The beautiful Castle Howard, where Brideshead Revisited was filmed

It’s now Tuesday August 22^nd, 2023. Kia ora!

Actually, it’s still Monday afternoon. I posted my previous blog because I felt I had said all I had to say, at that point.

But I’ve turned to a more intellectual bent, this afternoon. The Rest is History released a podcast about the Library of Alexandria, that was destroyed; I have also discovered the text of Orwell’s essay “The Lion and the Unicorn”, written in 1941, which the London Review of Books has a podcast about.  For some reason I can listen to these podcasts, but the reviewer reviews great essays, at great length which, of course, makes you want to read them. Anyway, it’s a joy to read Orwell, he was such a great writer, although research is emerging now about his perhaps unemancipated attitude towards his long-suffering wife. A book has been published, and was reviewed in the latest Economist.

Nevertheless, things and attitudes were different, then, whatever we think nowadays, and he wrote beautifully. I enjoy reading his work.  As Michael Che said on a Saturday Night Live show, something to the effect of in future I’ll apologise for something I’m doing now, being presently unaware of how it will be regarded in future, and necessary to be apologised for. 

Here’s a link to the review:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/past-present-future/id1682047968

I was talking to JD about this podcast, and about this essay written during the Blitz, in 1941, when the future was unknown, and Great Britain (with the help of Australia and New Zealand, not mentioned) was fighting the Nazi menace almost alone; it must have been a terrifying time; JD of course had plenty to say about everything, not having read Orwell’s essay or listened to the podcast. But I have to admit I do disagree with Orwell about some things: English gentleness?  I think not. Look at how suffragettes were treated. Look at how so-called criminals were hanged, or sent to Australia, for perhaps stealing a loaf of bread. We toured Lancaster Castle in 2016, which had been used for a prison until five years earlier. There was nothing gentle about being locked in a very basic holding cell in total darkness for several seconds.  And English not celebrating military victories? What about the great Battle of Trafalgar? Still, it’s fun to be a little critical. And Orwell does write very perceptively about what it meant to be English, and indeed what it meant as represented to me until I went there in the early 1970’s.  I had read much, but was still shocked at the seemingly endless landscape of Coronation Street(s) as our plane was stacked over Heathrow in 1973; compared to them, the state houses of the Hutt Valley looked palatial to me, after we returned to New Zealand.

I find Orwell’s writing about British patriotism is very interesting. The ideal of patriotism has been corrupted, when right-wing movements have taken it over to mean some dominant master race should be in charge; xenophobia rules, and women have to be kept under control; these so-called “freedoms” must be protected with gun violence, if necessary.  But in the recent Brexit move, one could see British patriotism displayed at large, although many people were against leaving the European Union.  That was, and remains, a scary time, as stupidity overrode basic self-interest. In my view. Well it’s done now, Boris Johnson has resigned, the waterways are a mess, mortgage payment and heating bills have skyrocketed, things have changed forever, and who, exactly, has benefited? Who indeed.  I guess Putin regards that, and Trump’s 2016 election, as successes worthy of his cynical investment.

Back to the essay. It’s extremely interesting, but one has to remind oneself that the treachery of the Cambridge Five, including Kim Philby, and the likes of George Blake, were unknown at that time, though surely the ground was ripe for socialist thinking. It’s ironic that Orwell, so sympathetic to people with less money, and so aware of England’s class and caste system, was able to write Animal Farm, exposing the ghastly inequities of Stalin’s communism.  A plague on both your houses, then!

Orwell also claims that apart from Shakespeare, the British aren’t really artistic. I know many great singers and conductors would disagree, but surely the British were masters (and sometimes mistresses) of the novel!  To say nothing of great poetry. As one who completed a Masters Degree in English Literature in the 1970’s, and mastered in literature of the Renaissance I strongly beg to differ. You may despise many of Dickens’ novels, but he was a great writer, as was Thackeray, George Eliot, Jane Austen et al.  I don’t want to offend anyone here, and the longer ones do take some reading. I should mention Geoffrey Chaucer, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and John Milton here too. But The English are very good at drama, of all kinds, and at comedy, with their wry sense of humour, and readiness to offend. At the time of the Brexit referendum, I joked they were very good at Royal Weddings (well, the pageantry thereof) and at comedy.  This was demonstrated again recently with Queen Elisabeth II’s platinum jubilee, her funeral, which followed soon afterwards, and the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla. Since Brexit, sadly, there hasn’t been much to laugh about.

Here’s a link to Orwell’s essay:

https://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/lionunicorn.html

It is now actually Tuesday.

This morning, alas, I don’t feel great; I’m still coughing and have a lot of catarrh. I have engagements next weekend, and I’m wondering which of them I’ll have to cancel.  Perhaps I should go to the doctor again?  This is frustrating. It feels like it did when I had Covid, and wondered if I would ever get better enough to do the things I used to do.

Oh, and Trump has confirmed he won’t attend the republican debate. Nor will he sign a pledge to support the Republican candidate.  That’s not surprising.  Ali Velshi chaired a discussion on MSNBC in which he interviewed Ruth Ben-Ghiat, and discussed Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, like skipping the debate.

In the Georgia indictment, Trump and his co-defendants have to surrender to the Fulton County jail by August 25; bail has been set for each. Now, that will be a moment (or few)! 

But yesterday a group of republicans claimed to believe Trump more than their own pastor (I think many of us outside the US would not always agree with a minister, but one would expect him/her to speak the truth as they saw it), or their friends or family.  That is truly shocking. In another statement, Trump, interviewed on Fox News, claimed that “I was the apple of Putin’s eye”, and that Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if Trump had been president, implying that Trump would have influenced him not to mount this Special Military Operation in Ukraine0. That’s interesting, because at the time Trump claimed that Putin’s move was genius. I guess one should be used to the fact by now that opposing facts can both be claimed as true.  Of course, Trump may have claimed that Ukraine was the apple of Putin’s eye, in which case, one might wonder why he’s doing so much to destroy the place and render Russians extremely unpopular there, for the most part.

