Queensgate to doctor

Decided on waking up to make a trek to the suburbs to see my friendly Doctor Donald, but it is really   because I have run out of my essential standby for travelling, a supply of the very useful slow-down effect of Valium. Yesterday at my 'Other Doctor' visit, where my health was in the 'extremley good' variety, I asked the doctor for a prescription, to no avail. The very helpful, otherwise, young Brendan told me he was reluctant as he didn't know the exact type of valium I had been earlier prescribed and he thought it better to go to my own doctor. OK, I didn't press the point but now a trip to Lower Hutt finds me in the cafe of Zampelles, having a two egg breakfast to compensate for my early start!

The suburbs in Wellington certainly have a different feel and they are cheaper on the whole, with possibly a larger percentage of  Maori/islander population due probably to the cheaper real estate prices suiting the lower socio-economic demographic. However this shopping mall in Lower Hutt is the largest in the Greater Wellington area and reminds me very much of what I will be experiencing when I return to Gosford, that city of malls and shopping cathedra. It is quite up-market and has everything one could wish for, including cinemas.

The service is excellent and the coffee ordinary, but I didn't expect more, although it would have been a nice surprise. The coffee-barista scene obviously doesn't extend beyond the city limits.

Lower Hutt barista..

Amazing doco movie!

Forgot to mention I saw this amazing doco movie by Brazilian photo-journalist Sebastiao Salgado. Directed by another supremo Wim Wenders, it has to be seen as it covers the last forty years of Salgado's travels to all the war-torn or disaster zones in the world. Mind you, it is heavy going and not for the squeamish, as his photos show everything, the utter desolation of war and the unbelieveable suffering and starvation of millions of people. The countries are in  Africa and  Europe and he does eventually suffer burnout from all the anguish he sees. So much that he considers retiring from the game until he decides to film one last book, with the intent to make it a positive version, reacting to all the negatives he has been seeing. With his money and initiative he then transforms some hundreds of acres at his home in Brazil,  making a wasteland into a verdant forest paradise by planting millions of trees. He thus makes a blueprint, or a template, for others to follow in trying to save the planet.

 It is a salutary lesson in doing something positive on this planet before it is totally ruined and made uninhabitable by its occupants. 'Humankind is a cruel species', comments Salgado, after he has witnessed the worst of human atrocities and disasters, all made by man himself. But Salgado has done something and it deserves to be seen by everyone.

Meeting the girls

I am out early having a quick coffee at Memphis before going down to the wharf to meet up with Trish 

from Gosford and sis  Robyn who is from Auckland but is joining her sister on a cruise of these beautiful Islands. It's a long time since I saw Trish so it is a nice time to get to catch up before I move back to Gosford.

Is this redhead Prince Charles' son? Mmmmm!

My personal blue and white coffee mug

Waiting at One Red Dog Cafe for Trish and Rob

Not her!

It is a grey windy day, typical of Wellington's welcome, that I have come to the Red Dog Cafe on Queen's Wharf to meet old friends from Gosford days. We will have much to catch up on.

Trish and Rob

Well the meeting went well with lots of stories both happy and sad. Rob's new boyfriend featured, as he was her teenage love from sixty years ago re-met via Facebook. Trish had only sad news about her son whom at one stage I had a crush on. Needs some Family Therapy there, and badly.

After some bread and hummous and delicious mussels we separated, they to Cuba Street and I to Wellie Hospital for my six monthly visit. All should be well there.

Quiet closure - it's curtains!

Today has been very quiet indeed, with the return to cooler cloudy weather being a part of this. We are always affected by weather, whether we think so or not.

Just look at the differences generated by the vastly diverse weather patterns of NZ and Australia. The constant Aussie sunlight, the deluges of rains, the fierce bushfires, all these combine to make a tough and resilient Aussie, at the same time an outgoing and normally happy one. The mainly windy and challenging time we have here in Wellington does indeed make for resilience, but of a different kind. The Kiwi is at once tough and reliable, but more silent, less responsive, because he knows that he has to look after himself, and usually his neighbours. But mainly himself, and he jealously guards this priority close to his bones. So consequently, spontaneous hospitality is not really the norm here I have found, although the Kiwis are a generous and most giving people.

