourst road and again turned left before I reached the junction at the top of Camden Street. There I found a real fruit and veg shop, and a lovely little curio (not old enough to be antiques) store with a model phrenologists head in white china, a set of Astrologer's character reading charts hand painted on vellum, and a beautiful little sextant in a case with the basic knots surrounding it. Next left turn brought me to the housing estate in Charlemont Street but I turned right this time and reached a row of pretty houses facing the grand canal.
The photograph at the top is looking down Charlemont Street from the hostel. There is one house that might be a relic of Georgian days, but is, I suspect, a 20th century copy, and the rest of the street is definitely Functional Modern. I wonder, in 200 years time will students lead a protest to prevent their demolition?

IN CASE YOU ARE WONDERING

2011-08-24T23:03:00.000-07:00

At present I am living in one of Dublin's many hostels, I share a dormitory with three other women, a passing parade of nationalities who are all very kind to me because of my great age. There were the two French girls who have the same baptismal names as two of my grand daughters, Rosemary whose broad Irish brogue makes her harder to understand than Livia, the Brazilian girl currently in one of the top bunks.
The hostel is clean and safe but the plumbing is dire, especially the showers where one cowers in a corner and punches a button which sends a torrent of ice cold water everywhere, including the dry towel rail. Just as the water becomes bearable it all shuts off. I endure this because the staff,Brazillian, Spanish, French and Moroccan are outstanding.
BUT THE INTERNET ACCESS IS HOPELESS. My in box is full of messages from Kaye in Darwin, Jan in Temuka,Stu in Chipping Sodbury and when I try to download them I get a message rhat something seems to be wrong etc. Worse than that, I am supposed to send and receive chapters of work from the novel writing course I am mainly here for.Last Tuesday, after a week of trying to send text and getting a 'we are sorry connection appears to be broken'I took my lap top across town, sorely termpted to toss it into the Liffey as I crossed. A technician in Moor Street said it was a virus which he could clean out for 40 euros.
At the Irish Writers Centre in Parnell Square I logged on, downloaded my e mails, sent the homework I was expected to share with the novel writing group, Everything worked perfectly.
So Kaye, Jan, Terry, Stu, Lesley Tammara in Israel and everybody, as well hunting for Vogel's bread,which Mimi tells me is available in Dublin (not in Camden Street Tescos though) I shall lug my laptop across town on a 19A bus and read and answer your e mails.
That is after I have braved the shower.

ANCESTOR HUNTING ALONG O'CONNELL STREET STREET

2011-08-24T07:25:00.000-07:00

maTwo years ago my sister's daughter and I came to Ireland hunting ancestors. In the taxi from Dublin airport Mary talked to the driver about her quest to locate her father's mother who had migrated from Dublin more than a century ago.
"She was a Miss Ennis." Mary told him.
ÉNNIS? Then she would have lived in Moor Street. The Ennis's were baker" the driver replied. So yesterday I went hunting along Henry Street until I found Moore Street a rather dilapidated area full of market stalls with fruit at half the price of Tescos. I bought a box of grapes for 1euro.

"S

I KNOW IT'S DUBLIN WHEN

2011-08-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

Modern buildings have FOR SALE or TO LET or LEASING NOW signs all over them. Cars are either silver grey MERCS or bright red AUDIS (I want one).
Girls look as though they are auditioning for RIVER DANCE. They wear jeans under their dresses, and they walk about holding their hands to their ears talking to themselves. That Red headed colleen in the cafe is actually Russian and her boy friend is from Brazil.
When people here talk about 'football'they mean some peculiar game with rules as esoteric as Aussie football. New Zealanders get a far away look in their eyes when we mention Molenberg or Vogels. The bread here is awfyl. I look at the Braeburn Apples in Tesco's and wonder how far from Glenavy they grew.
When I cross on a red light waiting motorists smile and wave! The protocols for road crossing are sensible.

One of the Porters here who reminds me of Le Beau in Hogan's Heroes (remember Le Beau? Pocket sized and gorgeous) has just shown me how to clean the inside of my computer. I take it to the nearest petrol station and use their free air pump to blow all the dust etc that gets lodged under the keyboard.
In just two weeks I head for Bristol, Liverpool and then home at last. C'est la vie!
My first purchasw when I get home? After a car that is,A loaf of Vogels bread.

SUNDAY IN THE PARK

2011-08-21T09:31:00.000-07:00

O'Briens cafe and the Kebab/hamburger joint both close on Sunday so I strolled into town and had an Irish beefburger at another favourite eating place in Camden Street. The Irish are famous for tall stories, but you should have seen how tall this beefburger was! So I went for a walk afterwards to burn of some calories. St Stephen's Green is everything a city park should be, a whole city block surrounded by railings, and full of walks and statues. At one entrance Wolfe Tone surrounded is by granite plinths. I stopped beside the pond to see a variety of gulls swimming and flying above the water. At the main entrances a notice board advertised what attractions were in the park that day, including 'Romeo and Juliet'. I am afraid I have never changed my opinion since one of my fourth form English class told me, 'If I was her mother I'd smack her bum!' and I had to agree. I was about to head out of the park and find another walk when music stopped me in my tracks. It was a band, a Brazillian band, drums, maraccas, whistles, guitars and a vocalist singing in Portugese. I tried to get close to take some pictures, but half the population of Dublin was gathered around listening and responding to the music.On the grandstand the drummers, to one side a community choir, led by a girl in green parading with an emerald and silver banner. And giving the beat for the audience a tall girl wearing a Brazillian bikini, (3 postage stamps and a couple of bita of string) with high heels on her feet and silver plumes in her hair, and Dublin was dancing along with her. I tried to get a shot of a very respectable looking dad holding his toddler above his shoulders as he dances, and Irish matrons dancing for the joy of it. Alas I could not get near enough, but it was wonderful.
The fences around St Stephen's Green were hung with paintings. The artists sat on camp chairs at the edge of the pavement, ready to talk to customers. There seemed to be every level of achievement, from very skilled botanical studies, through landscapes, seas scapes, copies of old masters to impressionis to traditional modern.
Luckily I still have to watch my weight, keep my luggage down to 20 ks. so I know I can only look and admire.
Livia from Ceara in Brazil, one of my room mates, has just come in. She saw Romeo and Juliet this afternoon and was impressed with the beautiful modern costumes and acting.

Bur Sunday in Dublin is quite marvellous, believe me.

A SANDWICH FROM O'BRIEN'S

2011-08-20T10:42:00.001-07:00

I usually call in to O'brien's the little cafe on the corner of Charlemont Street and arcourt Road, about 2 p.m. One of their sandwiches and a capucchino, or a frappe in hot weather, leaves me satisfied for the rest of the day. The picture above is what I have been raving about.

I called in to-day and as well as the usual sandwich and coffee, you can have a bagel if you'd rather, I was treated to a a showing of photographs, ferns, flowers, birds and butterflies taken on a recent trip to Jamaica.

I still don't know their names, but it does not matter. They told me they have only been in business here for two months,and they are incredibly grateful that I have publicised them. I don't know if 30 New Zealanders hitting on my blog is going to send a rush of customers to O'Brien's in Dublin. But anyone looking for a nice place to eat fresh food try O'Brien's or tell your friends.

TO-MORROW'S FISH & CHIP WRAPPER

2011-08-20T02:37:00.000-07:00

Meet Frank, photographer for the Irish Times Magazine. He took hundreds of pictures of me when he came to the Irish Writers Centre, a nice professional man, and as I told my friend Rita who was helping me focus, where else could an 85 year old have a good looking young man kneel at her feet?
So this morning I Went down to Camden Street early and bought this Saturday's Irish times. On the cover a celebrity woman golfer, pretty with a frangipani blossom in her left ear which used to be a signal as to one's nuptial state. I forget which ear meant the wearer was single. Sinead Gleason,s article about me was on page 6 with a photograph of a batty old wrinkly that turned out to be me. Reading interviews about oneself is a truly ego depressing experience, no reflection on Sinead's or Frank's competence of course.
But on page one of the weekend review was an account of a six year old girl who was asleep when her foster father came home at midnight and beat her te death. This was the report of a 1968 court case, where the jury had decided it was all right for a carer to beat a child to death. The foster father was sentenced to 12 months in goal.To-days article points out that 'horrible things'were still being done to children, but now such events 'évoke horror', showing a shift in social attitudes. I hope so.

LET'S STOP KIDDING OURSELVES

2011-08-19T01:18:00.000-07:00

I have been travelling for nearly three months and often meet people who have only a hazy idea of where New Zealand is and what it is really like. For Loyalty's sake I smile and agree that it is a lovely country full of intelligent people and sheep. I am tempted sometimes to say what I really think. So here goes, and I hope I will be allowed back in the country when I come home in September.