In response to a question about Ukraine giving up Crimea to appease Russia, as a means to end the fighting, Zelensky asked if Russia would be willing to give up Belgorod, which is close to the Ukrainian border but presently within Russia.  Evidently Belgorod was once part of Ukraine, under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, in March 1918.  At the end of World War II, Belgorod became part of Russia again, after the Russians recaptured it from German troops.  Ah, that treaty has a lot to answer for.

I listened to Ukraine The Latest, the Telegraph’s weekday podcast, in which they interviewed an American cosmonaut. This was with particular reference to a Russian unmanned spacecraft which recently crash-landed on the moon. He was intelligent and well-spoken. At the end, it emerged that Telegraph journalists have joined the growing list of people banned from entering Russia.  There was some joking about Orwell’s Animal Farm, in which Francis Dearnley joked that he would henceforth call Dominic Nicholls Snowball, if Dom would call him Napoleon.  In regard to the alerts Francis received about his travel ban, he joked that perhaps Dom had taken off his shirt in the Telegraph newsroom. It’s nice to see that these guys have a sense of humour.

With regard to Orwell, I have to admit that I tired of reading the essay’s latter part, where he writes about the coming English revolution. I admit that I’m far more interested in history than in economics, although of course they’re so closely bound together. The revolution did come, of course, in the form of the election of the Labour Party to government with a resounding majority, after World War II, and the creation of the NHS.  But it was muted, of course; it didn’t get rid of the (unelected) House of Lords, but it did preserve a kind of democracy. And the British people do, for the most part, love the Royal Family. In fact since the shenanigans that have continued since Prine Harry’s wedding to Sparkle (Meghan Markle), the Royal Family has continued to be in the news and be a focus of attention, both in the UK and to some extent, in the US too. So much for that. The pageantry and regalia and beautiful behaviour of the Prince and Princess of Wales continue to provide a lovely distraction from the ghastly political scenes in both nations.

Getting back to US politics. Apparently Trump will have to put up USD200.00 in bail, 20% of it being in cash. But given Trump’s hold over republicans, Judge Michael J. Luttig and Professor Laurence Tribe must be so frustrated, after their major effort, and wide publicity, of their contention that Trump is not eligible to stand for public office again.

It’s now Wednesday August 23^rd.

There was no hymn singing this morning; the organist is to have major surgery today. I don’t think I would have gone, anyway, although I won’t try to see the doctor again today.  I think my cold is slightly better, although I still have a sore chest.  I shower and wash my hair, and put the washing on. I also load and start he dishwasher. I tidy up a little.

Back in US politics, some of Trump’s co-defendants have surrendered to the Fulton County jail; Trump has said he will surrender too. MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian pointed out on Morning Joe that it’s a surrender, not an arraignment, that will be taking place. Meanwhile, instead of attending the Republican presidential candidate debate, an interview between Tucker Carlson (“I hate him passionately”), and Trump, pre-recorded will be screened on Twitter (?), sic.  Well, it’s not Twitter spaces, where Ron De Santis (failed to) launched his presidential campaign, or on X, so who knows.  It will be mildly interesting to hear what Christie, Pence, et al have to say, apart from the fact that democrats are terrible and Joe Biden is a terrible president. Oh, and climate change is not a thing to be concerned about, despite ongoing evidence to the contrary. It’s difficult to see how someone old and doddery can be such a mastermind of politically-motivated indictments, while being such an amazingly good president.

There’s a new Randy Rainbow song about the Georgia indictment: here’s a link.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=596N4aPnjrs

Oh, and one of the witnesses (employee number 4?) has retracted his false testimony in the Mar-a-Lago documents case.  Evidently Giuliani can’t get a lawyer in Georgia. And Georgia has passed a law to enable the governor to get rid of an elected official, someone like Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis, should he wish to do so. While it is totally undemocratic to get rid of elected officials, I think any move to get rid of Willis would be a bit like sacking Mueller. The wide-ranging fourth indictment is arguable the most serious yet, and has already had a great deal of public attention, and no doubt will continue to attract attention.

Back here in Aotearoa, last night I wondered if we could find the Granada Television 1981 series of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.  Well, we could get in on Youtube, and what a wonderful series it is, and how beautifully filmed, given that it’s not a current or recent Netflix series, and it’s a bit blurry at times. (Perhaps we can get I Claudius too).

I had quite forgotten the beginning of the series, which depicts Ryder’s part in the army during World War II.  JD was reticent about watching this, but we both found it quite entrancing to go back there, and see, amongst other things, the clash between the Catholicism of the Marchmains (which features so prominently in the book) and Agnosticism or Atheism (as with Charles Ryder and his father). I am reminded of the novel The Masters by C. P. Snow, about a college in Cambridge University, which forms the setting for many of his novel sequence Strangers and Brothers, where one of the dons is firmly sceptical about any faith, although the election of a new master of the college is held in the college chapel. There’s also a great study of Jewishness too.  And again, of Herman Wouk’s Winds of War, where the Jewish Professor Jastrow takes issue with Byron Henry, who finds the art of the Italian Renaissance a tad boring – that’s Protestantism, says Jastrow.  Again, the novel sequence by Olivia Manning, Fortunes of War, features Guy Pringle, a university teacher and an avowed communist and atheist. In 1930’s Britain it was not unfashionable to be agnostic, or even atheistic.  At least they’re honest about their misconceptions; although communism is founded on the Christian principle of sharing so that everyone can participate in the general good.  Sadly, this has been perverted everywhere it has been tried, I believe. I find it so strange that in America many people profess to believe in God and go to church, while doing some very ungodly things and holding some very ungodly beliefs.  Even Christ’s Sermon on the Mount was recently treated with scepticism by an evangelical!  Some American commentators speak about the kinds of Christian values they were brought up with, that are ignored nowadays in the age of Trump.

