End of Term 3

Cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches. Mine weren’t quite as elegant as these, but they were very neat and they did taste good!

It’s now Friday 12 September, 2025. Kia ora!

What a time to be alive. Charlie Kirk has been assassinated in Utah;  Israel has bombed Qatar, trying to kill the Hamas leaders who are there to negotiate a cease-fire; more Epstein information has been revealed, and none of it points to Jeffrey Epstein being a nice person; and Lord Mandelson has been fired by Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of Great Britain; one week after his deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, was fired for what seemed to be a tax dodge.  Mandelson was not only a great pal of Epstein but continued to defend him even after he was in prison. What to deal with first?

And I forgot to mention Russia’s drone strike on Poland, and then a threat to Rumania.

On Sunday morning I went to church. I was supposed to take a plate for a shared lunch: I took some buttered slices of a ginger loaf from the local New World supermarket. I have a “bring a plate” function later this week – I do not like such things! I’d be much happier to pay for a catered lunch, and I think it’s a retrograde step to go back to shared lunches. It was quite cold, and drizzling with rain. I was glad to wear a woollen jersey, a warm fluffy jacket, and a puffer raincoat! They had morning tea with scones with apricot jam and sweetened whipped cream, yum!

After morning tea the minister spoke about his recent study leave. This was very interesting, since I’d been to Scotland, although not the north of Scotland. This was followed by the AGM. I had to leave for another appointment with JD.  I hope my point about advertising on Meta (formerly Facebook) is taken up. After all, if it’s good enough for Westminster Abbey, I think my church should do it.

JD and I ended up having lunch at Floridita’s Café and Restaurant. It was nice there – warm and comfortable! I started with a Long Black Coffee, followed by a Peach Bellini. 

Here in Aotearoa fugitive Tom Phillips has been shot dead by police, after himself shooting a police officer; a child was with him; his two other children were recovered shortly afterwards. Phillips had been on the run with his three children for four years! Their mother appeared in court on drink-driving charge soon afterwards.  Those poor children! It seems their father was not a hero, rather a thief, with lots of alcohol and fire arms. He moved camp often. Meanwhile the children have had no medical or dental care or education, while supposedly camping in uncivilised conditions; camping in the rough can be charming for a day or two; but any longer than that and one would be longing for a shower or bath, a proper toilet, a hot meal and a warm comfortable bed, to say nothing of clean clothes. It seems that both parents have really let their children down, and now one of them is dead. The eldest child is now a teenager, with all the implications of adolescent body changes. Poor children!

It’s now Tuesday 16 September.

Yesterday I went to Tai Chi, and then JD picked me up and we had lunch at Picnic Café by the Lady Norwood Rose Garden, and the doomed Begonia House. Last time I visited it wasn’t as wonderful as it used to be. Lunch was nice – smoked salmon, hash browns, grilled tomato, and half an avocado with wasabi dressing. My long black coffee was enjoyable too. We ate outside, and it was rather windy, although fine and sunny, and I kept my jacket on. There were no roses out yet, and a sign warned us that spraying was in progress.

Afterwards we walked to the Bolton Street cemetery, which I am ashamed to say I hadn’t visited before, it’s been split by the Motorway, and although it’s a quiet and peaceful place, the traffic noise is disturbing. There are very informative pamphlets in waterproof containers at the entrance to the Cemetery. I would think there needs to be more upkeep of this lovely area.  We did not explore it all – there is quite unstable walking between the graves on uneven grass.  And, of course, it’s hilly, and whenever one walks down, one remembers that one will have to walk up again.

There are some names we recognise; there are graves and headstones there. I was quite moved by the youth of many of the dead: some made old bones to perhaps 82, but many died in their 20’s-30’s-40’s. Many children died – including 5 of diphtheria in one family! Another family lost three children. How incredibly sad, and I well remember what a huge thing it was when vaccines came in when I was a child, and parents no longer had to fear that their children would die early from common childhood diseases such as polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, or tuberculosis.  I as moved too by the Biblical texts on many of the headstones – such as “I am the resurrection and the life”, and sentiments like the deceased person being “Asleep with Jesus”.  No wonder Alzheimer’s was an unusual disease – very few people got old enough to “lose” their memory (using the terminology of my childhood).