My friend Tom is an example of the latter. He hangs curtains for a living, a good living, but he works hard and looks after his close friends. Today I was at his home for a hanging of a most beautiful drape in the hallway of his once and still elegant, Edwardian home. The material cost $200 per metre originally he told me, but of course he bought it for a song at a sale. Of beautiful shiny cotton with Chinese motif designs on it, it now hangs elegantly draped with a tassel shaping its fall, its base piled up decoratively on the floor below. It could have been in a French palace or castle. Tom has impeccable taste and judgement and I love experiencing his gentle attempt to educate the proletariat like me.

Today he also had visiting a young three year old called Adam, born in Malaysia but adopted by a Kiwi male couple, of whom one is Malaysian. Adam is a delight and will surely have an excellent life-start because of his new parents. He was shy at first but warmed up and I wanted to take a photo but was to slow to ask. Perhaps another time. A great example of modern laws facilitating a good outcome.

Serena likes our simple curtains too!

Different Strokes Wellington at the pool

DSW drying on line

Finished the Easter break with a return to the pool - I am getting so that I need the weekly swimming hit or I don't feel so good, the other swimmers are also such a good bunch they are a delight to be with.

Cool Easter Day on the Docks

Last night's movie was one of those which makes you wonder if a movie should be made about such a subject. For a long time I watched Steve Carell as the famed du Pont heir descend into believable depths of paranoia, and finally schizophrenia, when he gunned down in an unstable fit of rage his favourite wrestling trainer, the famed Olympic Gold Medallist Dave Schultz - dead, with about four shots more to make sure.

This movie called 'Foxcatcher', the brand name of the du Pont racing stable - his mother was a devoted equestrian and hated her son's interest in wrestling as a sport - embodied all that is bad about wealth and power in the US. It was really about the madness of one of the du Pont dynasty, at that stage the wealthiest family in the US and one of wealthiest, no doubt in the world. The fortune, made initially by the manufacture and selling of gunpowder, then branching into plastic and nylon, obviously had a downside in terms of karma, and John du Pont, about whom this tragedy was written, was a victim of family dysfunction and super wealth. He was also a sport-obsessive in athletics and wrestling and was passionate about financing the American Olympic wrestling team for the1988 Seoul Olympic Games. 

In particular, he was obsessed with the Schultz brothers, both gold medallists, whom he bought with his millions to pursue his goals. There were some factual problems with the story, but all in all, it was a faithful rendition of a madman out of control. I can imagine the Americans loving this film. My audience was mainly young, and in the front row were ten young Kiwis, all there to see the wrestling no doubt. Makes me wonder where they are going...

The film was up for some Academy Awards, one for Steve Carell as best actor as he was excellent in the hideous role he had to play. There were many sexual connotations throughout the movie as du Pont was shown to be obsessive-compulsive, and his abiding interest in the very close body-contact sport of wrestling certainly led one to believe there was more to his interest than met the eye. I read in Google later that he suffered from having his testicles removed in an operation as young man so that would suggest some strangeness at least, especially when he had the du Pont fortune to spend. 

Du Pont was convicted of murder and died thirteen years later in jail, having bequeathed most of his personal fortune to a Bulgarian wrestler whom he had become very fond of. The film was an indictment of the power that money can exert on many people, especially when in fragile hands, as were those of this published ornithologist and philatelist, du Pont. At one stage du Pont owned the most expensive stamp in the world which, in 2014, was sold by Sothebys London, for $9.5 million.

 I walked out of the cinema a little wiser, but certainly no happier than I had walked in.

Docks at WellieJazz

Ferry to Eastbourne

Grey skies....

...but a great coffee!

