Mondayitis

Mixed emotions woke me up this morning on another grey wet Wellington morning. Yesterday was the end of year  lunch and party for two of my favourite groups, the swimmers and the dancers and I felt really sad as it may be my last Christmas with them. They are an excellent bunch and have welcomed me totally into their warm embrace so now I feel how much I will miss them. I must however put it outof  my head as it is still eight months away and so much to do. Just musing though.

Am at Jimmy's another sad place as it closes this month....such is life endings and new beginnings. At least I can say I have loved every  minute of my time in this metropolis, strange vibrant city that it is. Page three in news in the Post is a severely injured policeman who was brought in to quell the crowd at a six year old's birthday party near Christchurch. Really.. But this is not unusual news in NZ. It just sounds strange at first read, I hope the policeman recovers or it will have been a memorable party for the six year old for all the wrong reasons!

More interesting news is that Angela Merkel is the only world leader standing up to the dictatorship that has become Russia with Putin's autocratic rule. They clashed about gay rights, Putin considering this part of the West's terrible depravity and immorality. But it is not just this that Putin has wrong, he is becoming another Hitler.

Gearing up for the Christmas madness means only that I have about fifteen cards to write, much less than usual but I am reducing them so as not to buy into the hype surrounding this time of the year..the quicker it is over the better. Bring on the New Year with Hogmanay!

At Jimmy's...

...with the waiters...

..and a murder on the hill!

Island Bay on Sunday

My day started with a visit to J down the road for an excellent coffee on her beautiful, if too hot, balcony, so on repairing indoors we finished quickly as she needed to be in Island Bay at eleven. Her friends at the Bay were having a traditional folkdance party, the name of which escapes me, and I was invited. I wisely decided to say no. With two more events this afternoon I need to conserve my energy, so after a safe delivery I drove along the Promenade and found this local cafe to have a late breakfast, see below.

My BLT Bagel...

The Prime Minister stuffing up...

A busy cafe

Families having breakfast...

The Hilton at Lake Taupo

The Sunday papers are worth a read; Kiwis are a literate mob and they write with honesty and panache. Already two Booker Prize winners to their credit from the Vic Uni creative writing school.

 I see more news of bad governance, mistakes made decades, if not a century ago, such as the narrow rail gauge from top to bottom thus preventing any decent train speed being used or for that matter, any decent trains. The fault of a penny-pinching Prime Minister who thought it better to save money rather than think of the future. Now they are squabbling about extending the Wellington Airport runway to allow large OS planes to land and bring millions of dollars into the city, and country. They move slowly at top levels here, and that is a frustration for an Aussie.

However there are secrets like the Taupo Hilton, with the original built in the 1800s and now refurbished in the most divine countryside to house an luxury hotel with a gourmet reataurant. If you have the money this would be the place to spend a few days or a week and explore the surrounding   countryside. There is just so much to do here if you are not counting your dollars, 'cos it ain't cheap, this beautiful isolated island country.

It is six p.m. and I am now recovering from a very friendly AGM. It was typical Wellington in its informality, with a distinct lack of protocol and generous offering of food and drink afterwards. The Gay swimming club, called the DSW,  acronym for Different Strokes Wellington, is a recently formed group and is growing slowly but surely. I resisted an invitation to be on the committee although it would have been a delight. They are a super friendly bunch and have created a very positive and progressive club with a straight female coach who is loved by all, and to whom the DSW is her 'second family', and the not so token straight male member, who is brave enough to come regularly and who feels more than safe with his gay brothers and sisters. There were four women there today btw, but it is mainly men, and a lovely bunch as well.

Strangely, tonight is also the final night and party of our dance group, similar to the swimmers, but on the dance floor instead of the pool. I'm sure it will be a good two hours social class with lots of fond farewells and Christmas wishes. I just hope I can survive it as I may have overbooked today's activities, I am really ready for bed.

Zaida's on sunny Saturday

Am away early today, leaving the bass guitarist to practise at home. I have to collect my new substitute phone made connected, I hope, for me by Jimmy at Pand B. Will later have coffee with Tom if is he is free, perhaps at Greta Cafe on Evans Bay. Have to put faulty phone behind me, but you do get dependant on communications! Here at Cafe Z it is all abuzz, and there are many families breakfasting in this very European feel cafe.