On the surface New Zealand is a pleasant society, founded by idealists who wanted to build Utopia. But New Zealand has a brutal understructure. It runs by male values for the three Rs, Rugger, Racing and Rooting. The rich guy with the best P.R. gets the top job Yes we have had Female Prime Ministers,Governors General, and Chief Justice, but listen to the undercurrent, Fred Redneck drinking with his pals and Lucy Loudmouth in the coffee shop. Do these achievements earn respect? Of course not, High achieving women are lesbians who have slept their way to the top. Good old Fred knows somebody who drives a taxi in Wellington and they should know. Or Lucy's daughter is a hairdresser in a salon on Lambton Quay, and one of her clients works in the Prime Minister's Department and told her.
What worries me is that Lucy and Fred and all their connections get to vote. They have only a vague notion of how the country functions, but they cast votes. After Helen Clarke was defeated I asked several friends and aquaintances why they had voted the way they did, Common replies were, 'Ít's time for a change'but no idea why they thought that. 'John Key's a nice looking man,' So if masculine good looks is a qualification for high office I should nominate Justin Beiber for Pope.
But New Zealand is a great place to bring up children. Really? That sad little roll call, Lilly Bing, Delcilia Whittaker, Coral Burroughs, James Whakaruru, the Kahui twins, and so on, tell a different story.
Of course Lucy Loudmouth KNOWS these things are done by non white solo mums with unemployed boyfriends.Well the probloems of bullying and violence is spread a lot more thickly through all classes of New Zealand society.I saw that in my teaching years and it has been going on for a very long time.
And then there is the habit we have of cutting down tall poppies. Helen Clarke had been Prime Minister 'Long enough', when two women in Masterton won Lotto there was an outcry, 'It was too much.'our guardians of public virtue cried. It was exactly the amount prescribed by the rules of Lotto.
I read in the news that the Government is planning to issue coupons for unemployed under eighteens which can only be redeemed for food and clothing not cigarettes or alcohol. How sanctimonious! May I suggest that the authorities then modify petrol pumps so that farmers can only fill their tractors with tax rebated petrol, not the family car, and while they are at it they should modify cash registers so that farmer's grocery items are not classed 'dog food'regardless of the vintage.
So Fred Redneck and Lucy Loudmouth open your eyes, and your minds, start putting your brains into gear before engaging your vocal chord. But neither of you read my blog do you?

SANDWICHES WITH A SMILE

2011-08-17T01:08:00.000-07:00

I don't know their names, the young couple who run O'Brien's coffee shop on the corner of Harcourt Road and Charlemont Street. I dashed in there one holiday lunch time because the Kebab shop I usually patronise was closed. The couple in the Cafe were about to close, but they stopped putting chairs up and made me a snack to take back to the hostel;hot cappuchino and the best sandwich I have eaten in a long time, hot bacon, sliced tomato and red onion in fresh wholemeal bread.
Their premises are so small it has more tables on the pavement outside than in, but everything is scrupulously clean. She makes the sandwiches,the fillings are on display in a glass cabinet. He makes the coffee and handles the cash. But the nicest thing about the whole set up is the way these two treat their customers. When I go in they remember me, the way I like coffee, and that I prefer wholewheat bread. My sandwich comes cut into little triangles, and there are some potato crisps on the plate too, plus a little square of dark chocolate in the saucer of the coffee cup. And there is a copy of the day's paper for customers to browse.
There are many good eating places in Dublin, O'Brien's is one and an unexpected pleasure.

A DECENT NEW ZEALANDER

2011-08-14T05:41:00.000-07:00

No photograph to-day. I logged on to Yahoo news and found tributes to Sir Paul Reeves, ex Anglican Bishop of Aotearoa, former Governor General who never seemed to play politics, or race. A decent man, and I have only a vague idea of what his political affiliations were.

Then I read that 'óne in four New Zealand children are living in poverty.' Well I wish someone would define poverty, because in my years of teaching I have seen children whose parents were short of cash, but the quality of their living was rich. I went to school with kids who had bare feet, and their fathers were out of work, but those father's grew vegetables and caught fish while their mothers knew how to sew and knit and make the most of what they had.

And I do not believe that throwing money at Barnado's will cure poverty. What will help is decent people being acknowledged, regardless of their income. Decent people make a decent society.

AS I WAS SAYING

2011-08-12T11:52:00.000-07:00

In the 1940'S a member of the Guinness family married and she was given eight square miles of Irish countryside as a wedding present, including a castle. two lakes, forests with foxes, badgers and other Irish wild life(Celtic Tigers excepted). My eldest son, Frank wonders if she was a stout bride. with a dowry like that would it matter?
Joe, our encyclopedia of Irish knowledge and bus driver-tour guide, told us that Guinness is no longer owned by the Guinness family. It was taken over by a French consortium. I don't know who owns the Guinness Estate, all eight square miles, but it was a fantastic spot to look at from the hill tops. Joe also kindly took pictures of us with our own cameras so we had a souvenir of the day, plus proof we had been there.
It was while staying on the Guinness Estate that Paul McCartney composed his song, "Yesterday" That to Joe's generation is ancient history,

HOW'S THIS FOR A WEDDING PRESENT/

2011-08-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

A CHALLENGING IDEA

2011-08-09T11:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I at last got my bus tour sorted and enjoyed a great day with a driver called Joe. He looked like Rod Stewart would have before he got so dissipated and he sang a great deal better, was a great story teller as well. WHEN I get my pictures down loaded I shall write more about Irish scenery that looks like Otago without the dairy cows, where Paul McCartney struck lucky with scrambled eggs, a young woman who runs marathons to raise money for cancer research and the village where Ballykissangel was filmed.

In the meantime I gave up trying to book a flight on the internet to get from Dublin to Bristol, The web page advertised flights from 5.99 euros. I tried to find out what the luggage allowance was and got locked into a mass of non information. So this morning I walked down Camden Street until I found a real live travel agent. Yes, he could book me a flight to Bristol, cost 138 euros. He showed me the print out, luggage, taxes, airport charges, probably donations for Ryan air's grandmother's birthday, and use of the on board toilet, swelled the cost from 15 euros to more than 100.

So I have been thinking, would it be possible to travel the world like I do without any luggage? I wouldn't mind trying it. I once spent a week in San Francisco with only my carry on bag. I could stow knickers and toiletries in a large handbag. On arrival at each destination I would visit the local op shop, kit myself out and leave it all behind when I leave. How;s that for a reality show? And it does make sence The shorts and T shirts I wore in Crete are just so mch dead weight now, and I had to find some warmer clothes in Dublin. I would rather like to challenge the airlines at their own game, fly round the world at minimum cost and still be well dressed.
Watch this space.

BALLYKISSWHERE?

2011-08-09T08:15:00.001-07:00

One of the nice things about being a lone traveller is that other people share their stories. On the bus tour to Wicklow we stopped at AVOCA the village where Ballykissangel was filmed. It all looks very familiar, especially Fitzgerald's hotel and the police station.
"Are you on your own?"asked an unmistakably English voice, "Come and eat with us."
Lisa Dawn and her mother are from Jersey. Her husband died last January and she now runs marathons to raise funds for cancer research. She ran the London Marathon, a half Marathon in Italy and has run to the top of Mount KIlimanjaro in Africa and down again. By running she has raised more than 15,000 pounds for Cancer research.
The service in Fitzgerald's is slow, it took us nearly an hour to even have our order taken, but the food was good. I had fresh vegetable soup with new baked soda bread. Lisa Dawn had Guinness stew and her mother lasagne. We all had a slice of rhubarb tart to finish and it was delicious.
We then visited the oldest woollen mill in Ireland for a guided tour. Guided as in footsteps painted on the floor and notices on the wall above the various machines.
Some men were weaving cloth on the hand machines and in the inevitable shop we saw examples of clothes made from the cloth. Beautiful but I have to watch my weight, luggage weight that is.

A TALE OF KINDNESS

2011-08-07T04:05:00.000-07:00

Who remembers Madge, (You're soaking in it)? who sold Palmolive liquid on TV a long time ago. I liked Madge because she didn't put on any airs, she just told viewers why Palmolive was a good product. She was not young, as T.V. celebrities go, but she had an honest sort of charm about her, Well I met Madge's Irish equivalent on Friday, Her name is Bernie, she would be about the age Madge was when she sold Palmolive. How did I meet her? A nice Irish voice telephoned me. Could he please come and take some photographs for the Irish Times Magazine article Sinead Gleeson was preparing. We agreed to meet at the Irish Writers'Centre at 3 oçlock, I have reached the age where make up is irrelevant, it doesn't hide the wrinkles, so I don't usually bother. But in a photo I would look like a beacon.
I called into a pharmacy near the Dublin Spire, seeking something to kill the shine. I wanted something I could brush on. Bernie saw me browsing and asked how she could help. I explained what I needed, and that it was for a one off photo shoot. My daughter-in-law, Jo is an Avon lady and every Christmas stocks me us with products from her range. Bernie understood immediately and tested my skin tones, then filled a small bag with sample sachets from her range.
Now, for anyone buying cosmetics in Europe I want to make a recommendation. VICHY COSMETICS are sold only in pharmacies, and they are good, as in soft on the skin, and sold by knowledgable people like Bernie.
The photoshoot went well, the photographer look a lot more pictures than I expected, and I shall see the result in next week end's magazine.

ENSEMBLE C'EST TOUT

2011-08-07T03:32:00.000-07:00

VOYONS MES AMIS! Here are the two honorary grand daughters who shared my dormitory last week, Anna Ise is the blonde with glasses and Rhiannon is the brunette. They were delightful company, as have been all the girls who spend a night or two at Citihostel before moving on, or returning home.

Yesterday I listened as a tall, dark, Spanish girl and a petite blond from the Czech Republic sorted out plans for visiting the Irish National Museum. They did this in English which is their common language.