Well, that’s enough for now.  Slava Ukraini! Ngā mihi nui.

Residents at Long Beach, California prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Hilary

It’s now Friday August 18^th, 2023. Kia ora!

Well, a bunch of interesting facts has emerged regarding Trump’s indictments.

Learned, white lawyerly commentators are casting some shade on D.A. Fani Willis’s Georgia “sprawling” indictment and New York D.A. Alvin Bragg’s indictment;  could it be any coincidence that they are both black, and no, they’re not pussy-footing around. So which of the four is likely to do Trump the most harm?  Some think the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, and the Georgia indictment. But no one really knows. I’m quite upset at people thinking that 4 March 2024 is unrealistically soon for a big trial; but many if not all of the co-conspirators may seek plea deals, thus avoiding a televised trial. Jenna Ellis is appealing for donations to assist her ability to pay legal fees; I believe Rudy Giuliani is too. It seems Trump is totally unlikely to repay his friends loyalty by helping them out in their hour of need. Who would have thought it!

Mehdi Hasan’s commentary on MSNBC’s Peacock sums it up nicely, including the terrible threats faced by Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss; here’s a link:

The Lawfare team, headed by Benjamin Wittes, who happened to be in Finland at the time of the fourth indictment, has logged several podcasts, despite Ben’s lack of sleep. He’s persisting in his ERAS attempts, that acronym being short for Eradication of Russian Ambassadors’ Sleep; this is part of his response to Putin’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine.  While that is very commendable, the Finnish police stepped in to thwart his latest planned activity. In a Finnish town near the Russian border, he’s feeling a bit more vulnerable, and looks to NATO for support. Yes, Washington D.C. is a very long way from any conflict between nations, and from the scary tentacles of President Putin or President Xi.

Lawfare has a newish reporter, Anna Bower, who has been on the ground in New York, Florida, Washington and Georgia as each indictment took place; she also was present for each court appearance by Trump where he gave himself up, to be released on bail. Bower has described all these situations very well, including having to hire a place-holder in the queue of press and other would-be observers. She has written an article on the activities in Coffee County, where voting machines were seized illegally. The only thing is, she reports very well, but I find her voice really hard to listen to sometimes; it can be very strident, especially lately and I guess this is because she’s very tired.  Some voices are much easier to listen to than others, and generally I prefer male voices, as long as they don’t lisp!  Editing and production are vital to remove hesitations. For the most part, the podcasts I choose to listen to are very well produced.

Apparently Trump’s small legal team is looking for volunteer lawyers.  This raises questions about whether they can be shown classified documents. It was reported on MSNBC’s Morning Joe the day before yesterday that Trump stiffed the lawyers fighting his 2^nd impeachment.

A video has emerged, first appearing on Ari Melber’s The Beat, showing Roger Stone dictating plans to “win” the presidential election, before it was even called for Joe Biden.  He is not yet named as a co-conspirator. This is on film,

Then there is the issue of Trump’s DMs (Direct Messages) on the then Twitter, eventually obtained by Jack Smith, although Elon Musk tried to stop this happening. Evidently he’s been happy to hand over such information to dictators keen to pursue their opposition. The use of DM’s by a president is insecure and inappropriate.

There’ve been threats against members of the grand jury in Georgia, against Fani Willis, and against Judge Tanya Chutkan; there is even an effort to impeach Willis by a Republican senator in the state of Georgia.

In other news, where Trump was going to hold a press conference justifying his claim of election fraud, but it has now been cancelled.  He claims his lawyers advised him not to go ahead with it. Some suspect they threatened to quit should he do so.

Apparently Mark Meadows is first to request removal of his trial to a different location. But it will still be Fani Wills prosecuting him, and doing illegal things for the former president after he’d lost the election may not be regarded as part of his day job.

Republicans have been a bit more cautious in rushing to Trump’s defence since the Georgia indictment; recent polls advise that the voting public regards the latest indictment as being quite serious, and affecting their voting decision for the presidential election of 2024.  Lindsey Graham has advised that any wrong doing should be decided at the ballot box! Oops, that is the cause of the indictments: the loser’s refusal to accept the result at the ballot box of the presidential election!  Isn’t is ironical that Republicans are so quick to accuse poorer, black people of fraud, probably because that’s what they would do themselves!  A handful of cases of voting fraud were reported: they all involved republicans.

In local news, food chain Wishbone is in liquidation. That is actually quite shocking: they were everywhere, in Wellington, anywhere: at the Airport, at the Hospital, at Victoria University, or whatever it calls itself now; with many retail outlets in the CBD. Like the earlier hamburger chains, they were reliable, and did some things really well: their potato gratin, which I bought regularly; chicken and almond sandwiches, chicken and mushroom risotto, and for a treat, beef and mushroom dinner with mashed potato. They also did a delicious chocolate fudge. They did not do coffee, scones, or salads so well, but if course you don’t have to buy them. At Wellington Hospital last week I asked for an oat milk latté; they only had coconut milk, and it came in a cardboard cup. Well, I couldn’t drink it.

It’s now Sunday August 20^th.

Yesterday we went shopping to the New World supermarket in Thorndon. It was very busy, and we had to park some way away.  But it was nice, of course; we bought cold pies to reheat since they had sold out of heated ones!  In a nod to the now departed Wishbone, we bought a dinner meal to reheat. There were only three Wishbone meals left, and sadly, no potato gratin.  JD thinks their problem was wastage; that hasn’t been mentioned in any of the press stories, btu they were probably over-exposed in Wellington.  But they were an attractive option.  Actually I read in this morning’s newspaper that from early on they donated lef00t over food to Kaibosh, one of the charities against food wastage. So well done for that.