At the Dog Cafe opposite Portrait Gallery

Later today at five, I am scheduled to attend a birthday party for Heta's partner, that is before I go to the dance class with Heta to prepare for next week's competition. I think Paul, the partner, enjoys a good party and their apartment is spectacular on Brooklyn hill so it may attract a big crowd. Not really to my taste I'm afraid as big parties are such hard yakka and I will know very few there. I will make an early appearance and disappear to my class at six-thirty.

This cafe called 'Dog', is on the wharf opposite the Portrait Gallery so I will take this opportunity to see some art as well as have a great coffee.

Back at Memphis

It's Easter Saturday and although they say everyone has left Wellie for the holiday the Memphis is jumping. Never have I seen it so full and John the owner said it was like this yesterday too, so he is making a living at least.

Today's weekend paper's headlines is a top Kiwi judge going to preside over the child abuse scandals in the UK. A big job, and she seems just the right person for it having already experienced the same problems in NZ. Another feather in the cap to Kiwi judiciary.

Also a notice that Cynthia Lennon died and said that John was never in love with her. Hey what's new?Next, a young pakeha boy out of gaol, is now reformed and working at my Kilbirnie Pool. Is this is a rare example of the awful gaol system working, or really is his rehabilitation because of his family? Methinks this is the most important key in getting out of a bad crime habit when released from a gaol period. It seems, as is sadly the case in OZ, the indigenous peoples are the ones most prone to recidivism.

There is also a big article and well written, about the need for a new national flag, and never have I thought it more pertinent than now after the OZ-Kiwi cricket final. The Kiwi flag is so close to the Aussie one it is constantly confused with it, and of course the Union Jack is everywhere and not specific to any one country, except of course the UK. Again it will probably be NZ who leads the way in a new flag and either of these two designs in picture below would be good, although I would like to see more blue in the second flag. The Koru flag it would be called, and it would doubtless make all Kiwis proud. They would actually go crazy over identifying with a new emblematic flag I am absolutely sure.

Hawkes Bay pad for $3 million, cheap!

Bread culture a hundred years old passed on to a pakeha wife..

King Ed (in stripes) having a break

A serious new Kiwi flag

Have decided to go out on Saturday night, of course there is a good movie to see at Cuba Lighthouse. It is 'Foxcatcher' with Steve Carell and I hope it is as good as its trailers.

The past hour or so I have been at J's farewell drinks party at her place. I took some Orange Almond cake as I thought it a gesture, and it was eaten in a minute. The lovely French Catalan Marie Claire was there and is soon flying off to Barcelona to sell her family home near Perpignan this year. She needs to downsize, quel dommage! I have made a promise to attend a last French Conversation at her home before she leaves on June 7.

Good Friday

The cafe Baobab in Newtown found me this fine Friday morn having a date scone and coffee. 

Earlier today a phone call to a very good friend  living at beautiful Soldiers' Point, north of Newcastle in NSW, saddened me a little as she is getting more and more depressed since the recent death of her daughter. Life seems tough for her and she is succumbing to that awful pit of despair, forgetting why she is here, which is, of course, to give and receive love, which she has always done, but on her terms. If only she could think more about loving and less of her bad neighbours who are unfortunately invading her space and who, she says, are poisoning her trees. Something is drastically wrong somewhere and I didn't really know what to say, so I just listened. I will doubtless see more of her on my return to Oz.

I feel I really should be at the Memphis, but Tom has invited me over so am calling in here for a quick coffee before I visit him and Brent later. Later this afternoon I have a Mass at the Sacred Heart Cathedral on Hill Street where a friend is singing in the choir, and after that the more important HU song at Viva and David's at six-thirty. I see in my diary I have also a movie at the Paramount Cinema so for me it is quite a busy Good Friday, but the city itself is not so busy. As always, the wise and wealthy take a break from their work-filled lives to escape to a more simple rural life for a few days. Perhaps I should have been with them....on va voir!

Sole bird outside Baobab

...and not many inside either..