Families at breakfast...

Families on the wall....

Gay ex-priest an exemplar of social conscience

The boot industry alive and flourishing in NZ

Sacred Heart Cathedral

Where I heard the amazing Tudor Consort

Well coffee with Tom was at Elements, the soon-to-be voted Best Cafe in Wellington - it was very nice indeed and certainly worth a return visit for a meal one day. After a quick visit to Newtown markets to get some  fresh vegies and some snapper, I returned home to cook and rest before a concert tonight at the Catholic Cathedral. It was mainly Bach, beautifully sung by very talented twenty something year olds. The choral scene in Wellington has to be one of, if not the best, in the world!

I-Phone problem!

Drama today after a second check at Vodafone shows my fears are realised that my Iphone's connectivity is not their fault but most likely the phone itself. Back to the merchant to get a new one I suppose, but it is World AIDS day collection today so things have to wait.

The Te Papa ex chief shown to be totally incompetent...

The foyer of Jimmys's bedecked with Christmas  trees and summer dressing!

At least the weather has improved somewhat and there has to be a solution for this phone, best result is a total replacement as it is still under warrantly. After much to-ing and fro-ing and the most generous assistance of friend Tom, who kindly offers the use of his old I 4 phone, I am tomorrow in debt to him and await a ten day turnaround to retrieve a new phone from Auckland. Jimmy at P&B who sold me the original phone, was extremely patient when both of us Tom and I, could not remember our passwords! Tomorrow is another day and tonight a Satsang, thank goodness, I need it.

The collection went well btw, we collected over $1,500!

Dance extraordinaire

 Last night at Te Whaea, the New Zealand Dance School, it was the Graduation Season finale, and what a show it was. About twenty supremely talented and super well trained dancers strutted their stuff, using both local and overseas choreography. It was a dance spectacle I haven't seen in a long time, made all the more poignant as we were sitting right on the stage and felt that we were a part of the show. Really, really fabulous and of course J who used to teach dance there knew everyone and I was  introduced  to the school's head an Englishman called Trinder. All in all it was a great night of dance reminding me vividly of when I worked with the Sydney Dance Company thirty-four years ago, where Graeme Murphy had the same passion.

Great young ballet dancers...

So next day I am waiting for Danny, my hair cutter, and decided to have a quick coffee at Plums, and they are playing the Beatles. Such nostalgia everywhere in this amazingly friendly city... Awrrgh! Do I have to leave....Yes!

At Plums, a good barista.....

The Kiwi fashion mag for men 

City Library Cafe, below

The Pope declaims on the woes of a Philistine Europe...

After a quick haircut wirh Danny I am off to the City Library to meet with Beth. A big Post Mortem about her 70th birthday party and perhaps to plan for another one on Dec 20 at her friend Johnny's at Waikanae. Long talk, very interesting, she knows of course, J.  We finish, me to write a birthday card to Douglas in San Francisco and she on to her next meeting. She is forever active.

 Also to read today's Dom Post where there is more news of corrupt local politics. So what's new? 

Gotham Buzz...

I got out early this morning to capitalise on the change of weather. In Wellie, you've just gotta make the most of each fine weather moment, or else you'll do nothing.

In at Gotham Cafe and it's all abuzz, totally packed at ten am with all the businessy people having morning coffee, it's packed to the full. It seems to be a Wellington tradition to leave work at ten and go out for a good coffee, or are they just starting work late, and finishing late, who knows?

I order a long black and 'ham scram', as always here, and settle to read the Dom Post, which today proves to offer quite a bit of good reading, including local columnist Joe Bennett who is always entertaining. I take a seat in the comfy leather three seater lounge at the back of Gotham - all the tables are full. It is really comfy and as I read how Lydia Ko from NZ is set to become the next female Tiger Woods, and how the new restaurant Whitebait on Chaffer's Quay has imported Rockpool supremeo chefs from Sydney, you can see why Wellington again punches far above its weight.

And a city which has policemen don ladies shoes to heighten awareness of sexist behaviour, where else in the world would you get this? I doubt anywhere.

