Early in the year, Cadbury ran a promotion celebrating volunteers. This involved submitting the name, a brief CV, and a photograph of the person you were recommending as a top volunteer and Cadbury would turn this into a cute, animated cartoon video featuring that person. This seemed like fun, so I submitted details for both […]
Month: April 2025
Health
At my age, and discounting mobility, I have say I’m blessed with extremely good health. Please note the qualifier ‘at my age’. I have a karate associate in Ōtautahi Christchurch. Eiko Hanshi Renzie Hanham. with whom I went to school. We shared a number of courses over the years and sat next to each other in […]
Hikoi and Hui
It’s been a challenging year with many of the things I hold dear under serious threat from the current government, and internationally. Not least among these is the status of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. A couple of years ago, Cushla and Finn began to explore their whakapapa – Ngāpuhi nui tonu – leaving me as […]
My Māori Whānau
It feels like my life has been spent standing alongside my Māori brothers and sisters, just as my father did. It’s been an absolute joy because, in Aotearoa, Māori are desperately disadvantaged in every measurable metric and in most others too, always have been and now, in 2025, absolutely nothing has changed. Sadly, under this […]
Self-care
I keep getting told by people I love that I should do more of this, but unfortunately, I suspect it’s too late. I’m not good at it and I never have been, but the plan for 2025 includes a bit more of a focus on looking after myself, that way I might, through being a […]
Work
Thanks to the shambles that accompanied the mass redundancies at my most recent workplace it’s been difficult – nigh impossible – for me to get a job. Not actually because of the redundancy but because of the psychological damage that redundancy does. It took me at least a year to recover and my sense of […]
Maiden Tāmaki
I’m not sure whether I’ve been clear enough in my earlier statements about my health. Mostly it’s great, sometimes it’s not. There are two reasons why, at least some of the time, my body is not quite right. These are: My excuse for (2) is that we didn’t know how to train properly, had no gyms […]
Te Wānanga o Aotearoa
Again, thanks to Cushla who started the process, I did as I was told, mindlessly followed her lead because she’s clever and she does things that are good and right, and she doesn’t mind including me. Followed her to do what? In this case it was returning to study, but not as I might have […]
Te Pâti Māori
I voted for Te Pâti Māori when they first entered the Whare Pāremata and they were fresh. To add joy to my vote, I cast it at the New Zealand Embassy in Tokyo. I’ve always wanted them to do well but I lost faith in them when they opted to join John Key’s ratbag lot. […]
Friendships – old and gone
It’s been an odd year for friendships. I’ve reconnected with people I went to primary school with over seventy years ago, and I’m constantly astonished at the longevity for some of my friendships. I guess the other natural result of a prolonged existence is that, on quite a regular basis, one or other of my […]
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