Afterwards we had lunch at Simmer Café in Churton Park, where we shared one of their yummy pizzas and enjoyed oat milk lattés.  We later heated our pies for dinner.  The pizza does have spinach on it, so we did get some greens.

Last night I felt much better, but I did not sleep very well. We watched The Third Man on Youtube. I listened to several podcasts during the night. There were intermittently peals of thunder and heavy rain showers.

This morning I did not go to church. Our service is at JUC this morning, but I couldn’t zoom in anywhere, not there or at St John’s in Willis St as I did last January. Zoom, out great friend during the Covid pandemic, is very unreliable now. Zoom, we hated you at times, but we surely miss you when you’re unreliable.

It’s now Monday August 21^st.

Yesterday I didn’t go anywhere. I had felt better on Saturday night, and thought I was being such a fraud, but I ended up not going to church, sending an apology for the Fashion Parade charity event I was going to attend; we were supposed to have dinner at my son’s house but his daughter is very unwell so we agreed to postpone; just as well, too, because I had a bad coughing fit in the evening. So I didn’t go anywhere.

Here in Aotearoa, the election debate continues, but evidently young people are to be taught financial literacy before leaving school. Well, that’s great, and it would certainly have benefited me.  David Seymour claims that it will have to compete with teaching about the Treaty of Waitangi.  Reading this, I am reminded that there are disputes about the translation of the Te Tiriti o Waitangi itself, what it actually means, and what it meant when it was signed; in fact understanding of Te Tiriti should underpin any understanding of financial literacy, in my view; how can you have a well-rounded human being without either?

This morning I was watching a livestream of Roddy Stronach’s funeral in the Hall at Hohepa in Clive, until unfortunately the livestream cut out.  Roddy was one of the founding members of Hohepa: when he was born with Down Syndrome, the youngest

of four siblings, his aunt, Marjorie Allan, was inspired to set up Hōhepa, an anthroposophical organisation which started in Hawkes Bay, and is now also in Auckland (Titirangi), Christchurch (Barrington Street), and Otaihanga near Waikanae. So Roddy’s birth, 75 years ago, was fundamental to the organisation coming into being in Aotearoa New Zealand.  It brought with it the concept of curative education, of organic food, of a different way of living and caring and appreciating each other; it’s “Special Character” encompasses all faiths and respects and accepts all people. I have called it “a good deed in a naughty world”, quoting Shakespeare, of course.

It strikes me as ironic that Roddy, a “high functioning” person with Down Syndrome, would have great difficulty in getting into Hohepa nowadays. It seemed that he could write, and he had a lovely disposition. My daughter can write too, but she doesn’t always have a lovely disposition, although mostly she does. I don’t think she is nearly as high functioning as Roderick was. But we had great trouble getting her into Hohepa. Hohepa has its ups and downs, to be sure, but it maintains its Special Character, for the most part, and remains a special place, a haven for our special children and family members. Their care is greatly enhanced by all the celebrations of birthdays, of festivals, and of life in general. We have all learnt so much from Hōhepa.

The livestream of Roddy’s funeral was good, i0nitially, the setting was quite simple. They began with Bach’s beautiful Air on a G String. It’s surprisingly difficult to find a good recording of this wonderful music. I settled for the following, although it’s not great, in my view:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=GMkmQlfOJDk

The congregation sang “The King of Love my Shepherd is, Whose Goodness Faileth Never, I Nothing Lack if I am His, and He is Mine Forever” to a piano accompaniment.  And because I’m sentimental, and this made me tear up, here’s a link:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=d50KE9jMVWY

The choir also sang an item, beautifully: Crossing the Bar, by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Here’s a link, although the Hohepa folk sang it better, I think.

Actually I searched for other recordings while I was having my lunch. Here’s a far better one, with the advantage that you can see the singers and the words: sorry about the annoying ad in the beginning.

The livestream panned out to show a full Hall, where I recognised many people, with the musical groups at the back.  The House Manager of Harris House gave a tribute to Roddy.  There was a poem, and Santi spoke, of course, and then the livestream cut out. I was unable to refresh it, but it came back on at the end: the coffin had departed from the hall, and the choir was singing Dona Nobis Pacem. Apparently I can replay this service later if I wish.  Note: I’ve tried, without success.

Anyway, Hōhepa do death and funerals and remembrance with great respect and dignity. They favour cremation, which I do not; we’ve bought a funeral plot in a cemetery in Napier, but I am favouring having a funeral for our daughter in the Clive Hall, should the need arise (we were very nervous during the Covid pandemic, especially before vaccinations and Paxlovid).  Now she’s had Covid twice, with seemingly no ill-effects, and we’re very thankful for that. She may well outlive both her parents.

In the US, Trump’s various legal troubles hold sway and continue to dominate the news waves, although a tropical storm is bearing down on Mexico and Southern California, which could do great damage. It’s interesting to dip into now and again. I watched a Next Level podcast where the Bulwark’s Tim Miller spoke to Robbie Kaplan, E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer; The New Yorker also let me listen to one of their podcasts with Evan Osnos, Susan Glasser, and Jane Mayer – I think it’s a weekly podcast called The Political Scene.

Yesterday Emeritus Professor of Law at Harvard Laurence Tribe and Conservative Judge Michael J. Luttig went on MSNBC and CNN and possibly other networks to talk about how Trump is disqualified under the Constitution from holding office again; they’ve also written an article in The Atlantic setting out this view.  Just as a reminder, Professor Tribe, who is a regular commentator on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, taught Ted Cruz and other lawyers who’ve then sought to “bend” the constitution, or use it in ways that the Founding Fathers did not intend. Be that as it may, they make a strong case.  It’s noted that the American legal system, for all its many flaws, held up multiple times against Trump’s efforts to steal the presidential election; he’s also quite unrepentant about the many crimes he is alleged to have committed – he has no shame, no guilt, whatsoever.

