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Sunrise, Claude Monet

Boulevard des Capucines, Claude Monet

Today is Sunday 16 March, 2025. Kia ora!

This morning I woke up to a beautiful photo of my latest granddaughter in the UK. She’s now 8 months old. What a lovely, happy baby she is. I’m sure she’ll be correcting her brainy parents as soon as she can speak!  Last night we spoke to our grandson in Taipei.  He’s beautiful, too, of course, and he enhanced his image with a lot of Tiktok filters (I assume).  What a blessing grandchildren are!

It’s been an interesting time, needless to say.  Much of it has been expected; but there’s been far more than was promised in the US.  Meanwhile, we’re glad not to be there, although Winston Peters has announced a war on woke, whatever that is.

On the home front, the weather’s been mixed. Some days have been warm and fine (up to 23C!) although it always gets cold at night. There’ve been some cold snaps too, when one gets a jersey out.

The season of Lent rolls on. There was a Shrove Tuesday celebration at my church, which I did not attend (the weather was awful!) but I went to my first Ash Wednesday service the following day. It was an ecumenical service at St Mary’s Cathedral in Boulcott Street. It was a lovely service, although I doubt it that’s the appropriate word to use as we recall death and its meaning.  The church was almost full! I lined up to get the ashes on my forehead, too, and caught a bus home afterwards. Being autumn, it was still daylight. I was pleased that I went.

Last Friday I went to see the movie Tinā with a friend of mine. I had watched the trailer, and although I knew it was sad I thought the sadness was just at the beginning. Silly me! It had many sad, as well as joyful moments. I was profoundly moved by it: I remembered a lovely Samoan lady in the Manners Street branch of the National Bank (years ago) who always had a flower in her hair, behind one ear; I was reminded of the dreadful big earthquake in Christchurch: we were in Invercargill at the time, and did feel some shaking: we had just been through Christchurch the night before!  We flew home from Dunedin, and so did not return to Christchurch at that time. We were shocked by the devastation, and the hundreds of deaths.  I was very relieved that my cousin and her whanau were all alright, although their homes had sustained some damage. There was significant disruption for years afterwards that was visible every time I visited.

This was another religious film (after Conclave): the heroine belonged to a Samoan Catholic Church, and taught at a Catholic secondary school – for supposedly privileged youngsters whose parents could afford the fees.  I was especially moved by the beautiful singing, from Dave Dobbyn’s Welcome Home, to Nearer my God, to Thee, to When Peace like a River || Attendeth my way. Fortunately in a dark movie theatre you can cry quite discreetly.

Watching television at home has been another challenge, now that we’ve finished watching Vera (again!) and The Spoils of War on You Tube. We watched an episode of Apple Cider Vinegar, and an episode of Zero Day (even Robert de Niro can’t rescue this series for me), and of course Season 3 of The White Lotus. I don’t like TWL, and I’m determined not to advocate for that kind of holiday, but one has to watch it to know what all the never-ending publicity’s about.

We’ve been watching the series on TVNZ about the Lockerbie bombing, The Search for Truth, starring Colin Firth as Jim Swire. Last night we watched two episodes of The Pitt on Neon TV. Although it’s a medical drama it’s not too gory, and I found it quite watchable despite the some of characters being “there for each other” in a frustrating way.  I was impressed that if someone dies the attending staff hold a moment’s (actually a few seconds) silence for the person who has passed.

It’s now Friday 29 March.

I’ve been watching Adolescence on Netflix. What a profoundly disturbing series! We and our children certainly faced challenges as teenagers, but not with the likes of Andrew Tate and Instagram. Wow!  What an interesting series. Every parent (and grandparent) of teenagers should watch it.

Last Monday JD and I went to see an art film, The Birth of Impressionism, at the Lighthouse theatre in Petone. It was a lovely movie – isn’t French culture wonderful?  This of course inspired much looking at art books after we got home.  This movie didn’t feature Delacroix or Turner, but much of Turner’s work is impressionistic.  Our favourite Monets are one of Sunrise (featured on a beautiful silk scarf I bought at the Orangerie Museum Shop in Paris), and one of people walking in Paris in the snow called Boulevard des Capucines. Note: this was the dawn of Impressionism (in France), as opposed to later beautiful  works of art.

