Leaving Welly

Up early on Departure Day so I decided to have a farewell coffee at Memphis as I packed up fully last night. A nice text from exiting housemate Alice was a good start to the day, and all is ready for an exciting experience in Ballarat and my beloved Melbourne town.

Melbourne is such a beautiful city I still harbour feelings for it as so many good things happened to me there.  For a start, a modelling career which would have stagnated anywhere else, was a success, coupled with my chance to make a great documentary movie and at the same time meeting Sue who the was real milestone in my life. And last but not least, the place where I found Eckankar, or Eckankar found me way back in 1980. It is also where I discovered the joys of driving a Merceds Benz car, where I owned my first and only apartment in the beautiful suburb of East Melbourne, right on the park overlooking the legenday Melbourne Cricket Ground. Oh, if I had that place today, but time marches on and so did I. I still have great friends there, old and new, and my oldest one is a Kiwi. Hazel and Bruno looked after me and my career when I arrived from Sydney via Europe, and we had such great times together, plus giving me lots of work.  Hazel is getting on now, but still is an inveterate traveller at 86, having kicked two cancers and after two bouts of treatment she now plans a trip to Hawai'i. She is a typical amazing Kiwi woman who was the power behind the great achievement of her photographer husband, who passed away about twelve years ago.

Front page a young man whose prompt cardiac arrest treatment saved another man's life...

...and the sad news of a totally dysfunction Kiwi family with the daughter going to gaol for manslaughter of her mother's boyfriend. Lots of drug problems of course, which is a chronic and awful problem here.

Tom Scott is on the ball about the unabashed ambition of Kevin Rudd. Let's hope his gun misfires and Helen gets the job she so richly deserves and where she would undoubtedly be the better person

Getting closer to the face-off, but it seems a Clinton victory is in sight, they could never elect Trump as President of  the US! ( famous last words?)

British Royalty is certainly in the frame in New Zealand....

I wonder if Steve Waugh is spot-on about the career choices of Brendon McCullum? McCullum is very interested in making a lot of money that's for sure, and is not the idealogue that was Waugh when he was the Aussie captain for so long.

While wairing for my bus this morning I chatted with my fellow Gold Card holder about the million-dollar yacht berthed just opposite us on the pristine and mirror surface of Wellington's Harbour. He was a gentle giant of a man, probably in his eighties, a smart navy reefer jacket, tie and all, living in Oriental Parade. Our conversation was just like two boys talking about a toy, and he was a retired andcertainly wealthy man as are most of the Oriental Bay residents. But Kiwis don't flaunt their wealth, you would never know who is, and who isn't, a mufti-millionare in Wellington, and I know there are many.

Rueben in Memphis giving Lottie some water. It is a very dog-friendly café, is Memphis!