It’s also apparent that a cast of thousands or certainly many people tried to help Trump in his efforts to overturn the results of the democratic election.  One of his supposedly mild mannered lawyers, Kenneth Chesebro, who formerly espoused liberal causes, was at the heart of legal efforts to subvert the election. Apparently he was at Washington’s Capitol on January 6, following conspirator Alex Jones around: this is lawyering? This was caught on film, like so much of the evidence in these cases.  He was named in the Georgia indictment, and he’s suspected of being one of the co-conspirators not actually named by Special Counsel Jack Smith.  So the size of this operation continues to amaze me.  But what about Ginni Thomas and her texts and phone calls to Mark Meadows?  Why has she not been charged?  Note that she’s the wife of Clarence Thomas, a black man and a Supreme Court Justice. And what about Roger Stone?

Trump has indicated that he’ll skip the upcoming Republican debate by would-be republican candidates for the presidential nomination. This is to be hosted by Fox News, with Bret Baier and Martha McCallum as anchors. He’s seeking instead an interview with Tucker Carlson, formerly Fox’s poster boy, who resigned suddenly a few months ago.  It’s not known what platform this potential interview will be delivered on.  Carlson is on record as saying “I hate him passionately”, him being Trump.  Trump is also to present himself to the court in Fulton County by 25 August. It’s expected he’ll have a mug shot taken, be fingerprinted, and perhaps weighed; so there’ll be drama, whatever happens. Perhaps CNN will have a split screen, showing the debate and what, exactly?

The debate will be interesting, as Christie is going to attack Trump very effectively; Pence is getting braver in speaking out against his former boss; Asa Hutchinson and Sununu won’t support Trump, but Ron de Santis was advised to support Donald Trump, in a debate-prep memo that was released days ago. Huh?

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

The Georgia Indictment is eventually released

Today is Friday August 11^th, 2023. Kia ora!

Today someone is supposed to come from Access, but the regular person is not available and my cold is still quite miserable, so I cancel. I could go into town and have my blood test, but I don’t even feel up to that.

It was a very cold start this morning (2°C), but it became much warmer during the day; I’m wearing a woollen roll-top jersey, but it’s almost too warm, a big contrast to the cold yesterday.

It’s now Sunday August 13^th.

On Friday I felt a bit coldy, but yesterday was worse: I had a really running nose all day, and I didn’t go out at all, although I’d had plans to go grocery shopping and perhaps go to one of the movies at Pauatahanui.  I wasn’t going anywhere!  JD brought something home for lunch, and we had takeaways for dinner. Last night we happened on Fisk on Netflix, an Australian comedy that takes a no-so-subtle dig at some annoying features of Australian society.  It may even have been written by a New Zealander!

This morning I feel better, although I’m still coughing lots. I get out the Prospan again.  I do a Covid 19 test; thankfully it’s negative.  I do plan to go shopping again, wearing a mask.  I tried to zoom into my church service, but sadly zoom is being totally frustrating:  there is video, but a constant buzzing, and I couldn’t hear the minister speaking. Another couple leave, and then I leave too.

But I did read Psalm 85, which is one of the readings, and the text for next Tuesday’s Bible Study from Genesis chapter 45, when Joseph makes himself known to his brothers, who had many years earlier tried to get rid of him.  It is such a moving scene; I hope I am well enough to go next Tuesday morning.

It’s now Tuesday August 15^th.

Sadly, I don’t feel great today. Yesterday was a special day, and I thought I was much better; we had lunch at the lovely Picnic Café at the Botanical Gardens Rose Garden, since all my favourite places were closed on a Monday. It was too early for roses, but it was lovely, anyway. Afterwards JD dropped me off in The Terrace to get my blood test. It was very busy at SCL labs, and I had to wait a while.  Afterwards I tried to go shopping, and wondered about having another coffee, but caught a bus to Churton Park.  Unfortunately I felt really unwell on the trip home.  A very large person sat next to me, and although other seats became available, they didn’t get off until we were well into Churton Park. I’ve no objection to someone sitting next to me, but I did find this a tad oppressive, probably because I wasn’t feeling well, and I wondered why they didn’t move as seats became available.

Last night I did not feel well, I’m afraid; I reheated leftovers for dinner, and we watched the episode of Brokenwood Murders that supposedly aired on Sunday evening.  By myself, I’ve been watching a series on Netflix called Painkiller, about efforts to bring the Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family to justice.  I found it immensely disturbing; I’ve read the terrible statistics, and listened to an American Scandal podcast series about this tragedy, but it’s still very upsetting to see just how difficult it remains to bring them to justice. They don’t express any remorse about the damage they’ve caused, not just to people who became addicted, but their families and those around them who suffer the consequences. The marketing techniques are very suspect, too.  Thank goodness we have a less commercial medical system here in New Zealand. What a dreadful health system the US has.

I take another Covid 19 test this morning, which, again, is negative.  There seemed to be no Covid report yesterday, and Prime Minister Hipkins announced that the two remaining Covid restrictions were removed: wearing masks in medical situations, and being in isolation for seven days if you test positive. The removal was effective more or less, immediately, I understand. At the SCL lab I dutifully wore my mask, and they had spare masks, but a woman sat next to me defiantly not wearing a mask.  Are you still supposed to notify a positive test? Is Healthline still supposed to ring you?

Meanwhile, I have excused myself from today’s Bible Study and tomorrow morning’s hymn singing.  I hope I’ll be well enough to attend events next weekend, and wonder if I should attempt the arduous task of trying to see a doctor.