Opposite me in Chews Lane I see carved over the old porticos the words Colonial Carrying Company, the vestiges of an earlier Wellington. A black shorts and t-shirted waiter, covered with tattooes, strides past as I consider ordering another good coffee, rare for me. I give in. I am now counting the weeks, and this is essential Wellington. 

The Whitebait Restaurant on expensive Chaffers Quay is now just opening. This is also a 'must' one day, as I see where the owners are writing the menu also in the Maori language,  a distinct move forward in homage to the great seafood industry where obviously the Maori had a large effect. It will no doubt be expensive, but worth it.

More headlines in the Post: McDonalds and Coca Cola voted to be the most unhealthy food offered to young people in New Zealand. The word is finally getting out there. When will McDonald's cease to exist? Not for a long time but perhaps it will be first killed in New Zealand which is more aware of good and bad food than most countries.

In the Sports section, more about Rugby God Richie McCaw and his modesty, and Lydia Ko, the young golf prodigy, who at only 17 is set next year to become world number one. And she laughs at herself, a Chinese Kiwi with real Kiwi attributes. They just never take themselves too seriously. I will seriously miss this country when I leave, but I will always come back, how could I not, it is so close to OZ lol!

Tonight I am off to Te Whea, to the Graduate Dance show with J who does the crits for the newspapers. She changed dates so that I could attend so I just must be aware of that, although I have now decided to opt out permanently from the French conversations on Thursday as I don't want to create too many habits I have to drop next year. An occasional attendance will he better and they may appreciate that as well. After all I am never going to become a Kiwi. It's just too bloody hard!

New York in Chews Lane

Opposite: the Colonial Carrying Company

Cops in stilettos...

Lydia, Champion of the world

Richie too!

My super comfy couch..

Aussie chefs imported...

The film that moved a nation

Last night at my final Mac lovers night I had a much better experience than at any computer event ever. We were shown an historic doco movie made by the NZ Film Commission in 1971 for the current Japanese World Expo. It was such a stunning success they also made a doco about making it, and they were both now digitally updated to today's technology.

Some of the original film makers were there last night and I bought a DVD copy of it. As usual, it is of great unique quality that show Kiwis for what they are, high achievers and great at anything they turn their hands to.

I was really lucky to find this movie which is a rare and honest insight into New Zealand in the Seventies.

Here it is below....

Today is another awful day at Evans Bay, rainy and cold...

But this is how they function best, these Kiwis...

Things I will miss

Coming home in the bus with Graeme, my friendly bus driver, it occurs to me how much I will miss my first names terms with him.  He always calls me Paul and is an absolute perfect example of what I love about these windy isles.

Graeme driving me home....

Along Oriental Parade....

Which is sublime.

So I am making up a small list of the most significant things I am going to miss when I return to my homeland of Oz.....

1. Calling my bus driver by his first name.

2. Seeing the spectacular view of Evans Bay on a calm day.

3. My good friends at B.P. 

4. The amazing cafes and great cinemas.

5. My Ti Whanawhana friends and mentors

6. Te Papa and the several art galleries

7. Being so close to everything, especially the airport.

8. The great fresh food markets and Op Shops.

9. My swimming at Kilbernie pool

10. Seeing the amazing Kiwi joggers everywhere.

I am sure there are more....

Maurice by EM Forster

I  have just reread EM Forster's  'Maurice', and it has been quite a good discovery to find it is still interesting and even relevant in some strange way.

Above is an old photograph of two men of the era of EM Forster, and no doubt Forster would have been happy to have been the one on the left as he was unfortunately a product of the Edwardian age of sexual repression in Great Britain in the early twentieth century. It is the cover of 'Maurice',  Forster's first and only really gay novel, and not allowed to be published until after his death, in 1970. A story of two Cambridge undergrads who cannot accept they are born 'different', it strangely has a happy ending with the possibility  -very small- of a male couple running away and living happy ever after. It is the class barriers and the pernicious existence of homosexuality, a word never mentioned, which are the basis of conflict in the book, and philosophically, male love had to be Platonic, never reduced to the physical. Here is an ideal which has rarely been lived. It is still well written for a novel achieved when he was only 21, and is a work which augured well for his future masterpiece, 'A Passage to India', which I don't think I will ever read. His 'Longest Journey' is the next offering I will attempt.