On Tuesday Bible Study was cancelled. JD and I did our weekly shopping in Thorndon, and saved, as usual, just over $10. It was really hot!  And I felt really tired, as I tend to in springtime. But today (Wednesday) the weather is awful! It’s really windy, overcast and drizzly, although not too cold, but much cooler than yesterday. This morning I went to hymn singing, but unfortunately there were very few of us there, and my voice was quite croaky. I’m blaming spring allergies for this. After this there was a two-hour session for Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori, together with a nice morning tea. It was a lovely session. We learnt (again) phrases of welcome. It’s so nice to go over things that one supposedly knows already!

Afterwards I caught a bus into town, and then another bus to get off at what they’re calling Courtenay Central, a bus stop outside the forlorn Reading Centre. Then I walked to Tākina in Wakefield Street. It was very windy but not dangerously so. At Tākina I had lunch first: delicious chicken sandwiches with stuffing and chutney (very tasty) served with some potato crisps (as in an English pub!), and a long black coffee.  It was very comfortable there, and you get free internet!  Afterwards I went to the World Press Photo Exhibition. I was able to leave my bag at the coat-drop. The exhibition was interesting, if confronting. I was glad I’d seen it. I also booked tickets for a concert coming up – Rossini’s Stabat Mater, performed by the NZSO and Voices New Zealand. It is good to be able to see just where you’re sitting. Afterwards I walked to the closest bus stop – opposite where James Smith’s used to be. It was incredibly windy walking back.

It’s now Friday 19 September, and I am waiting for my lovely lady from Access to come. Access is using a new ap, which sends me an informative email each week to say who’s coming and when. But I can’t load the ap on either my phone (it doesn’t do Android), or even on my PC.  So I can’t see the schedule. Still. It is now easier to communicate with Access. In the event someone different came; my usual lady is on leave for the school holidays, although Access had not warned me of this.

Yesterday (Thursday) was the final session for Term 3 for my Thursday singing group. I showered early and made cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, draining the cucumber slices on paper towels first. The white sandwich bread that we’d bought on Tuesday had not stayed as fresh as I’d hoped. Still, we cut the crusts off, and I made two dishes – one to keep at home. JD’s  brother was due to visit while I was out. We had a nice singing session, although I had to remind the leaders that it is Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori. Accordingly, we sang Hine e Hine, but did not sing the lovely Pepeha which we’d sung last year. I did feel that I’d interrupted the program, though!

The lunch spread was delicious, with a good range of savoury food and some sweet food, and grapes and cheese, of course. There were lots of egg sandwiches and asparagus rolls, so I was glad I hadn’t made them, this time.

Sunday was quite a busy day. It was really windy, quite cold, and drizzling with rain off and on. I went to church, which was lovely, We are enjoined to pray for kings and rulers (I Timothy chapter 1), even if we don’t share their views. Afterwards I was going to catch a bus to Johnsonville at 11:12 am. I walked to the bus stop, where it was incredibly windy. I could have summoned a taxi, or an Uber, but I had got to the bus stop and the bus was due to come. It did arrive on time.  At the Johnsonville Library, the shuttle bus had reverted to its weekday timetable – not on the hour or half hour, as I had thought. Never mind, I got home just before 12 noon, when a grandson was due to come!  I did not have Wi-Fi on my Android phone, so I couldn’t communicate until I reached home. Anyway, the little boy came, and we had a very enjoyable time, doing a jigsaw puzzle, playing Monopoly Deal (with cards!), and a car racing game.

Today’s podcast on The Rest is History is about Hesiod’s Theogony. Wow! I have read this as part of a wonderful paper I did on The Trojan War, in terms of mythical background, Homer’s Iliad (of course), ancient literature about the Trojan War, and then (2006) modern archaeology at the Hissarlik site in Turkey, thought to represent the ancient city of Troy.  We studied the Hittites, too.  Tom Holland also talks about ancient language derivations. I had thought that the “family” of Romance or Indo-European languages, which includes ancient Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish and German as having a certain commonality – for example, if you’re looking at menu items in one of those languages, you can usually figure out what they are. Some of my friends are conversational in several of these languages. I enjoy trying to speak French whenever I go there (which is not nearly often enough).  But it now seems that this is too simplistic.  Here is a link to this episode:

What an amazing heritage the Classical world gives us, in paintings, sculpture, pottery relics, mosaics and literature. I think part of its appeal is that it’s just so beautiful, without all the violence, rape, sudden death, and divine scheming. It’s still fascinating. How nice, sometimes, to retreat into the past, while present events are of great concern, even if they don’t appeal.

That’s it for now!  It’s a tough spring, so far, with some beautiful fine days but treacherous winds. Wars and conflict grind on, in Ukraine and Gaza. Slava Ukraini! Nga mihi nui.