In the US, (I do try to stay away from American politics!), everyone is awaiting a fourth indictment for Trump in Georgia.  It hasn’t happened yet, security is huge, and people are still testifying to the grand jury. I won’t comment further, except to say that Trump looks worried. That’s a change.

It’s now 1:20 pm here. Apparently the grand jury in Georgia has voted to indict Trump. There are ten indictments, apparently, but we don’t know yet what they are. So that’s news – the fourth indictment.  At last. It’s certainly been teased, this indictment. It’s being covered firstly by ANF, a channel that is new to me, based in Atlanta, I think. It’s now evening in America, so it’s all quite dramatic. 

Meanwhile, for the last few days, I’ve been following the deadly death toll from fires and a typhoon in Hawaii on the island of Maui; the shocking death toll was initially 6; I think that last I heard was 89, with more expected.  There are terrible sad stories of people dying in their cars; if escaping into the sea, if they could; pictures show complete devastation, like a bomb site. It’s been compared to Hiroshima.

Coming back to the Georgia indictments: I try watching TYT’s Chenk, CBS and CNN, but it is Rachel Maddow, of course, who delivers this news in style. Actually it’s assumed that at least one of the indictments is against Trump; this grand jury was looking into interference in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. News just broke that this interference was greater even than previously reported, with an  election machine being seized in one county (Coffee Country).

At 3:45 pm the New York Times reports that Trump and 18 others have been indicted. They’re published the list of indictments (41, not 40), and there are no surprises there: it includes Trump, Giuliani, Eastman, Clarke, Jenna Ellis, Mark Meadows and others, all charged under RICO charges. They have until August 25 to surrender to the court in Atlanta. They also include someone who lied to and threatened Ruby Moss and tried to get her to confess to wrongdoing.

Now Rachel Maddow and her team are back, reading the indictments, and analysing them as they go; they’re getting quite good at this!

I am listening to this, while my cell phone coverage switches to another video. That is so annoying, but it often happens, alas.

It’s now Wednesday August 16^th.

Yesterday I rang to cancel today’s hair appointment; this morning I send an apology to my Te Reo class. I do ring the medical centre, and amazingly get an appointment in one of their cabins later on this morning. I take the last dose of cough mixture, so we’ll have to get some more. I do another Covid 19 test, and it’s negative, again. I still don’t feel like going anywhere.

I manage to cough lots at the doctor’s, but she finds my chest clear, although it hurts a bit and I’m coughing up coloured phlegm.  So she doesn’t prescribe antibiotics but she does prescribe Prednisone, if I need it. She’s nice and helpful, thankfully. 

When I get there, it’s raining again, and I haven’t worn a raincoat, just my waist length puffer jacket. Afterwards I make my way to the Johnsonville Shopping Centre to get my prescriptions made up. There’s no more faxing scripts to the wrong chemist.  JD has agreed to pick me up there, but not till much later. I don’t feel like shopping, but I offer to get lunch from Nada Bakery; an ambitious adventure, but I know he has a meeting in the early afternoon and not much time.

I make my way outside, but by now it’s raining really heavily, so I need to find a stronger tote bag, and my lunch bag, and cash card. I can’t find my woolly hat.  At Nada I buy some sandwiches and cakes; fortunately, it’s not crowded there, but it is a tad awkward, as one has to reach up to the eftpos machine, and they don’t offer to pack my goods like they would at Parsons’ in Khandallah.  I make my way outside, where it’s still pouring with rain. There’s nowhere to sit, and hardly anywhere to stand that’s not wet.  JD is to pick me up there, but I don’t see his car, although there are plenty of places to stop. Eventually I ring him, and he’s parked outside Westpac, quite a way down the road. 

Tomorrow morning a physiotherapist is coming at 9:30 am to do an urgent assessment for ACC. Although I have my Thursday singing later that morning, she insisted on coming to visit Cassandra.

I’ve listened to more coverage about the Georgia DA’s far-ranging indictment.  This is on a different level, though; these charges, if proved, carry minimum sentences of prison time, and furthermore, they cannot be pardoned, being state rather than federal charges. This is next level, serious stuff: Fani Willis is not pussying around, nor is she afraid of insults or offending anyone. You can now see the need for all the security.  Trump was right to look worried, if the file photo matched his so-called emotions; other indictments may still be coming.  The RICO charges seem particularly appropriate, given his liking and propensity for mob bosses. There are now four indictments on Trump for his activities around the January 6 insurrection. Four!

Okay, it seemed a tad disorganised, with the indictments being delivered late on what was their Monday night. But hey, go Fani Willis!  I have been rooting for her ever since it was announced that she was investigating events around the Georgia election.  Her rather annoying colleague, Gwen Keys-Fleming, kept appearing on MSNBC, as we waited breathlessly for her determinations. 

Despite the guys dreaming up some issues with this, most commentators are very impressed. This trial will be televised, and nay take place quite soon – in the next six months.  Marjorie Taylor Greene has rushed into Twitter’s new form, saying Fani Willis should concentrate on catching rapists.  Well, I seldom agree with MTG, but this time (like in her recent endorsement of Biden), she got it on the nail.  A New York judge has agreed that Trump raped E. Jean Carroll.

It’s now Thursday August 17^th.

I send apologies for singing this morning, and for my prayer group this afternoon. I’m not feeling great, and I wonder if the doctor got it right yesterday morning.  I’ still coughing and wheezing.

ACC send a physiotherapist to do an urgent assessment at 9:30 am.  Actually ACC have given her minimal information, and she asks me to recount what happened to me. It’s exhausting, of course, but she actually listens to what I have to say. That makes a pleasant change!

