(For Cushla: Valentine’s Day 2009) You are there Of course you are there Where else would you be (would be your answer) Where else but here Heart knows Head Not so assured It is an endless fascination Skin like shot silk Then Light through yonder window breaks Breaks up Cracks up There you are I […]
Tag: life
Earworms at Midnight
Thinking about Billy Bragg and the sad, youthful illusion of hope. Thanks for that ear worm at 11.30 at night, Billy. ‘I saw two shooting stars last night I wished on them but they were only satellites It’s wrong to wish on space hardware I wish, I wish, I wish you’d care.’ A New England […]
Being a survivor – The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care
Kāti rā, ā te tākiritanga mai o te ata, ā te huanga ake o te awatea, kia tau he māramatanga, kia ū ko te pai, kia mau ko te tika. Koinei ko te tangi a te ngākau e Rongo, tūturu ōwhiti whakamaua kia tina, tina! Hui e, tāiki e! (And so, as dawn rises, and […]
My Wonderful Life
The older I get the more inclined I am to see the past in a new light. It’s rather like seeing all the things that have happened to me so far as being happenings on a long, bright summer’s day with no night. Well, perhaps just a little night. It’s fair to say that I […]
Surgery
In 2024, I had my standard bout of surgery, in this case, a new left hip. I already have an artificial right hip, a metal left knee, and a ‘piano wire’ joined Achilles tendon. This new surgery was scheduled for six months ago but, being sick of taking pills, I’d made the unilateral decision to […]
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 […]
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 […]
When I was a kid, New Year’s Eve was a bit of a thing.
Facebook 31 December 2021 When I was a kid, New Year’s Eve was a bit of a thing. I didn’t know then but where we lived was the wrong side of the tracks and brutally working class. It was post-war, the dawning of the 1950s, and everyone on our street lived in a state house. […]
dykiegirl 