Mum's Birthday at Memphis

It's a sunny day for my dear Mum's 104th birthday and near to the seventh anniversary of her passage. She translated on June 17 2008, four days after her ninety-seventh birthday. It was the the time we had mutually and silently agreed upon. She was ready for the next life and tired of this one. 

I had decided to move to my beloved Melbourne to live, and she knew I would be happy there. As indeed I was, but for only two years, as the Black Saturday Bush Fire disaster gave me reason to leave and try for a life in Hobart. Which also lasted for only three years. The unforeseen death of my beloved Mr Ralph put paid to any notion of staying in that tiny hamlet of incest and backward thinking, amongst patches of brilliance and creativity of course.

But it was finally Wellington whose love was renewed on a quick visit in 2013 that decided me to try this windy heaven, and sometimes hell, of a small city, which they rightfully call the coolest little capital in the world. Today in the Dominion Post there is news, yet again, of the obsèques of Samoan champ Jerry Collins, with many funeral services set for all over the Rugby world. He does typify the modesty and incredible strength that oozes from the pores of many in this island race.

Another islander, this time an Irishman, is celebrated today also. Prime Minister Bill Massey, his name writ large all over Wellington in particular, was that sort of migrant who made the country the way it is today, so the newspapers say. At his funeral in 1925, at only 69, a year younger than I am now, there were eight lorry loads of wreaths which were turned into a giant flower pyramid at his burial site at Pt Halswell. He was a man dedicated to the service of his people and of New Zealand. He was a tough but honest man, the like of which we will probably never see again given the timbre of present day politicians, including especially the 'Honourable' John Key.

Meth amphetamines in back year baches..not a good sign.

Sat morn at Memphis....

More tributes to a great person..

Christopher Lee,  another real film icon passed away, at the good age of ninety-three.

Here is the greatest PM NZ is likely to have seen, William Massey, who refused a knighthood and a peerage, although he was as well, the national Masonic Grand Master, which explains somewhat his fame around the world, as the Masons certainly stuck together, especially in the early twentieth century.

The awful Aussie PM telling lies by evasion yet again.What a disgusting, immoral man he is, and to be the Prime Minister of such a wealthy country, who knows which direction it will take under his selfish and short-sighted reign? I am well-put to be out of my country while his presence is still felt, but still, where is there an honest government in the world today?

Tonight, to celebrateMum's birthday, I got a good close seat to see/hear Karen Gomyo play amazing violin with the NZSO. She played Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major wonderfully. Then to finish the concert, the Finnish conductor Pietari Inkinen was magnificent in his final concert with NZSO doing a suite by Sibelius - a fabulous night's music.