I am beginning to feel like a Dubliner. Yesterday I walked down Harcourt Street to St Stephen's Green and a woman approached me. Could I direct her to Camden CCourt Hotel? It was a pleasure, straight along here to the next set of traffic lights, turn right, walk up Camden Street until you come to the Bleeding Horse. Camden Court is right next to that. It's about a five minute walk. I've done it! I have actually given someone directions for reaching somewhere! And just now I was able to direct the little Czech girl to Adelaide Road.

I just hope I can find the bus stop for my day trip to Wicklow to-morrow, Last Thursday I followed directions to the letter, finished up asking directions from the wrong 'bus company and missed my ride. They were very polite about it, so I hope I get to and from Wiclow without trouble. I shall see the pub where Ballykissangel was filmed.

VIEW FROM THE THIRD FLOOR

2011-08-03T02:30:00.001-07:00

THE IRISH WRITERS'CENTRE is a marvellous resource in Dublin. It is opposite the garden of remembrance in Parnell Square, next to the Irish Writers Museum. On the ground floor is the administration and a room where writers can sit, in really comfortable chairs, and drink the best coffee I have drunk since coming to Dublin, made by two leprechauns in disguise, Fergall and John. The bookshelves are lined with Irish Literature.
On the second floor is a meeting room where "A Twitter of Wit' a brilliant Pastiche from Irish comedies is performed several times a week by two actors.. Then on the top floor are the classrooms. I go there every Friday afternoon for 'INKSLINGERS' a creative writing group . I also climb those three flights on Tuesday evening when Conor Kostick teaches us about writing a novel. It's worth the climb every time.
The photograph was taken from the third floor window, and was of a very noisy, but disciplined anti abortion rally. We had to close the double glazed windows in order to hear Charlie Connolly deliver what we had paid to attend, a workshop on travel writing. Later, as I waited at the traffic lights for the procession to pass I thought back to the time when world news was aghast at the plight of 'X' fourteen years old, raped by her father's friend, stopped from going to England for a termination recommended by doctors and psychiatrists.
So last night I sat in the third floor room again. Each Tuesday five people in Conor's class read a thousand words they have previously distributed by e mail. Conor then asks questions, making us justify details of the plot, characterisation, use of metaphor. He is a tough teacher. One of the extracts last night told of a fourteen year old girl in a Catholic school whose teacher, a nun, tried to have her class discuss the question of 'X's' dilemma, It was brilliantly written,showing the teacher nun's embarrassment, the uncaring inattention of most of the class and the bigotry of a few.
Another writer's excerpt was the start of a mystery novel, and opened with a priest taking the last confession for the day. And to my surprise I discovered that most of the group were not practising catholics. They had only hazy notions of what went on during confession.
Interestinger and interestinger!

MORASL

2011-08-03T02:30:00.000-07:00

WELCOME STEPHANIE HELEN DAVIES

2011-08-02T04:10:00.000-07:00

And I am not going to try and post any photographs, of course she is gorgeous, like her mother and father. However there is a multilingual wave of congratulations floating through the hostel since the e mail arrived.

Let me see, the receptionist is Spanish, as is one of the ladies who cleans like the proverbial white tornado. The this morning there was a couple in the corridor reading a play in Italian. A young man here in the dining room is calling someone in extremely fast French on his computer, Audrey, who is into alternative religion and has been sending positive prayers for your well being is Canadian.The girls who shared my dorm last night are German.

Occasionally I here Irish spoken,and Rosemary the other long term resident in my dorm has a beautiful Irish brogue. Now Stephanie Helen, with your mother's command of Swedish and all these good wishes washing over to you it seems inevitable that you too will become a world traveller, able to converse in any language. Which is just as it should be.
Much love to you
from your Grandmother Davies (Your other Grandmother is a great lady too.)

WHO SAYS DUBLIN'S NOT HAUNTED?

2011-07-28T09:17:00.000-07:00

My camera has run our of battery so I regret no photo this time.
Last Sunday afternoon I went for a long walk around where I live, particularly to The Bleeding Horse tavern in Camden Street. It is mentioned at least twice in Ulysses and they have quotes set in concrete at each entrance. A board outside advertised what was available and at the end was a note:- Writers'Night To-night 8 p.m.' so I walked in to the bar and asked about it. The barman was a pleasant young man with red hair and designer bristle.
"The writers come to-night to read their work, Any one can come'" and he showed me the space, unchanged since 1904 when James Joyce wrote about it. And at the back the very benches where Joyce and later Brendan Behan had sat.
Ï'll be here,'I promised myself and dashed home to the hostel to change, slacks and T shirt did not seem appropriate for meeting the ghosts of Joyce and Behan.
Shortly before 8p.m.I walked through the bar to the 'Writers'space' A notice hung on the railing 'This Space Reserved @ 8p.m. I ordered a glass of wine and waited, and waited, and waited. On the wall near the bar was a notice BEWARE OF PICKPOCKETS AND LOOSE WOMEN. I looked around the bar, full of little spaces, and stairways leading to balconies overlooking everything.The afternoon shift had gone, the bar staff flitted busily. I could not see my red headed friend anywhere. Finally qabout 8.25 I asked
a barman, probably Romanian, 'When will the writers night start?'
He looked bewildered, asked a rapid question of a more senior bartender.
Neither knew of a Writers'Night.
An Irishman came in and began setting up a sound system on the little dais which housed the benches Behan and Joyce had once sat on.
Writers'Night? He had never heard of a band called that.
So I came home and spent the rest of Sunday listening to an Australian motorbike fanatic from Perth and an Irishman called Brendon who rode a beautiful red Honda.
And I pass the Bleeding Horse every day when I walk into Camden Street, but I have not seen that red headed bar tender since.

COINCIDENCES NEVER END

2011-07-22T12:01:00.001-07:00

There was I seated on the bottom bunk of dormitory 317 on Citi hostel. A knock at the door and in walked two beautiful young back packers from France. We introduced ourselves, one is Anna Yse and the other Rhiannon, quelle coincidence marveilleuse! Two of my grand daughters are Anna Lisa and Rhiannon. So while these two stored their luggage we discussed, without mentioning the mentioning the Rainbow Warrior, Rugby, and French movies, their favourite being Énsemble, cést tout, which is the film made from Anna Gavalda's marvellous novel, which we call 'Hunters and Gatherers. Personally I thing Ensemble cést Tout'a much better title.
They have headed out now to do whatever young people do on a Friday night, I have forgotten, it's so long ago, but they have promised to be quiet when they come in.

COINCIDENCES NEVER END

2011-07-22T12:01:00.000-07:00

DUBLIN'S GREAT BUT I WOULDN'T LIKE TO DRIVE THERE

2011-07-21T06:44:00.000-07:00

For some reason this piece posted itself on line before I had written more than the subject line. To-day was the sort of day I came north of the equator to avoid, cold and wet. Cars had their lights on all day, and we could hear tyres squishing on wet roads as they passed the hostel. And I shivered. I brought cotton blouses and Tshirts with me so about three oçlock in between showers I dared a break in the showers ans headed down Camden Street where there are four very good charity shops. By spending thirty euros I came home with a smart warm coat which I shall wear for years to come, two warm blouses and two pullovers, so I am no longer shivering.
In Talbot street near the 'Prick with the stick'statue of James Joys I found this pavement artist, An artist certainly, but at the end of each day he rolls up his canvases, returning the next day to stick them down again with duck tape. Ingenious.
There is a trombonist busker near him who plays Irish blues.
Dublin is indeed a vibrant city, but perhaps because it developed from a riverside settlement I don't think there is one uncurved street, and streets change their names every two or three blocks. They d0 have a sensible rule for pedestrian crossings. Painted on the road is 'Look left'even if the little man in the traffic light is showing red if nothing is coming pedestrians may cross. then from the centre another sign says ;'look right'and the same rule applies.
But I still would not like to drive here.

COME DOWN TO CAMDEN

2011-07-20T06:10:00.000-07:00

The photo will follow.
There are a few shopping areas in the world which delight me by their ambience, the sense of 'village'' and the unique people one meets there. I discovered Camden Street when I was staying in St Kevins Parade. Now I have moved nearer to the city and to my delight I walked to the corner of Charlemont Street which has a nice hostel almost next door to a Turkish kebab and hamburger shop. I turned left, walked a few metres and there I was, at the top of Camden street.
This morning I strolled down to get my eyes tested for another pair of glasses. The lady optician had a beautiful brogue she did all the things optometrists like Brian Dennehy does in Oamaru. She apologised for the price. When I translated her euros into NZ dollars they are going to be cheaper than my last pair, even allowing the pensioner discount. I need another pair because my frames disintegrated and I stupidly did not get a spare pair before I left home.
I continued strolling and explored some charity shops, Irish Cancer Society, Elder Action, but I have to remember my weight - 20 ks plus 5 ks carry on, and if I don't get Ulysses finished I shall need every kilo in the allowance,just for that.
At lunch time I found a lovely simple cafe which served, among other dishes éggs on toast, any way you want them'so I had two poached eggs on toast which were perfectly cooked and served with two sprigs of chives, delicious.
Next I saw a shop window advertising hair cuts Ádults 7 euros. The barber was giving two of his clients basic cuts, I think they are 'number 1s'' There was no chat, such as one hears in more up market salons, but the barber concentrated on getting the hair right.
The barber was fortyish with the hawk like look middle eastern men have. When I climbed into his chair he wanted to know was I on holiday?
No I am researching a book.
Where was I staying?
Citi hostel.
If I wanted a flat he could help me find one.
Was my husband in Dublin?
My husband died fourteen years ago.
But you need a partner.
I wondered if he was going to offer help finding one. But he snipped and shaped for nearly half an hour and gave me the best haircut I have had since I left Waitaki and Lily Blakely's care.
Finally I called into Tesco,s and stocked up on fresh fruit and good muesly because this hostel does not serve fruit of yoghurt with their breakfast. One Braeburn apple, juicy and crisp with an ENZA sticker on it cost half a euro.
Yes I like Camden Street, it's villagey like Jackson Street in Petone.