Am now on my way to see T and B who are doing some gardening, they said.

Well on my arrival it wasn't the gardening they were doing but still, we have a nice coffee and chat, with B bringing out some interesting historical photos he recently found and has now put into an album. Makes me think I need to do the same with some of my many shots sitting around gathering dust - must buy a new album.

The service, not a Mass, at the Sacred Heart Catholic Cathedral, was essentially a good one, and was packed to the rafters. It was held in conjunct with the non-functioning church of Mary of the Angels, so attracted two lots of parishioners. The choir was superb, and if not for the too-long 'Adoration of the Cross', which was represented by two railway sleepers bolted together, I may have stayed for the last and probably best piece of Sacred Music. But I reneged and left early, knowing I had more to do today. However it was nice to see so many people out, really acknowledging the reason for their 'holy'day.

Home for a rest before the HU and a perhaps late movie at the Paramount and possibly a car-wash for dear Bella. 

Back from a superb movie by another Pasoloni, this time a British one.  Called 'Still Life', it had a good review so I thought it would be enjoyable, although it was a bit like the Mike Leigh movies, depicting with desolate realism the life in London suburbs. 

The delightfully observed characterisation of the impeccable main actor, in the frame for 99% of the time, was essentially the guts of the movie. His story, and life as an English public servant, was one of simplicity and integrity, and ended with such an unexpected finish I can't tell you what it is. No spoiler from me, but just go and see it, you won't regret it. With a director carrying the name 'Pasolini' there is much to live up to, but he proves worthy of it and is surely to be watched for further films.  Beautifully filmed and sensitively directed, it has to win some award, but perhaps not yet an Oscar.

Before Easter

Things are already quieter in Wellie with the chance of a five day holiday tempting many to quit the city for their bach on the coast  or in the mountains. I wonder how many Kiwis have the honour, or luck, to have inherited a bach, or as they call them in Tassie, a 'shack'?

The Memphis is open as always, and will be tomorrow also, looking after their regulars, and today John the owner shouted me a coffee. I don't know if it may have been because he liked my gesture of hanging a new (old) picture on his wall. He seemd quite chuffed anyway and it neatly fills a hole so I am more than happy with the result.

 Today was going to be more clean-up at home but Potluck at BP has been changed to today so I am in early to see Ron, also to see Gareth from Film Archives who has some audiotapes for us to listen to. Another little point of interest for the Candlelight Memorial.

Now 'on the wall' at Memphis

Smiling and happy..

...like Cricketer of the year, Brendon McCullum

It is good to see Memphis filling up on this quiet day as they really deserve to be successful. They are typical of Kiwi initiative coupled with modesty and hard work, creating a success. The music they play here is classic retro stuff, absolutely my vintage, and they play it loud, but it sets a unique mark on the establishment which is, as well, superbly situated in the dead-centre of the commercial strip on Courtenay Place, right opposite Calendar Girls, the famous strip joint.

Font page news today is the repeat conviction of the murderer Mar Lundy. He was made even more famous with this month's long retrial  for being accused of the horrific bashing and murder of his wife and little daughter. It has kept the Kiwi public enthralled for the past few months as Lundy, barefaced, told the lie that he had nothing to do with this murder. The jury thought otherwise and now he is in gaol for life, but will be on parole when he is 63.

On a nicer note the cricketer of the year is Brendon McCullum, my all favourite Kiwi. There also an article on how Aussie wicket keeper/sledger Brad Haddin was told to recant his drunken talk on a radio interview, which he did, but only because he was asked to, however he had no regrets for all the on-field sledging he did. An example of his Aussie boorishness is that he says he gave it to them (the Kiwis)  because  they were 'that nice nice to us that we were uncomfortable'. This highly stupid riposte was the reason for his ugly and utterly unsportsmanlike behaviour! OMG, he really should be strongly reprimanded or stood down by the Australian Cricket Board, but he won't, because he is a good wicket keeper.. Ooh well, that's sport these days, not like it used to be.