Now Voyager: Roger's visit and the Gala..!

What a strange day February 5th, 2015. It began with an early visit to outer Lower Hutt, through the fascinating township of Petone, the earliest settlement in the lower North New Zealand island.

I had an appointment with a new doctor, she was Indian, replacing Donald my regular GP who had taken a holiday. It was just to look at my right ear which has been drumming, probably filled with wax. And it was, she told me, but 'I don't do syringing, the nurse can do it next Monday', she told me. So it is another trip one hour north to rid my eardrum of accumulated wax. But it has to be done.

Then back to meet my one-time Tasmanian friend Roger, stranded on a cruise ship for a day. I had arranged to meet him and his two friends at the Te Papa cafe, fourth floor. Which we did. It wasn't too busy, a weekday, as the whole of Wellington was in 'Sevens' fever pitch. This is the Rugby carnival of the year and much drinking and carousing and cross-dressing goes one. It is a unique Kiwi celebration and last year was enough for me, exciting once, but boring twice. Anyway we talked at length, and the Americans were an interesting couple who had decided recently to marry, strangely, at age fifty and seventy, you might think, but they seemed a perfect match.

We talked tennis, travel, and families, quite easy to talk with, and they left me and Roger to stroll home to look at the views. Roger decided to retire to his ship as I had to go on to a Gala Cocktail party at the ANZ Bank, with later an important Choral rehearsal with my former choir, The Glamaphones, for the Day Out in the Park on February 14, Valentines Day.

It was full day, but quite an interesting one, so I am happy to be home to finish reading my friend Robert Dessaix's latest book, his Memoir, called 'What Days are for' about his near-death experiences at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney a few years ago. A good read, but always at his sardonic best although however his usual acerbic wit somewhat tempered by his recent mortality. I can see he is still struggling, now more than ever, to 'not believe'. I fear that he doth protest too much...

Practising with the Glamaphones