OH MY DUBAI!

2011-07-18T05:42:00.000-07:00

Last year I passed through Dubai airport in a wheel chair and just glimpsed things in passing, like the airport customs officials all with black moustaches and all wearing identical pristine Arab robes.. This year I strolled around exploring. The concourse is bigger than a cathedral, an imaginative construction of glass, stainless steel and concrete. There are gardens with full grown trees and ferns and places to stand beside tall steep sculptures while being photographed. Singapore was my favourite airport for a long time, but I find myself liking Dubai more and more.

SEEN AT AN AIRPORT

2011-07-18T00:48:00.001-07:00

Carefully arranged brown curls
blowing wild over tanned
and polished shoulders
real snakeskin shoes
one her feet
a dragon tattoo
on her ankle
too much flesh
on her thighs
and a big bag of chips
in her hand

But a nice lady never the less, she let me take the photos.

SEEN IN CROATIA

2011-07-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

A STREET IN ZAGREB

Men with beer bellies
strut, hands on hips
even the short ones
look down on everybody

In the cafes
boys with no hips
dart around serving
salads and slivovitz
to sunburned sightseers.

TEEN AGE PREGNANCIES

2011-05-27T22:05:00.000-07:00

The local ad rag splashed a story across its front page this week which had been discussed, but not analysed on radio the previous week. A mother was apalled that her school age daughter had been able to have an abortion without her (the mother's ) knowledge. It was all very emotive with photographs of a madonna like teenage mother cuddling her toddler, a foetus and headlines about the PARENT'S RIGHT TO KNOW'.
In an ideal world I would agree. But in an ideal world daughters under sixteen would not get pregnant. Here are some facts about the real as oppsed the the ideal world.
I taught High School a way back in the days when teachers were forbidden, on pain of dismissal, to mention that three letter word to their pupils. Imagine my surprise when I was in the maternity ward, and in the next bed was a fourteen year old girl I had taught in Form 4 English a few weeks before. She had a nice baby boy. No visitors came to see her. And I am ashamed to say I just did not know how to respond when she remarked to me, in all innocence, "I thought if you did it with your brother you wouldn't have a baby." and she went, with the baby, back to the home where he brother, father of her child was still living.

Teachers were forbidden to mention SEX in classrooms but there was no such prohibition on staffroom talk and over the years I heard some horrific stories. Mainly they involved young girls in the power of their brothers, their fathers, their uncles, their solo mothers' boyfriends. They involved girls being kicked to induce abortion, mothers who ignored what their husbands and/or sons were doing to their daughters for the sake of peace. Imagine a girl from a home like that being told, 'but of course we must tell your mother before you have the abortion.'

New Zealand is not a nice society, some awful things go on and are concealed. My experiences are from fifty years back, now at least children have access to knowledge and school counsellors, not enough and not yet highly trained enough can help children in trouble. If the journalist who wrote the 'Parent's Right to Know' article had done a proper job of investigative journalism perhaps the headline could have been, 'Why did this girl have to keep abortion secret from her mother?'

Some enlightened schools have units where teen age mothers can finish their schooling as well as learn to care for their babies. I applaud them.

PEANUTS, MONKEYS & PEOPLE

2011-05-19T13:25:00.000-07:00

I am currently between cars, so when Dunedin Hospital informed me I had an appointment for a bone density scan on May 19 I booked a bus to collect me from home, take me to Dunedin Hospital and deliver me home again, cost $75.00.
"The bus will pick you up between 8.00 and 8.30," the booking clerk at La Gonda tearooms told me.
By 8.35 I was worried No bus had arrived and Kaik Road was bare for its 3.29k length. I rang La Gonda.
"He's very busy this morning, but he'll be there," assured a laconic Otago accent. At 9.15 when I rang again a slightly more cultured voice took over. She could find no record of my booking, and Bruce the bus driver was long gone.I quoted the number on my receipt for $75.00. There was a hurried rustling of paper and some sotto voce discussion. The ubiquitous THEY had not entered my booking on Bruce's pick up list, and La Gonda could not offer any solution to my problem except to assure me that my $75.00 would be refunded.
My neighbour who owns a 4 wheel drive automatic offered me the use of it.By the time I reached Oamaru I was simmering. So I stopped and called into La Gonda. A plump female of uncertain age, scarlet highlights covering thinning black hair, like a bald man's 'combover' accosted me with a welcoming smile that ended a milimetre beyond her lips.
"I have a hospital appointment at one o'clock in Dunedin. The bus I booked failed to pick me up. I want to know what you are going to do about it."
Her expression reminded me of the way Sergeant Anastatakis looked when he saw me coming into his Kissamos cop shop, a 'where can I hide' look. But a large, youngish (at my age anyone under sixty is young} moustache rescued her. He held up his phone,
"I was just trying to ring you," he told me. Yes the booking office had made a mistake and had not told Bruce I needed to be picked up. The $75.00 would be refunded. The moustache had rung Merv Aitcheson who would pick me up, deliver me to Dunedin Hospital and bring me home again. Cost $122.00.
"I don't want a refund," I told him, in the voice that used to make form 4B at Rotorua High tremble. "I need to be at Dunedin Hospital at 1 o'clock. La Gonda made the mistake, La Gonda should fix it."
And La Gonda did. At 11.o'clock Merv picked me up in his brand new Toyota 8 seater whose high wheel base and wrap around windows gave a wonderful view of the Otago scenery. He delivered me to Dunedin Hospital in plenty of time. The hospital has a system similar to the Travellers' Aide desks in American airports. I was escorted to the bone density department by a pleasant woman almost my age. And the lady doing my bone scan had done a lot of hiking in Crete. While I was positioned on the table, in a pose reminiscent of birthing, we chatted about Xania, Sfakia and Loutro, and we parted with hugs. Merv was waiting and we drove back to Oamaru. On the way we chatted about the difference between people who get no joy from their jobs and those who are committed to doing the best job they can. The former are not just in low paid drudge jobs. Merv had personal experience of company directors who got no pleasure from their work, only from the power that went with the jobs, like being able to click their fingers at waiters. Yet that delightful lady who helped me find my way around Dunedin Hospital was probably an unpaid volunteer.

I know Merv from previous excursions with the Women's Institute. He and his partner run Oamaru Tours Ltd and they have an encyclopedic knowledge of interesting places all over Otago. I will probably join one of his tours to Stewart Island later this year. Back in Oamaru he dropped me beside my neighbour's car in the carpark where it had been all day at a cost of $2.00; so Oamaru does give something back from those obscene rates it charges - cheap parking. And Sally at New World smiled as she packed my groceries, she had probably been on her feet all day, but she really gave the impression she was enjoying her job.

DYING PIGEONS AND UGLY BABIES

2011-04-16T10:03:00.000-07:00

There is a whole urban mythology about writers and their rejected manuscripts. James Mitchener wrote (in his novel THE NOVEL) about having work rejected, something about a manuscript returning and flopping about on his desk 'like a dying pigeon.' All too real. Writers' magazines try to cheer us, 'turn the rejection slip over and write the opening sentence of your next story,' said one. Another would be writer claimed to have papered her study walls with rejection slips. Rejection is like a mother would feel if someone looked into her pram and said, 'What an ugly baby!'

What brought this on? Last month I posted one of my dying pigeons to a blog, specifically asking for feed back. Well, I got no feed back, not from either of the two people, one in England one in New Zealand,who clicked on to my story. So seven billion people did not even bother!

I was saved from total despair by a call from a lady in Oamaru who is reading my current work in progress, a novel about a dairy farmer and a rugby player, the rugby player being the heroine, I admire the Black Ferns. Would I please hurry up and write the next bit, my reader asked, she wanted to know what was going to happen. Now that gave me enough confidence to keep on writing for a while.

And to the two nice people who clicked on http://waiata's witterings,blogspot.com thank you anyway, even though you were too polite to comment on my ugly baby.

Something for Free

2011-04-08T11:54:00.000-07:00

At four minutes before seven o'clock on a lovely autumn morning, My computer is doing as I tell it and I have posted one of my unsuccessful attempts at a short story to Waiata's Witterings.blogspot.com

What I am hoping for is feedback - Why is this one not getting published? I have had a lot of short stories published on radio and in anthologies. If you read it and enjoy it, please say so. If you find a glaring error please point it out to me. But I want people to read my stories for pleasure, so I am now giving them away by posting them to Waiata's Witterings.

I have progressed as a poet over recent years because I subscribe to an on line poetry group, Poetry Kit. I really miss the writing groups I belonged to when living in the Wairarapa.

So please read the stories and comment.

NICE TO BE BACK

2011-04-06T18:17:00.000-07:00

Maybe there is some malign gremlin lurking in my desk top because every time I have tried to post a blog it it has refused to let me in, until now.