A day or two later I asked about a beautiful sequined jacket in the window of Hamilton and Murray Boutique.  Often I walk past their lovely clothes, thinking that they would date quickly, but this really took my eye, to wear over a black skirt and top.  JD, bless him, took me back to try it on that afternoon.  Well, it fits beautifully, but JD persuaded me to get a sparkly black jacket instead, claiming quite rightly that I’d get much more wear out of it – its being suitable for day or night wear.  The lovely jacket I’d so admired would also snag very easily, so one would have to be very careful with it.  JD claimed it made me look like a Chinese grandmother. I retorted that in fact I am a Chinese grandmother – two of my grandchildren have a Chinese mother.

It’s been quite a busy week, in its way. On Thursday morning my singing group was to sing at the Bupa Retirement Home in Crofton Downs.  We were required to be there by 10:30 am, but we were much earlier than that.  I think the singing went all right – it was certainly well received, but I always find these events a bit confronting!  It’s upsetting, of course, to see so many infirm older people – not that many of us are much better!

Afterwards JD picked up my friend and me, but since he had a 1 pm appointment, we didn’t stay to have morning tea in Crofton Downs, at Bupa or the Mitre 10 store or the shopping centre. Instead, JD dropped us both off at Khandallah and we had morning tea there. Then I caught a bus home.

On Thursday evening we went to a concert with the NZSO and Gemma New conducting Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.  Neither of us felt very well, and JD claimed we could leave early if we wanted to.  We didn’t eat before the concert – it started at 6: 30 pm, which is quite early.

I wanted to wear my new jacket, with a black skirt and light black top underneath, and a silk scarf. The problem was we needed to attach a brooch, and time was running out.  I scanned existing clothes for brooches – they’re complicated, with attachments that need to be twisted around, and, in many cases, safety chains! In all cases they proved difficult to undo from their existing attachments.  The jacket buttons are gold: should we choose a gold or silver based brooch?  Problems, problems.  Eventually I grabbed one to put on in the car.

We set off and actually got a car park outside the police station in Harris Street, my first choice. The next challenge was to get to the MFC. The lovely pedestrian area is mostly blocked off!  But we got there, way too early, after all. I had downloaded and printed off the notes sent by Ticketmaster beforehand, so we could read those.

The concert was very well attended. There was an overture by Gareth Farr, and then a new piece by a French composer (I forget his name) with perhaps 6 movements. There was a wonderful flautist for this debut performance wearing a marvellous red velvet trouser suit.

After the interval we had the pièce de resistance, the Pictures at an Exhibition. This was very well performed, with great enthusiasm. It was very enjoyable, and I reminded him that this was what we’d gone to some trouble to get tickets for. We had found Takina, and waited to get tickets there – Ticketmaster was having some issues, both with them and with me. We were so pleased that we’d been.

Afterwards, it was still quite early, so we called at New World in Thorndon to get something to share and eat: a mini-quiche, a vegetarian (spinach and chick peas) “sausage” roll (ugh!), a small apple pie, and affogato ice cream. They did not have my favourite vanilla ice-creams from Lewis Road Creamery or Motueka Creamery.  What we did eat was delicious.

The Sermons have been quite wonderful recently, with the Minister combining lessons from the Old and New Testaments, as we travel through this time of Lent.

I’m a bit behind with podcasts at present: there are lots, and many interesting ones on Times Radio.  The videos on YouTube are easier to watch in many cases, as you can stop and restart.  But on many of them ones sees men scratching their heads! I’m sure they wouldn’t do this if they could see themselves doing it. Their mothers would not be best pleased.

It’s now Sunday 30 March

This morning I went to church and enjoyed it. The minister related the entry of the Children of Israel to the Promised Land, after spending forty years in the wilderness (as related in Joshua 5) to the Father’s reception of the prodigal son in Luke 15. An old friend of mine who now attends Johnsonville Uniting Church was there; it was lovely to speak to her.  Afterwards JD’s brother and his fiancée called in for a few minutes. Later we had lunch at Sea Salt in Days Bay; then we went to the Rona Gallery, which was having an exhibition and a closing down sale.  I suspect the best paintings had already gone; most of the rest were very expensive. But JD bought a small painting – one of the “Make an offer” ones.  Then we had the delicious challenge of wondering where to hang it!  I’m still getting to like it: I like to think that Our Art Collection will be worth seeing, of not actually worth very much in financial terms, in the future!

It’s an unsettling and unsettled time in many respects.  The ceasefires in Gaza and Ukraine seem very tentative, so much so that one wonders if they will ever happen. What a great deal has changed on the world stage in the last few weeks! And then there’s been a huge earthquake in Myanmar, which has affected Thailand as well. It’s not what you would think of as an earthquake area. The death toll in Myanmar keeps rising – it’s now over 1,600.

That’s it for now. Slava Ukraini! Ngā mihi nui.