Summer one day, winter the next, and so it goes...
I have New Zealand workers who have come to paint my rented Victorian house on the hill. It is a daunting task, but then these are daunting Kiwis, both men in their eighties, unable to stop working, perhaps even addicted to it, something that has never ever been in my ballpark, so to speak. They bring their lunch to put in our fridge, always take a cuppa morning and afternoon, and sometimes I join them. The conversation is not sparkling, especially as we are all a little hard of hearing! But all their long lives they have been buliding houses and painting them, never moving far away from their home. One has a son who lived for seven years in NYC, so that is typical for that generation, but of course he returned to settle and have a family in Wellington. They tell me stories of earthquakes and tempests, but nothing phases them, they are built to last, as are the houses they so proudly build. But they are both white, and do not have a strong Maori sensitivity I perceive, but I may be wrong.
However there is certainly a class division in NZ among the Pakehas and the Maori, certainly of my generation, but not so much of the current young people who are better educated and who were there when Maori language and culture became more acceptable subjects to study. It is good to have arrived here when I did, as opportunities are there now to understand the culture which were not at all present even twenty years ago.
Photo below of a cross-class artist whom I have loved since she hit the world music charts a few years ago. She is all over U-tube where I can't stop listening to her. Her Cockney accent is adorable and her rejection of English class barriers fabulous to observe. As is her voice fabulous to listen to, rich and velvety in tone, she sings heartfelt sad songs and delivers the goods, even winning Grammies and Oscars on the way. ( She wrote, I think, and certainly sang, the Oscar winning theme song to the last James Bond movie 'Skyfall').
At present I'm drinking a chai latte at an establishment near where we sing the HU on Wednesday nights. Opposite me is a young Dad with two gorgeous little daughters - he seems so bored and can't do anything but check his cellphone, or perhaps text his mistress? I shouldn't think like that should I, but the evidence piles up - kids alone with Dad at Maccas after work.. perhaps they are just waiting for a working mum to get home a little later. Who knows?
At least they make a good chai latte here and it's somewhere I can sit and play blogger...
The workers arrive...
Monday summer
Adele...chanteuse extraordinaire!
Texting whom?
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