I read an interesting feature in the Writers' Magazine about a writer, Scott Siegler who publishes his novels on line free of charge. He must work very hard because I receive installments twice a week. To be frank his style is not one that appeals to me, but that does not mean he is not a good writer, just I am a fuddy duddy. Scott Siegler has an audience who enjoys his style.

Anyway, his blog gave me an idea. I am going to post some of my rejected writings to Waiata's Witterings.blogspot.com and see is anyone enjoys them. Also I plan to return to Crete in June (Sgt Anastatakis take cover) for two weeks, and will be in Liverpool for World Poetry Night in September. That sweet patron saint of performing poets, Jim Bennett, has asked me to talk about New Zealand Poetry at the Liverpool Library during the weekend. The main night was booked for the third room of Everyman Theatre, redolent of Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, and other luminaries. Now it is to be demolished, so we will have to meet elsewhere. I read some of my poems to the third room during the first World Poetry Night in 2007, so I can feel honoured to have performed there. I hope the fact that I was coming this year has no connection with the developers' decision to knock it all down!

A GREAT BIRTHDAY

2010-12-19T00:06:00.000-08:00

9.20 p.m. at the end of one of the best birthdays ever. My crib is full of flowers, courtesy of neighbours, son Peter and niece Mary from Plymouth Mass. My in box is full of messages from friends from all over and my phone is busiest it has been since last birthday. This afternoon, in company with friends Glennys and Ethelwynne, I went to see the Metrpolitan Opera production of Don Pasquale; The music is still ringing in my brain. Then we had roast beef at the Star and Garter, my favourite restaurant in Oamaru. I tried to upload a couple of photos to share but my machine kept making excuses, drat it. I think the pictures have gone to Facebook.

The Opera season, showing once a month at Movie World, is incredible. Das Reingold, the first of Wagner's Ring Cycle, is German, Boris Gudenov, by Moussorgski, is Russian and today, Donizetti's Don Pasquale, Italian, so we are seeing a range of pera styles and hearing music in different languages. Also we are seeing behind the scenes to the incredible and vast complex which makes staging these operas possible. In Don Pasquale we saw entire stage settings mounted on tracks moved silently off stage, to be just as silently replaced by the next scene, from Don Pasquale's dilapidated Roman villa to Norrina's rooftop terrace to Don Pasquale's garden. The singing and acting was brilliant of course but the stand out performance was Anna Netrebko, a stunningly beautiful lyric soprano who literally danced about the stage, while singing, she even turned a couple of somersaults! Another highlight was the Duet between Don Pasquale and Dr. Malatesta , what musical comedy would call a patter song, but delivered at full operatic throttle with machine gun speed but perfect ennunciation.

DISGUSTING, WHERE CAN I GET ONE?

2010-12-05T18:58:00.000-08:00

A news item on Yahoo this morning shows a photograph of a nude rugby player mid interception. Not a Whetton or a Brookes or a Bunce, or whoever the pin up All Blacks are these days. A Women's Rugby Club decided to raise money by publishing a calendar a la 'Calendar Girls'.Not completely unclothed, she wore boots and socks and looked rather nice. I have several adolescent grand sons who would appreciate a calendar like that for Christmas.
But where is this going to stop? Imagine the shelves in Paper Plus or Whitcoulls some December in the future - all the groups who huddle at tables outside supermarkets on freezing cold days selling raffle tickets could each have their own nude calander: Cancer Society with daffodils in strategic places, St Johns Ambulance,Stroke Foundation;Gray Power; Citizens'Advice? Fire fighters and Women's Institute have been done. The mind boggles.

SOME PEOPLE GIVE ALL YEAR ROUND

2010-12-02T09:52:00.001-08:00

Ruth Arnison is a Dunedin poet who recently won both first and second prize in the Timaru Rose Society's annual poetry competition. But as well as writing great poetry Ruth prodces POEMS IN THE WAITING ROOM a pamphlet of poems distributed free to doctors' waiting rooms and rest homes. They are a mix of old fashioned traditional main stream and new poems by New Zealand poets. Ruth selects the poems, clears copyright, sweet talks sponsors and arranges printing and distribution four times a year, a big task and all voluntary.

Jan Vernon is a Temuka poet who won first prize in the Rose festival contest three years ago. She is often published in The Listener and other magazines. Recently she completed a magnificent long dramatic work of Poetry, 'Pele's Children'. Jan regularly visits a local rest home in Temuka and reads poetry to the residents, many of whom are younger than she is.

These are just two of the people who quietly give their talents and time to making life better for people around them. As well as these two there are the secretaries of groups,social, religious,sporting dramatic, musical who work incredibly long hours without pay. I wonder, if some 21st century Guy Fawkes succeeded in exterminating Parliament would we notice? If our unpaid volunteers disappeared how long would our communities be able to carry on?

GODUNOV FOR OAMARU

2010-11-28T11:32:00.001-08:00

Our local cinema complex holds Sunday afternoon screenings of what I can only describe as 'cultural events'. They are sparsely attended.
In 2004 I paid $4,000 to travel to and attend the Adelaide production of Wagner's Ring Cycle, all four operas. They were magnificent but last month I paid $28 to attend the screening of New York Metropolitan Opers's production of Das Rheingold, the first of the Ring Cycle and it was even more magnificent that the Adelaide experience. Brilliant photography put us right on the stage of the Met, looking at Bryn Terfel's tonsils, we were so close.
So yesterday I, and six other people watched and listened to Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov which ran for 5 hours 30 minutes. My head is still ringing with the music, my eyes are still dazzled from the opulence of the production, and my mind is still grappling with the complexities of a plot straight out of Aristotle's Poetics.
Boris Gudonov ruled Russia in the sixteenth century. He was a kindly, well intentioned man who did not understand the hugeness of his task. He wanted to be loved by his subjects so he handed out scraps of bread to a few beggars be but had no concept of the reforms needed to make a real difference. He was gullible, believing the fairy tales fed to him by corrupt boyars and greedy churchmen.
There is a lot of subtle political comment, for example the itinerant friars who rob a sleeping guest in a wayside inn, the shallow bitchiness of the Polish court,and finally the dying Boris who advises his son to rule Russia by 'heeding the simple wisdom of the common people and to trust in God,' while outside those common people are rioting and welcoming the false pretender Dmitri, and the military arm of the Roman church including those two venal friars who have swapped from Orthodox to Catholic.
What I found tragic was the thought that four hundred years later people have still not learned 'simple wisdom'. But the sight of two horses being ridden on to the vast stage at the Metropolitan Opera House was worth every cent of the admission price.

if you want to learn more google www.nzmetopera.com

I'M DREAMING OF A WRITE CHRISTMAS

2010-11-27T11:47:00.000-08:00

ADDIE ACCIDENT by Shirley Corlett Scholastic ISBN 078-1-86942-971-2 Shirley sent me a review copy which will go to my ten year old grandaughter. It deals with self esteem, how to overcome bullying and using one's imagination all packed into a fast action slightly improper story.
A SINGULAR SKYLARK by Shirley Grave ISBN 978-0-473-18043-3. Shirley is dedicated to rhyme, which would usually turn me off, but these verses are entertaining and funny,
with often a thorn amid the hearts and flowers, like 'Phasing Out Home Support' and 'The Farmer's Wife.' Fun to dip into.
TOM PEPPER'S DOG a Geraldine anthology collected and edited by Jan Hill. ISBN 978-0-473-15973-6; Pleasant Valley Publishing. I love good anthologies from writing groups. It's like eating home baking after a diet of factory food. Another one for dipping into at odd moments.
ARISTOTLE'S POETICS FOR SCREENWRITERS by Michael Tierno, Hyperion, ISBN 978-0-7868-8740-8. This is going to grandson Tom, 2nd year University classics student who was having stories broadcast on EARS at age 4. The chapter headings alone are worth the price of the book. His brother, who was making films at age 11 is getting Robert McKee's STORY.
FROM BEIRUT TO JERUSALEM by Thomas L. Friedman. Farrar, Straus & Giraux ISBN-13:978-0-374-15895-8. A personal account of the Arab-Israeli-Lebanese-Palestine conflict written by a real newspaper correspondent. Real, as in what John Ralston Saul calls 'the faithful witness.' This is going to ex-soldier son Terry when I have finished reading it myself.
THE WRITER'S JOURNEY MYTHiC STRUCTURE FOR WRITERS by Christian Vogler published by Michael Wise Productions ISBN 978-1-932907-36-0. This one is for me. I am sick of lending it and never getting it back so this time it is mine, all mine.

TIS THE SEASON

2010-11-27T10:48:00.003-08:00

Deck the malls with plastic holly
Fa la la la la la and razz ma tazz
the season's come for retail folly
cards maxed out and all that jazz
sun is sizzling
kids are grizzling
carol muzack rapes our ears
feeling anything but jolly
we'll do it all again next year.

MY CHRISTMAS WISH LIST
1. a gadget for my car which automastically debits a farmer's bank account when I drive over the shitty mess left by his cows and have to get the car cleaned again.

2. a set of shelves which automatically tidies books away.

3. a toy boy that hangs on the wall beside my apron and only comes down to mow lawns, dig the garden and change light bulbs.

4. a computer that does what it's told, does not lose whole swadges of my text and does not refuse to upload images when I tell it to.

That will do for starters.

