Winter hits Wellie!

They predicted it would come and winter has arrived, if just a week early to these windy shores.

Having begun giving away my too-heavy clothes which I will certainly no longer need in OZ, I am happily finding I still have enough warmth to sustain me. 

 Headline news today is the finding of the bones of a thirty year old mystery, a man 76 years old went for a walk in the Ngaio Bushland and never came home. This is a story which is not all too irregular in this mysterious country which gave birth to the likes of Jan Campion's 'Heavenly Creatures', not to mention the the Middle Earth Kingdom of Tolkien's Hobbits. It is not at all a simple country, but complex, deep and searching, with a philosophy to match its psyche. 

A rare recovery after 30 years

Memphis Coffee...

Snowing in Napier!

Graeme, a worthy stalwart from my moving firm of Conroys came yesterday for a final quote. He wheezed his way, big gut out front, up my sixty-nine stairs and said he's done worse. Anyway, all was booked with notes on his latest model i-Pad, and the date for pick-up was set for the Friday July 24, the eve of my early morning flight to Sydney. Am hoping Tom may put me up for the final night so all will be tightly organised and graceful, not like my last three moves which were all exhausting, but cathartic in some way. He has quoted some twenty-three cartons which he has already given me, plus extras, and on Tuesday he will return to pick up the signed papers. This will really be a palpable marker of my moving, giving me a kick-on so I can continue my count-down, now eight weeks to go.

Tasty looking free range chicken..mmn!

Busy caff...

What has been strangely happening, is that after my unexpected encounter at JB's memorial concert, I have been harbouring thoughts of another kind because of the meeting with his remaining partner Yono. Yono has unabashedly said he dosn't know where he's going or what to do. That I can easily understand, as he had been living in the shadow of this great composer and eccentric for nearly forty years, and that in a totally foreign environment. His adopted family no doubt will have a large influence on his future, but he is now so free, I wonder if he knows how to value or use this freedom, something which happily I seem to have had all my life. I may contact him for a chat about life after death, that is, after somone else's death, as he has already told me he believes death is the absolute end, and that's that. We certainly don't agree on that basic premise but that doesn't mean we can't have a dialogue. As the French say, 'On va voir...'.

Beautiful wintry vista of Queenstown..

Have decided to go out into the cold, but into a very warm Cuba Lighthouse Cinema to see the Aussie film about Sugar. Nothing new posssibly, but just a reassurrance of everything I have known about the evils of sugar. It even may improve my diet, who knows?

Anyway I am out of a very cold house and leaving my chefs to discuss the huge dramas in their kitchens, and there are some apparently, with one resigning and the other refusing to be re-employed, although they are begging him to return. But no go, he is sticking to his guns. Restaurants, and kitchens, are a world to themselves, and I am seeing the inside story here which is not very uplifting I'm afraid. 

I am hoping tonight's movie won't be in the genre of 'upsetting' rather than 'reaffirming'. Jamie Oliver has said it is a 'must see', and judging from the ages of the kids waiting to go in, they are all his generation, all willing to give up on sugar. He certainly has a large following.