Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne in the Gallery Borghese
Today is Saturday 12 September, 2026. Kia ora!
I think I am gradually getting used to being back in Aotearoa. The days are longer now, and it’s getting warmer too, which makes life easier. However we’re still getting spring winds, although there are some lovely fine days now and again, in between ghastly wet and windy days. One has to be careful not to get blown over. It can still be very cold in the morning.
I’m keeping up with attending the Classics Group. Although it’s interesting to read Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and learn or be reminded more about the myths, I am frustrated with the group. I feel like an undergraduate student, and I wish I could write a brilliant essay and get credited for my work. Of course, I could write an essay. Meanwhile I have lots of thoughts about Ovid and how he handles these stories (in beautiful Latin, of course). It seems to me that his attitude towards the gods is quite different from that of Homer or even the Greek dramatists: Ovid portrays the gods as being quite whimsical, and credits some events perhaps to chance. I did an Honours paper on Sex and Gender in the Ancient World, and when you view ancient literature through that lens, you tend to view everything differently. Just what does Ovid think? He disguises his own feelings, but methinks that he is rather obsessed with sex.
Having said that, the tutor is working his way through the Metamorphoses Books 1, 2 and 3 over the last four two-hour sessions, so it’s quite slow going for me. I am not finding it very collegial, and I miss my post-graduate classes, where it’s assumed you’ve read the topic, and know something about the context and the language, and one’s contributions are welcomed. And one can write a nice paper at the end and get some credit for it.
We meet for two hours without a break. That’s quite a long time! Most of my activities are one hour, or if longer, stop for a tea break before the next half of the session. In addition, it’s quite an effort to get into the CBD by 10 am.
However I do enjoy going to my favourite café for morning tea afterwards. I feel quite justified in enjoying my oat latté and my cheese scone, before making my way home.
I have bought the new Robert Harris book Agrippa on my Kindle, having listened to several talks with Robert Harris where he talks about the book. He’s a very good writer, in my opinion, although I haven’t finished reading his Cicero trilogy. This book fits in well with the political context surrounding Vergil, Ovid and Horace throughout Augustus’s reign, and his suspicions of them. They each handled these suspicions in different, if opaque, ways, but Ovid was exiled for his trouble. Augustus himself was a very strange, and intelligent, character (in my view).
We have booked a trip to Melbourne to visit one of JD’s sisters who lives in Geelong. There are good reasons for this trip; I thought about staying behind, but decided to hug my knees for four hours and travel to Melbourne. I think I’m up for the four hour trip, although I found the five-hour flight from Auckland to Adelaide very uncomfortable a few years ago. I want to get some duty-free cosmetics, and for some reason I feel less guilty doing this than spending money at Farmers.
Last week was busy for us. A grandchild came on Monday; we had lunch visitors on Tuesday; on Wednesday we went to see our friend at the Charles Fleming Ryman Home in Waikanae, and heard him play the piano there; in Thursday we flew to Auckland for the day for an old friend’s funeral.
So on Thursday morning I set the alarm on my phone for 5:30 am! We had booked a taxi for 7 am, to be sure to get to the airport in plenty of time for our 8:55 am flight. Everything went smoothly; we took a back pack with extra gear in case we had to stay overnight.
Once we got to Auckland we caught the Sky City bus into Auckland CBD, where we were picked up by the partner of a friend of ours. He drove us to Dil’s Funeral Services at the Schnapper Rock Road cemetery. So we got there in plenty of time. The kind people there made us coffee and biscuits while we waited. This was much appreciated, since we hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast at 5:30 am! There was no coffee bar nearby.
We were very impressed with Dil’s. They had a viewing room available, where people could view the body before the coffin was closed and carried into the chapel.
After the funeral service, there was a blessing on the coffin in the hearse. And then we all had tea and coffee and refreshments. What a wonderful spread! We were really hungry by this time, and as others filled their plates and went back for more, I didn’t feel at all guilty about eating well.
The funeral had been at 1:30 pm; at 3:20 they went to bury the casket, some 300 metres away. We did not go, although I would have liked to: it was quite cold there, and as JD said, there would be no seating and possible quite a long Greek blessing.
Instead we caught a taxi to my cousin’s place in Milford. They gave us an early dinner, and a lift to the airport, which was very kind of them. Again, with getting to the airport, you don’t want to be late! Our flight was due to leave at 9:10 pm, but was at least half an hour late getting away. It was a full flight, and very bumpy, so much so that they didn’t serve coffee! I was looking forward to my coffee. After a rough flight, we had a smooth landing in Wellington, and got home at 11:45 pm. It was a very long day.
The next morning I got up early and went to the Latin Group again. On Sunday morning I did the Old Testament reading at church (Exodus 17:1-17); on Monday my brother-in-law came for morning tea, and then on Tuesday morning we were off to Melbourne.
This was a very early start: alarm set for 2:30 am and taxi due at 3:30 am for our 6 am flight. That was the only direct flight that day: they’ve taken out the early afternoon flight, alas, otherwise it’s two flights, presumably via Christchurch. Thankfully I’d had a slice of toast at home; we had a cup of coffee at the airport (pretty awful options there); we had a flexi booking because at the time we booked lots of people were ill with a ghastly flu. We have to go again in April to a family wedding, so we bought flexi tickets in order to be able to use them later if necessary. So instead of flying “El cheapo” and taking our own sandwiches and carry-on luggage, we were able to take a suitcase each and have a meal and entertainment on board. The meal was edible: an omelette with spinach and beans and a sausage, a very small fruit salad, and a small muffin, all eaten with wooden cutlery! We’re not used to flying coach!
At Melbourne the Air Traffic Control was busy, so we had to slow our descent, and then there was no gate available. Eventually we got off, and after a bathroom break queued up in a huddled mess for the next step. This was a little crazy: there were a few kiosks, where you put in your passport, your photo was taken, and then you had to answer a number of questions on the screen! It was quite slow, too, and the questions were hard to see, especially if you’d taken your glasses off for the photo. Passengers had their carry-on baggage, masses of it, and we wondered if we had missed a step, but no, there was our checked luggage on a carousel; then we had another passport check, and went on to customs control. We had to take the hand-written entry forms, and a slip of paper from the biometric entry machine. All this took ages, but eventually we made our way out and found the Gull bus depot.
The Gull coach took us to Geelong. It had been pre-booked, thankfully, and the ride to Geelong took about one hour. At the Gull depot we pre-booked our coach back on Saturday morning (the earliest was 6:15 am), and then caught a taxi to my sister-in-law’s house.
It was a fine sunny day, but the weather was very like Wellington’s: very cold starts, cloudy, sometimes warming up during the day. Unfortunately we did not go into Melbourne to visit the lovely Art Gallery there, but we did go to the Art Gallery in Geelong, where they had an Impressionist exhibition. I also bought a cover for my Kindle, which is very useful, since I’m terrified of losing it. We had some very good fish and chips from the shop at the waterfront.
We flew back on Saturday morning, rising at 4:30 am for a taxi at 5:30 am to the Gull depot. And so we flew back to Wellington. At the airport I got some cosmetics: some Shiseido face cream, some Guerlain face powder, and, at JD’s suggestion, a Givenchy gift pack (pour moi, of course!). So that was a bit of a treat.
The flight home was delayed (of course), and I was glad we’d had coffee at the airport; on the journey home I watched The Devil Wears Prada 2.
Since then we’ve been getting over the early risings, not helped by the fact that New Zealand went on to Daylight Savings Time on Saturday night! So it was a short night.
That’s it for now. Slava Ukraini! Nga mihi nui.