NOT DEAD YET

2010-11-13T12:30:00.000-08:00

The phone call came from an acquaintance who asked in slightly boozy tones'why did I wrie a blog. Nobody would bother to read it.
'Right,'I decided 'keeping a blog is a bit like talking to oneself, or shouting down a black hole. If nobody is bothering to read I shall concentrate on real writing, 'and I did for a couple of months. Then the e mails began, not many, but enough to give me heart, and friends started asking what had happened to my blog, so here I go again, with details of my rivetting ocial life.
By the way I am not responsible for what happened in Christchurch a week after I came home. It was not caused by tremors from me getting off the plane. I have lost too much weight to endanger anything.
After shivering throughout September, bewailing the fact that I should have still been in Crete I spent a day with Glenavy Women's Institute on their mystery bus tour.
The photo at the top of this posting is from the Annalong gardens, near Makakihi. It seems there were three tearaway brothers named Quinn who did something dreadful in Ireland. Their father collected rents from Annalong villagers for the absentee landlord. The brothers stole the rent money and took of to Liverpool. When they heard the landlord was after them they stowed away on a ship to Australia and finally reached New Zealand. They started a brick works and prospered, built a homestead which has endured inspite of being damaged by fire. We enjoyed tea and hot scones in the farm kitchen, as well as hearing some cracking stories about the house, like the priest's room. An itinerant priest travelled from Timaru to Oamaru, and stopped for a night at Annalong homestead in a room set aside for him.
Annalong was only the first stop on a busy day, I shall continue this saga on another day; lunch at a millionnaires playground, an Ashburton craft village where the clothes are NOT made in China, but right there on the premises, a garden which won a gold medal at the Ellerslie Flower Show and what Par Lap's statue in Timaru is resting its foot on.
Stay tuned.

ABROAD THOUGHTS FROM BACK HOME

2010-09-16T12:16:00.000-07:00

On my last day in Crete I stayed in Chania. at the Best Western Hotel in Porto Venezione, built by Venetians in the 15th century. Taking a last walk along the shore I found the Maritime Museum which houses the replica of a Minoan galley, built and sailed by a group of enthusiasts, just to prove it could be done. There are exhibits of the drills and lathes used in the building of the Minoa, a photographic record of Cretanmaritime history. I spent two hours looking at it zall, bought a yachting cap for Richard.
And if anyone reading this blog is wondering about an affordable holiday in the Mediterranean I recommend Chania, with walks around old harbours, sea walls built nearlya thousand years ago cafes serving delicious food, and that tideless ocean withing metres.

BELIEF IN ANGELS

2010-09-09T23:09:00.001-07:00

I am not religious, apart from suspecting that each one of us creates God in our own image, or the image of what we would like to be. But I find the evidence for the existance of angels close to overwhelming, an angel being a person who appears at a crucial moment and gives help just because it is needed. Consider-
LOUTRO 2008, I was due to take the noon ferry to Sfakia and catch the bus to Chania but one ferry broke down and the other could not get into the harbour. Finally about 7 p.m., on its last run for the day, MV Daskalogianis manouvered into the bay and picked ua up. The ferry decks were crammed so I joined the dozens of people in the cargo bay. Standing next to me Doug and Rose from Arrowtown. when we reached Sfakia Doug carried my suitcase and Rose scurried ahead and located my bus for me before heading off to their tour bus. (Angels 1 & 2 )
CHANIA bus station, later, after a three hour bus ride I went to climb off the bus, only to find my right leg had gone to sleep, and I amde a most undignified exit. A group of people who had been on the ferry, having walked the Samaria gorge (28ks)
took over, rescued my luggage and steadied me.
'How much have you had to drink to-day?" asked a tall grey headed man with a Scottish accent. 'I mean water.'
His Mexican wife rummaged in her bag and produced a bottle of water. The group (nurses on holiday from Edinburgh) insisted on giving me their taxi. (angels 3-8}
I was booked into the Porto dela Colombo, a boutique hotel in the old town. The taxi could only take me to the bottom of the hill. The roadway upwards was jammed with tables full of late diners. So I hoisted my carry on bag and lugging my suitcase on wheels I set off up hill. It was hard going and I was beyond carying about how I looked, a silly old cow trudging up hill.
Then behind me I heard the patter of running feet, 'I'm going to be mugged,' I thought and kept trudging.
'Let me take your suitcase,' said a velvet covered male voice. He was a waiter at one of the restaurants, his mother had seen me trudging past and sent him to help me.
He carried both my bags up the hill and down the steps to my hotel. Without him I would have been stranded because the hotel was locked. a notice on the door, in Greek, gave instructions about opening the security box that held the keys. My rescuer got the door open, found the light switch, deposited my bag, shook hands and left. (angel 9 & 10 his mother counts as an angel).
Next morning I felt better, but my leg was still hurting when I went down to breakfast. Two other guests were in the room.
"What's wrong with your knee?" asked the man. I explained about the broken down ferry and the bus ride.
His wife handed me a card of pain killers. They were doctors from Brisbane in Crete for a conference. (angels 11 & 12)
At the end of that particular trip a man in Bangkok airport carried my overnight bag for me, then on arrival in Auckland organised my baggage collection and saw me safe on to the Christchrch plane. He showed me the plans he was brining from Mogolia so that he could build a genuine yurt.(anhgel 13 and I refuse to be superstitious.)

Then this year I boarded the bus in Kissamos, very disgruntled that Greek bureaucracy had ruined my plans for another month in Crete. Sitting in the seat next to me a middle aged Greek lady. We conversed with nods and gestures and my minimal Greek and her limited English. At Chania she walked a half kilometre to the taxi rank, carrying my big bag and found a taxi driver who spoke good English. She smiled, wished me Adiosa and vanished. angel 14.

So although I am not religious I do believe in angels, they are people who, when they see a need, give help without expecting recompense. Being an angel is a quality of mind, not a matter of feathered wings and haloes.

NEITHER EARTH TREMOR NOR EQUINOXIAL GALE

2010-08-28T06:42:00.000-07:00

Just a bump as I come back to earth, along with the other several hundred air bus passengers, and a sigh as I wish I had taken this trip years ago.
On the plus side, discovering still more secrets of Crete. One is the Best Western in Porto Venezione in Chania's old town, which is steps away from the Maritime Museum in a 15th century Venetian warehouse, next to a waterside cafe which serves fried fresh sardines with Greek salad. Then there is a lovely little garden attached to the hotel's bar where I sat in the cool and drank frappe for the last time. I shall certainly stay there next time I am heading for Loutro and that will keep me out of Sergeant Anastatakis' way.
Then there was the courtesy and kindness of airport staff. Chania does not have air bridges but now it has a special machine which lifts wheelchair passengers up to the plane entrance. And there was a procession of handsome Greek, Arab, and Australian men who wheeled me to and from planes, not forgetting the jolly Aussie blonde in Sydney and the New Zealand girl whose kiwi accent almost sent me into tears of homesoming joy.
And here is a free advertisement to anyone thinking of travelling. Give Emirates a try. I am going to devote a whole blog to them later. What Dubais is accomplishing is quite incredible. They have a literary Festival there each March. The last one attracted 100 writers and 25,000 people! As for their airport, a vision of sand blasted glass, chromium columns. marble tiled floors and space and coolness.
It is now 5 p.m. yesterday according to my body clock, and my skin is complaining because it has not felt this cold for four months. So goodnight, Kalinocte all.

I WISH I HAD WRITTEN THAT

2010-08-24T00:24:00.000-07:00

EDWIN MORGAN born 1920 died last week. He was the first Poet Laureate for Scotland,wrote wonderfully imaginative poems with the main these of communication.I knew about him because of the Loch Ness Monster's song. But his website (just google his name } has a wonderful selection of his work. In particular the poem he wrote about being eighty:

Being Eighty
Edward Morgan 1920-2010

Push the boat out compaleros
push the boat out whatever the sea
through the boiling reefs black as they are
the enemy of us all makes sure of it!
Mariners! keep good watch alight
for that last passage of blue water
we have heard of and long to see
no matter if we cannot, no matter
in our eighty year old timbers
leaking and patched as they are but sweet
well seasoned with the scent of boards
long perished. Servicable still
in unarrested pungency
like distant ships in mist, or bell
clanging ruthless from stormy buoys.

And Edwin Morgan's definition of Poetry? Partly an instrument of exploration.

2010-08-23T16:39:00.000-07:00

Taking pictures in bright sunlight when I cannot see the screen is disappointing. Maybe I need one of those cloths my father used to hide his head under when he was setting up his plate camera and we all had to hold our breath and NOT BLINK for an eternity before he pressed the little plunger that opened the shutter. These shots were meant to be of the hill that dominates the back of Kissamos, taken from the elementary school and the other was to show some of the useful Greek words I have learned looking at the street signs; good Greek words like 'Toyota Hilus',Honda, Motorent, and there is one on a garage door on the way to town. Parkn verbot.
I found another little bookshop in the shopping area to-day and bought a copy of 'Zorba The Greek' in English, plus a rather weighty tome about Crete which is not Lonely Planet or Let's Go! What would Jimmy Fitzpatrick say if he were making travelogues to-day?
'As our plane pulls away from the ground and the sun sinks slowly in the west we say 'Farewell'to the Island of Crete, birthplace of Zeus and countless legends renowned in literature.' But I don't suppose anyone reading this has ever heard of Jimmy Fitzpatrick who made travel films in the days when everyone had to go everywhere by boat.

Well to-morrow I shall head down the hill for the last time and rewind the road to Xania

OH THAT FEELS GOOD!