The perfectly shaped Christmas tree on Oriental Parade

The police are trying to combat sexist behaviour wearing high heels...

Christmas Foyer of Jimmy's

Is this a sport?

...the real Kiwi sport, and its king, Richie,with mates

A Kiwi wealthy export, living in London.

New Zealand has many success stories, but most of them seem to live overseas, like this one who still owns a Kiwi footy team. Came from nowhere and built a business empire and is the absolute success story, but not particularly popular in his home country. Perhaps NZ is gullty like Oz of the Tall Poppy syndrome.

Last night at the Newtown community centre the Interfaith concert was an example of  how things just get together and work out when the spirit is right. It was very successful for Eckankar as V pulled off the best gig of the evening in my humble opinion, with her excellently sung 'Blue HU' and also the great video clip from the US. Well done Viva!

Perfect Day at Roseneath

It is Sunday and lots happening. Well two things really, but the idea of a windless sunny day is so entrancing that I want to enjoy it to the full. I have an appointment at The Long Hall, above me at Roseneath, to listen to the story of 100 years of the Wellington Opera House which should be interesting. It is given by Bill Sheats, a former thespian of much experience it appears, but the talk turned out to be a bit disappointing I have to say. Bill was not a public speaker, more like a mumbler, although it could have been great, it was mediocre. Such is luck in Wellington. 

Straight after the talk I was scheduled to attend the Interfaith Concert of Lights at Newtown Community Hall. I was a  little nervous as the organisers appear to be rather ad hoc, I am nevertheless approaching it with optimism. Viva is singing and presenting a video on Eckankar. Am sure it will be illuminating for some, and possibly confronting for others.

Sonny forever iphoning his family in India...

Beautiful Weather...

After the concert I am relieved as it went very well, but they are quite a strange lot I must say.

Saturday at the Roxy, Miramar

Well, after last night's concert how do you follow that up? Am still remembering the cellist, such a talent!

Waiting for kids' movie...

At the Art Deco Roxy...

Where they do big business..I believe owned by Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson.

Still talking about the sexual harassment in Christchurch...goes a lot deeper.

It's funny now I have finally made my decision I can see all the reasons why it had to happen....I look around at the 'certain-aged' people, of which I am one, and I don't see myself here, at all. And I suppose it's just that, I don't  want to be a complacent retiree going out to movies every day, concerts every other day, and dancing Scottish Country Dance with serious exponents, really serious ones I mean. And there are many things that I have loved doing here but that I am getting too old to do. Such as swimming competition with young people, singing in avant garde choirs, and just being a 'regular guy'. These days are well and truly over and my countdown is from now. 

After last night's concert I skyped good friends in Zurich Willi and Robert, the latter who is an Armenian. We arranged to go to the opera in Sydney on January 17 to see Tosca together. It will be a great return to the great opera house in Sydney. This is where I would really like to belong if anywhere. Perhaps also in Gosford which would allow me do that occasionally, and even possibly from Newcastle which is probably my preferred city.

I'll ring PK this weekend to have a chat with him and also email K in Honiara to fill him in as to the possibilities of staying on here with his family. Che sera, sera, as the song goes. I have now to prepare for a seventieth birthday party where I will know virtually no-one. An early departure may allow me to catch an Ellmore Leonard movie at the Paramount, then home for an early night. J's many invitations lie unattended as they are, in reality, too many..

Well the Seventieth went well, and longer than expected. Met some very friendly Kiwis, as always, and of course dear friends of Beth who has a great number of them. Received an invitation to a birthday lunch on December 20 at Waikanae, a couple of old friends of Beth, so I may escort her there and even visit Gwyneth.

So I missed the thriller and saw an interesting doco on a strange eccentric street photographer in NYC. Yes another one. A French woman who was certainly very talented but died an unknown and whose exhibitions are now all around the world. It was a telling lesson on solititude, she died alone and destitute, but her boys whom she had nannied gave her a fond farewell.