Meanwhile, the dust is kind of settling after Trump’s fourth indictment. One podcast I listened to was called May the Fourth Indictment be with you, in a funny nod to Star Wars.  It talked about the reality television aspect of these indictments: the huge team of journalists waiting around for news; the judge and other officials involved; the drama of an indictment being released, and then the analysis and discussion that follows, as the various crimes therein and co-conspirators are revealed and the implications spoken of.  One thing’s for sure, that despite admiration for Special Counsel Jack Smith, and his speedy work, there is even greater admiration and respect for Fani Willis, elected D.A. of Fulton County, Georgia, and the mass of evidence she has been able to uncover, and the fact that her grand jury voted for these indictments.  There is alternately a certain ennui – I’m so over/bored with this, shock as the former president’s indictments accumulate, and horror at the extent of Trump’s crimes. There is no question that he was in charge of the conspiracy, and that his many underlings were obeying his orders, implicit or direct.  But the Georgia indictment is special: the trial will be televised (I believe March 2024 is the date Willis has given); there cannot be pardons, at least not for five years; and if guilty, there are mandatory minimum prison sentences (5 – 20 years, I believe). The fact that Trump’s lot accessed voting machines in Coffee County without approval, and that a false set of electors was drawn up before the 2020 presidential election, are terrifying new details that many of us did not know  before. This is serious stuff, and should be taken very seriously. Some have dismissed the New York D.A. Alvin Bragg’s hush money case as no big deal; the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago case is to be heard by a Trump appointed judge, Aileen Cannon, and although this is an extremely serious matter, the judge has little experience, has erred before, and is suspected of being in Trump’s court, as they put it; then there’s the E. Jean Carroll defamation case in New York (not one of the current four indictments), Letitia James’ investigation into Trump’s taxes, and Jack Smith’s indictment in Washington D.C. for Trump’s activities on January 6 2021  and his efforts to overturn the presidential election. All this is very serious stuff, but it’s rather “trumped” by Fani Willis’s Wide-ranging indictment of Trump’s activities in Georgia (and other states) to claim victory in this election by all kinds of nefarious means.  America only escaped by a very narrow thread, by a few republicans who were honest, and prepared to be honest, in thwarting Trump’s pressure and desires.  Retired Judge Michael Luttig is featuring on many podcasts, as his advice (by Twitter, as it was then) to Mike Pence’s lawyer was one of the handful of crucial pieces to Pence’s refusal to conduct dishonestly his task on January 6^th, to certify the presidential election. Oh, and Dan Quayle, of all people, told him he couldn’t do what Trump wanted, either. Who would have thought that a guy who couldn’t spell tomato had these legal smarts?

As JD noted, Trump, Putin and Xi, two dictators and one would-be dictator all continue to dominate the airwaves and the news. There is plenty of other stuff happening, of course; it’s good to listen to The Rest is Politics podcast where Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell continue to provide a wider spectrum of events and elections in Europe and Africa, as well as the UK and the US. But what is happening in the Middle East, or Asia, including India, or South America?  Thankfully JD reads the British Economist, so he at least tries to keep up with the news. And Ukraine, anyone? The brutal war continues. The climate crisis continues to ravage disparate parts of our globe, and yet some deny it.

It’s very upsetting to see so much retrograde activity, with so many right-wing movements gaining strength; I thought the issue of women’s rights to be considered the equal of men, of gay rights to be accepted, of kindness to everyone, including immigrants and those of other faiths or skin-colour, of non-violence, kindness to children, and so on, were achieved and accepted. After all, what right do governments have to regulate such personal activities?  One doesn’t have to take part in any activity if you don’t want to.

The US Republican Party calls for little government, and talks about defunding the FBI and the Department of Justice, and yet they would be extremely intrusive about examining women’s and gay people’s medical and travel records. As the climate crisis makes more areas unliveable, because there is far too much rain water, or none at all, and there are catastrophic events of nature such as fires and typhoons, as well as unstable or oppressive governments, there will be more migration, and yet many countries are making it more and more difficult to move to their country, whatever the circumstances of the migrants. 

I should end now.  I’m not saying things were better in the “old days”, whenever they were!  They were different, though. Some things are better now, some worse.  Pornography and abuse of any kind is rightly scorned, and yet there is a glorification of “maleness” and degradation of women in many societies and queer people which doesn’t do anyone any good.

Enough said. Slava Ukraini!  Ngā mihi nui.

The wonder of Vermeer

Today is Sunday August 6th, 2023. Kia ora!

This morning it’s still very cold. I go to church, which is being held in the Hall, where it is supposedly warmer.  I tried to get there early, seeing that I was to do the gospel reading.  But there were already lots of people there.  It’s different from the church, where there is a lectern and a microphone; in the hall, there is a lectern, but nowhere to sit, and you have to hold the microphone. I asked my co-reader to hold the microphone for me.  Then there were beanbags put out for Tamariki Time, so one had to negotiate them too!

I am always nervous before doing a reading, and I had agonised over just how much to add to my reading of the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, from Matthew 14: 13-21.  When I looked this text up, I realised that this incident came straight after King Herod’s birthday party, where the beheading of John the Baptist occurs.  The disciples take John’s body and bury it, and tell Jesus.  He goes away to a desert place, but crowds follow him, and then we have the miracle of the loaves and fishes, where a little food – perhaps enough for 10-12 people, is blessed and given by the disciples to over 5,000 men and women and children.  After this, we have another miracle, where Jesus walks on water and calms the wind and the waves.  So it’s a wonderful text, and this miracle is recounted in all four gospels.  After a tragic event (the death of John the Baptist), there is a miraculous meal, and then another miracle.  It’s understandably easy to be saddened and frustrated by tragic events, but Jesus’ power is even greater than this.

Afterwards two of the people who spoke to me had not realised that the killing of John the Baptist came immediately before the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, so I was glad that I had mentioned it.  There used to be a (fairly basic) café called Loaves and Fishes next to St Paul’s Cathedral in Molesworth Street in Thorndon.