2010-08-22T06:57:00.000-07:00

The yard was littered with dead leaves again but I ignored them and set off for the beach. This is my last Subday in Kissamos and I am not going to spend it sweeping up.
As soon as I turned the corner I felt the wind, not strong but cooling and the olive tree by the old Roman baths was shaking its silver green leaves and singing a little song of delight.As I walked from the museum down towards the promenade I could see long lines of white waves surging into the bay, and not a surfboard in sight. Nobody was drinking at the outdoor tables either, although plenty of people strode into the wind, relishing the cool.The cafes have not opened their big sun umbrellas. A little boy, about three years old,with black curls and olive skin chased the spray as it slapped above the sea wall. Voluptuous young women with long brown legs and short white dresses strode into the breeze, the wind lifting their long hair as they walked.
My lunch was a cheeseburger, with more garlic and onion than MacDonals would serve and an ice cold frappe. My bill was inserted into a little plastic tube so it would not blow away and I set a 2e 2x 1e and 2x50c beside it before calling 'Adiosa'to the waitress. I set off up the hill past the windmill which was spinning steadily.The a neat little house across the road stands on bare ground, the tomatoes, beans and eggplant I have watched mature over summer have been gathered, only some large green squash remained.
'Kalimera!'hailed a white haired Cretan in blue singlet,orange trousers and jandals as he strode past me up the hill.
'Yassu,'I replied.
A large black Mercedes car drove down the hill taking up most of the roadway, but I knew now about the tiny track at the very edge, near the fence where wild grapes rampage across the empty ground.
The old square was full of buses. The bread shop is closed on Sunday, but I stopped at the supermarket for olives and fetta cheese before heading up the hill.
Nowadays when I tirn on the computer I don't bother to switch it to English, I know what 'úsername and password'look like in Greek, even if I cannot pronounce them.

FINDING POETRY

2010-08-21T02:42:00.000-07:00

No photograph to-day, my camera batteries have died and it's too hot to walk in to town until this evening. However, the poets on Poetry Kit have been talking about 'found poetry'which is taking an extract from prose, arranging the line lengths as they would be if a performance poet was reading them, and either highlighting the original writer's intentions, or casting a new light on to the words. William Shatner did this to a Sarah Palin campaign speech, I was told.
One of the treasures left by a previous occupant of this cottage (along with John Pilger's 'Hidden Agendas'is Thomas L Friedman's 'The Lexus and the Olive Tree'a highly informative and entertaining treatise on globalisation.
Here is a 'found poem'fashioned from Friedman's prose, I have changed only the line lengths,

AMERICAN GOTHIC 2 views
Straightlaced couple, pitchfork in hand
expressions controlled
stoically standing watch
in front of their barn

To twenty something software engineers
long hair, beads and sandals
rings in their noses, paint on their tows
they kick down your front door
stick a big mac in your mouth
slam a cable box into your television
lock the channel to MTV
plug an internet connection into your computer
and tell you
"Download or die."

That's us, we are
Apostles of the fast world
enemies of tradition
prophets of the free market
high priests of high tech

We want
a web site in every pot
a pepsi on evey lip
Microsoft Windows in every computer
and most of all
everyone
everyone everywhere
pumping their own gas.

found on page 384 The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas L Friedman
Anchor Books 200, ISBN 0 385 49934 5

POSEIDON,TANGAROA OR ZEUS IN A BAD MOOD

2010-08-20T06:05:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to get a close up of this guy ever since I came here. It is the only thing left in the sculptor's yard now that the building is having one of its never ending makeovers.
Crete is the birthplace of Zeus, father of the immortals, but there are earlier legends if a matriarchal civilisation here before Zeus came along and spoiled it all.
I wish I had studied ancient Greece more at school, but being a good girl in the A stream I learned Latin and French which was interesting but not really of much utility.

Apart from the idyllic tideless sea and the horrific heat (40 degrees four days running) is Crete worth visiting? Definitely. There is layer after layer of history starting from mythological times. If I was, like my grandson Tom, at the start of my academic career I would spend my lifetime unravelling the legends and finding out the truths behind them. The wife of King Minos fell in love with a bull? and the result of their miscegenation was the minotor, so hideous he was kept i a labyrinth and fed on human flesh. If I was eighteen, like young Tom, I would be looking for the political realities behind that myth.
Then there is the Greek era followed by the Roman. I pass the ruins of Kissamos'Roman baths when I walk into town. They are over the road from the guy in the photo. After the Romans the Venetians who built strong walled forts all over the place, then the Turks, then the Germans and now the tourists.
If you have read this far and are thinking, 'Mmm, I might go there one day,'go now, while you are still young enough to drive a rental car on the wrong side of the road, walk 25ks through the Samaria gorge in one day, scramble arond moutain villages, where boys of my own generation helped fight the battle for Crete. AS I said layer after layer after layer of history.

MUSIC IN THE NIGHT

2010-08-17T23:23:00.000-07:00

True, I like every kind of music, from massed choirs to brass bands to solo performers; from Handel to Hip Hop. Dizzy Doolan is a hip hop performer based in Brisbane,a joy to watch and listen to, a disciplined body that responds perfectly to rhythm and delivers incredibly sophisticated lyrics. Off stage she is quiet, polite and unassuming, a truly nice person. Meeting her was one of my learning experiences at word storm.
But much as I like music I can no longer be an indiscriminate listener because very loud noise hurts my ears and makes me physically sick. I found that when trying to listen to a rock band within the stone walls of Brown's Market at Wordstorm's farewell party. Where is all this leading? To Kissamos where else, where concrete houses are sounding boards jammed across narrow lanes, and they do peculiar things to sound, for example, the young couple arguing in their apartment three houses away sound as though they are in my goathouse. Motor bikes roaring up the main road to Xania sound as though they are driving through my kitchen and one frightening Satuday night I heard gunfire outside my gate. Nobody else seemed worried so the actual event was probably well separated from the sounds.
The posters were around town, in Greek of course, but obviously something was going to happen on August 17th which involved musicians with expressive eyes and sexy looks. Interesting I thought, and forgot about it. This morning at 3 a.m. I woke to hear faint beautiful chords and melodies which drifted in and out of my bedroom window. I got up and tried to locate the sourse, impossible, so I pulled a chair on to my darkened sundeck and enjoyed it anyway. It was very Greek,mainly strings without drums. Bazouki chords set me thinking of icy wind blowing through high mountain passes, twice a young baritone voice delivered a ,ournful song, but I had no idea what he was singing about.
Was it a Greek Rock concert in town? Maybe, but there was no applause between items, just the enchanting music and song. Maybe one of the neighbours had turned their television to a music channel? It didn't really matter, I sat in the darkness and enjoyed it all.

MEANWHILE BACK IN THE SUN

2010-08-13T07:49:00.000-07:00

Papadakis is a taditional Cretan restaurant on the beach front. It has traditional Cretan food cooked and served by a traditional Cretan family. The best value in any language is their Greek salad, with fresh baked bread, 7 euros. It is a symphony of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions and black olives, topped with fetta cheese and doused in olive oil. It is nutritious and satisfying, in fact when I have Greek salad for lunch I don't eat until next morning. Their terrace is inches from the sea, the breeze blows, the view is spectacular and the staff are fluent in English. Their wine is O.K. too but in the middle of the day I prefer orange juice, fresh squeezed.

Speaking of Mediterranean Cuisine, a couple of my daughters in law asked me where they can get a copy of the diet which has trimmed me from 96 kilos, size 24 last October to size 18 now. They themselves are slim, but their husbands tend to take after their mother and be cuddly. Well the book full of diet advice is free.Doctor Morehan gave me a stern warning after a blood sugar test showed what I considered a minimal rise in my level. His nurse handed me a little green book about living with diabetes, and I have been following its principles ever since. It is probably on the internet. And apart from the liberal use of olive oil with just about everything the Mediterranean way of eating fits right in with the recommended diet. Lots of vegetables and fruit, reasonable amounts of meat and protein, and no sugar,

Even my shoes are loose on me! It's a great feeling.

WHEN I GET HOME I SHALL ENJOY

2010-08-12T00:45:00.000-07:00

Frosty sunrises, sleety rain
lambs in paddocks, daffodils
Vogels bread with crunchy grain
looking at snow covered hills

My feather duvet, electric blanket
hot soup and toast, marmalade
a brand new shower room I'll have to thank
my neighbour Don whose skills have made
it possible. My office chair with padded seat
which swivels if I move my feet
and won't leave ridge marks when I sit.
I think I'm looking forward to it.

And the cause of my sore toe is my $200.00 sport sandala, bought especially for hiking in the heat. They have been rubbing, I now slop around town in the $20.00 boat shoes I bought at Marks and Spences last year and the problem has disappeared.

its

BOTHER, I MISSED IT!

2010-08-08T21:28:00.000-07:00

I was just getting too cocky. I am so pleased with being able to read 'Í'm feeling lucky'in Greek I don't bother any more to switch Google to English and so I missed an event I would have walked over the white mountains, sore feet and all, to see and participate in. (block your ears for a moment while I let off steam with as many four letter expletives I can remember, none of them in Greek.
I thought the beach front cafes were rather empty last Saturday, I assumed it was because the summer holidays had ended. I could not have been more wrong. At sunset 150,000 people, most of them in national costume made a line out of Chania, which is one hour's drive from here,and they danced, You remember Zorba? Greek dance is a very masculine thing. This was to comemorate Hiroshima Day and the organisers were trying, successfully, to set a world record for Greek dance.
Maybe there were posters on walls around Kissamos, I could not have read them, Maybe those vans driving through the town shouting at everybody were telling us about Hiroshima day, I could not know. I missed it, and when I get home all my neighbours who stay at home and watch satellite TV when they are not fishing are going to say, 'Oh, yes, Greek dance, saw that on TV.'

LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE OLDIES

2010-08-08T01:17:00.000-07:00

Thia photo has very little to do with to-day's blog. It was taken at Fogg Dam out of Darwin where we went to look at birds and crocodiles. It's relevance to my blog is the age of the people.We are oldies,and I am discovering that to-day's newsmakers have some oddly old fashioned ideas about us. We are not all gaga with senile dementia. In the above photograph is a major Australian poet, a painter, a French writer seeing the world, an English writer, and me. We are educated, and not afraid to express our opinions.
What brought this on? I was cruising the NZHerald's web page to-day and found a story about an old lady who had 'fought city hall'and won. It appears that her WOF had the wrong expiry date. When the city council sent her a notice of fine she wrote and explained and refused to pay the fine. She was shuffled around through the bureaucracy (Greece is not the only country full of incompetent buck passers) and her initial protest, that the city council had made amistake , was ignored. Then she was told $25 per week would be taken from her pension until the fine was paid.
Now, the conventional model of a nice old lady would have accepted that. but not this one. She sent e-mails to her M.P. the Minister of transport. That brought results and the money already taken from her pension has been refunded.
(Google NZHerald for the full story with photo)but it surprises me that a newspapwe finds a computer literate, logically thinking eighty year old newsworthy. What is news worthy is that she defended herself and won against the system. I am not surprised to find it took an eighty year old woman to do it.
We octogenearians are the 'Beeby brats'. We were the first generation to get free secondary education, and we have made use of it. We are the products of the first experiments in running a 'Welfare State.' We got free education. free health care,
we were paid an allowance to raise our children. Also we were the first generation to see a different world, every Saturday afternoon at the Regent, or the Paramount we saw children who sang and danced, heard music from symphony orchestras and jazz bands and saw newsreels of events we knew had happened. We are a pretty clued up bunch.
When I get back to New Zealand I am going to raise some questions, relax Sergeant Anastakakis, you are safe, but I want to know why my e-mails to the consulate general for New Zealand in Athens were ignored. And I shall keep hollering until I get sensible answers,

CRETAN CUISINE & A PAIR OF GREEK DISHES

2010-08-07T04:18:00.000-07:00

Aren't they lovely? They were looking out to sea and I wanted to take a picture of them backside on, but my Greek was not up to that and I don't like taking pictures without permission.
To-day was so hot my eyes were stinging from the sweat dripping into them. I walked down to the beach, past the windmill and decided to lunch at a seafront cafe. Now the Greeks have gone back to work there are not a lot of tourists around. Anyway, for 9euros I sat under a shady umbrella a meter from the sea, and ate a delicious veal stew, full of onons and tomatos and countless herbs, plus the best part of half a loaf of fresh bread to sop the gravy up with and a bottle of ice cold water. It was a bit early in the day for wine.
The two Cretan cuties were playing along the promenade.
Behind them one sailboat with spinnaker set was sailling along the horizon, a welcome wind ruffled the water of the bay. It was worth the kilometre trudge down there just to feel the cool breeze, almost worth the trudge back up hill again.

Meanwhile back in New Zealand my second son, Richard is celebrating his 56th birthday. When I talk to any family they are all wapped up warm and complaining about the cold. Ha!

SHEBA'S BREAST & SAINTED SPINACH

2010-08-03T10:46:00.000-07:00

Thank you to the clever people who identified the pomegranite, Now we know what the Queen of Sheba's breasts looked like, remember the Song of Solomon? 'Thy Breasts are like Pomegranites.'

And I lunched today at another cafe in the old square, on the shady side because it was so hot. I ordered Moussaka and iced coffee. Their moussaka came in an individual terra cotta dish and had rather more meat that the one I ate at Petrakis. And it was salty, I have been drinking litres of water since I came home.

SOUVLAKI, MOUSSAKA & A CHEESE PIE TO YOU!

2010-08-03T00:44:00.000-07:00

Can somebody tell me what this fruit is? It grows on a bush up the road from here, and I am curious.
And talking of fruit, vegetables and food in general I am experiencing some delicious adventures. If I ate in a different cafe five times a day I still could not try every cafe and restaurant in Kissamos, but here are some of my findings:-
BREAKFAST: a big bowl of Greek yoghurt covered in wallnuta and Cretan honey, yummy and filling, best eaten under the big shady tree in the old town square. Or a cheese pie with capuchino; the cheese pie is made with super short pastry and is probably incredibly unhealthy, but tasty.Or a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice. The Greeks have a neat machine, where the operator throws three or four oranges in, sets a glass under the outlet, pushes the button and out pours fresh, fresh, fresh orange juice.

LUNCH: There are some cafes where the truck drivers and workers go to buy their lunch, like chinese takeaways in NZ. They serve plain, simple food which is usually on display in heated cabinets so I can indicate what I want. There is a green vegetable here rather like water cress which is tasty steamed with potatoes.
Then there is moussaka, spinach beattified by eggs, tomatoes and cheese; souvlaki, rotisseried meat cooked over charcoal, and hundreds of different kinds of fish, grilled, boiled, fried in batter or crumbs and of course the wonderful Greek salad which is a symphony of red onion, cucumber, tomato, olives and feta cheese served with a basket of fresh bread to mop up the olive oil.

DINNER; I don't know because Cretans like to eat late in the evening so I have not bothered with late dining.

BLOWING IN THE WIND

2010-08-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

Isn't this beautiful? I found it in the old part of town below the wall. It's in the garden of an old style house, and I just pray the developers marching across the landscape with their reinforced concrete and 'mediterranean' monstrosities don't knock it down.

PERIGRINATIONS OF A PERIPATETIC PENSIONER

LEARNING TO SWIM IN SHARK INFESTED WATERS

I AM NOT IN SPAIN

IDEAS ABOUT THE ELDERLY

EVERY BREATH WE TAKE

MEN BEHAVING BADLY

LEARNING SOMETHING NEW EACH DAY

POPULAR STORIES

TO WAIATA AND TERRY AND OTHERS - A NOVEL

TRYING TO TALK TO THE YOUNG

DECISIONS, DECISIONS!

HELP!

I KILLED THE ALL BLACK

OICHE NOLLAIG NA mBAN

NEW YEAR REVOLUTIONS

HOW TO GET A KINDLE FOR CHRISTMAS

TIPTOE THROUGH THE LUPINS

A MOST UNUSUAL OPERA

A KIWI's KRISSMAS

SERENDIPITY ON LINE

HOW TO KILL AN ALL BLACK

LESSONS LEARNED

LEARNING SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY

MAKING A CHOICE

I WISH I HAD WRITTEN THESE

CAROL AND TONY ARE YOU OUT THERE SOMEWHERE?

BUGGEUR LE RUGBY !

IN CASE YOU ARE WONDERING

FROGS vs ALL BLACKS BUGGEUR!

A DAY FOR DUCKS AND DAIRY FARMERS

COMING TO A CINEMA NEAR YOU

LEARNING SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY

WHAT BECOMES OF THE VULNERABLE?

SERENDIPITY STRIKES AGAIN

HOME AT LAST

WESTONBIRT ARBORETUM

MORE THOROUGHLY NICE PEOPLE

WINDING DOWN

WHILE I WAS OFF LINE

HORIZONTAL P.T. IN A DUBLIN HOSTEL

SOMETHING NOT NOTICED UNTIL NOW

SAYING GOODBYE

THE IRISH WRITERS' CENTRE

THERE WAS I WAITING FOR THE BUS

FEELING HOPEFUL ABOUT HUMANITY

SATURDAY MORNING STROLL

IN CASE YOU ARE WONDERING

ANCESTOR HUNTING ALONG O'CONNELL STREET STREET

I KNOW IT'S DUBLIN WHEN

SUNDAY IN THE PARK

A SANDWICH FROM O'BRIEN'S

TO-MORROW'S FISH & CHIP WRAPPER

LET'S STOP KIDDING OURSELVES

SANDWICHES WITH A SMILE

A DECENT NEW ZEALANDER

AS I WAS SAYING

HOW'S THIS FOR A WEDDING PRESENT/

A CHALLENGING IDEA

BALLYKISSWHERE?

A TALE OF KINDNESS

ENSEMBLE C'EST TOUT

VIEW FROM THE THIRD FLOOR

MORASL

WELCOME STEPHANIE HELEN DAVIES

WHO SAYS DUBLIN'S NOT HAUNTED?

COINCIDENCES NEVER END

COINCIDENCES NEVER END

DUBLIN'S GREAT BUT I WOULDN'T LIKE TO DRIVE THERE

COME DOWN TO CAMDEN

OH MY DUBAI!

SEEN AT AN AIRPORT

SEEN IN CROATIA

TEEN AGE PREGNANCIES

PEANUTS, MONKEYS & PEOPLE

DYING PIGEONS AND UGLY BABIES

Something for Free

NICE TO BE BACK

A GREAT BIRTHDAY

DISGUSTING, WHERE CAN I GET ONE?

SOME PEOPLE GIVE ALL YEAR ROUND