Cricket Fever in Kiwiland

New Zealand has never been in a Cricket World Cup final and today is crunch time. They play the favoured South African side and never has there been a more important game for them to win. The weather is fine in Wellie, but cloudy in Auckland where the game is on at Eden Park, the traditional home to the All Blacks. Now the Black Caps must show their stuff.

I may even catch some of the game on a public televison broadcast.

The charismatic captain Brendon McCullum

Back at the Memphis.

It is quite unsettling my return to Wellie after four days up north. My love for this town has not ceased, but just grown larger and it is a time like this when you leave a place, that you appreciate it more.

This week is busy with a performance on Saturday with Ti whanawhana for the Cubadupa festival. It should be a memorable event where five choirs come together singing and celebrating the history of Te Aro and the famous Cuba Street, my all-favourite street in Wellington, and one of the reasons I moved here.

Savoury muffin at Memphis

Teapot derby at the Cubadupa Festival this weekend

Photo of Pope Francis in Naples being mobbed by cloistered nuns. 

This is the modernity of the Papacy these days, and did I forget to say that my priestly brother, a retired Franciscan Missionary, who spent fifty-fve years working in Papua New Guinea, has been invited by the Pope to concelebrate Mass with him personally, in his private chapel, when my brother visits Rome later this year on a world trip to publicise the Missions. A fitting reward for one who has devoted his life to his Church you might like to say. I'm sure Peter (my brother) is chuffed.

Football always in the news in NZ