There is so much one could say about this text, which most of us are familiar with from Sunday School; it’s a really well-known miracle, but a rather wonderful one. I was taught that feeding the crowds really meant feeding them spiritually, as well as literally.  It’s notable too that the disciples were asked to distribute the food, and that twelve handbaskets of leftovers were taken up afterwards.

We spent some time lamenting the state of the world – the ongoing war in Ukraine, violence in many places, and sickness and famine and homelessness, yet in spite of such horrors, I guess the Gospel reading tells us that God’s power and love is greater than that of King Herod, who was quite the consummate politician, it seems, rescuing his state of Judaea, and making an uneasy peace with the Roman Emperor Augustus.

It’s now Monday August 7^th.

This morning we had a heat pump installed.  We also had the builders here, and one of our sons was going to do another tip run with a trailer.  I was expecting a friend to come, but I had put her off – thankfully, because it was busy and noisy and chaotic here, and there were lots of cars and vans, one parked across the top of the driveway.

I had become used to the builders being very well behaved, and not really bothering me at all, but the heat pump guy was a different story! Actually the result is quite wonderful, but it was a bit trying getting there. 

In between all this, I walked up to the store, to get some more magnesium tablets and go to the supermarket.  I wanted to get croissants for lunch, but although they had croissants on special, all the packages were dated 5 August, or earlier; it’s the 7^th today, so I ended up buying two loose croissants. While I was there, I ran into two old friends. It seemed quiet mild when I walked up there.

In the afternoon it seemed to get much cooler, so we were really pleased to have more heating, although to be honest I would have no idea what the temperature is outside.

The weekly Covid 19 report came out today, as expected. It reads as follows: there have been 4,645 new cases of Covid-19 reported in New Zealand over the past week and 10 further deaths. Of the new cases, 2304 were reinfections.

The total number of deaths attributed to the virus in New Zealand is now 3229.

As of midnight on Sunday, there were 160 cases in hospital, with five people in intensive care. The seven-day rolling average of new cases was 659.

Last week, the Ministry of Health reported 3615 new cases over the previous week and 22 further deaths. So frustratingly the numbers are still holding steady.

It’s now Tuesday August 8^th.

Last night we watched the latest episode of Brokenwood Mysteries on TVNZ+.  It was a very Kiwi episode featuring a would-be community of nuns that wasn’t actually affiliated to the Catholic Church. Fern Sutherland i.e. Kristin Sims recalled several years of education at the hands of nuns, and rather took delight in shocking them. The detective in charge took delight in getting nuns who had supposedly taken a vow of silence to actually speak.  There were lots of puns on the word nun, and a deal of irreverence, that was not entirely inappropriate given that this wasn’t actually a community of nuns who had been ordained or had taken their vows. Their habits (old-fashionedly conventional) covered up tattoos and trousers.  There was a nun who gamed on her mobile phone, so a lot of deception going on.  It shocked me that the nuns had no personal possessions,  but then of course they did not. That’s one of the points of renouncing things.

Last night it was very cold, according to the forecast, but amazingly it’s mot that cold inside. I went to Bible Study this morning; it was really cold and wet, but afterwards it stopped raining and was briefly sunny. I got home using public transport.  The Bible Study was following on from my reading of the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, in Matthew 14, where Jesus walks on water to his disciples, who, yet again, doubt that he is really Jesus;  Peter walks on water to meet Jesus, but then becomes afraid when he looks at the wind.  Jesus reaches out and saves him, and then the stormy weather dies down.  So after the beheading of John and Baptist, there are not one, but two miracles – or three if you count Peter’s walking on water before he got scared.

After I got home we went up to the local café for lunch, where we shared one of their delicious pizzas, and enjoyed oat lattés again.

It’s now Wednesday August 8^th.

This morning I got up early to go to hymn singing, while watching my phone to see if it had been cancelled. It was very cold – frosty, too, and my phone told me it was about 2°C outside. But I was toasty warm, thankfully, so I didn’t have trouble getting up. It was lovely, of course.  There is one more session before our organist is scheduled to have his surgery, and we discussed options of keeping in touch with his progress.

Afterwards I came home using public transport. Although it was so cold to start with, after singing it was fine and sunny, of not still pretty cold. But it was fine to sit in a bus shelter, since it wasn’t windy or raining.  There was disruption to the trains this morning, on account of ice on the overhead wires. But the buses were working fine, although I was caught out by Metlink’s online tracking facility, when the #24 bus turned up on time!

I spent the rest of the day quietly at home, since tomorrow is likely to be a busy day.

It’s now Thursday August 10^th.

Last night it was very cold, and this morning too, and it’s not fine, it’s wet and windy too. But thanks to the new heat pump, it was actually warmer in the master bedroom and the hallway outside than in the main living room. Usually it’s the other way round.

Today I had a specialist appointment at Wellington Hospital, but I had planned to go to an EOS (Exhibition on Screen) movie about the Dutch painter Vermeer at the Penthouse Cinema at 11 am. It’s on this Thursday morning and next Thursday morning and one evening, so there aren’t many viewing times. I’d excused myself from other activities, and to tell the truth, I’m fighting off some cold symptoms, but I tested negative for Covid 19, and I’m not coughing and sneezing lots, so although I didn’t feel great, I went to the movie. JD chose not to come, but he dropped me off, thankfully. The film was 90 minutes long, and I’m so pleased that I saw it, although it was pretty cold in the theatre.

Some of the EOS films have lots of annoying dialogue; this did not, although it focused on a recent Rijksmuseum exhibition of Vermeer’s work. I didn’t agree with all their interpretations, and the gallery seemed very dark: I have to agree with JD that some coloured backgrounds (for example, dark brown!) don’t work for me and don’t enhance the paintings, in my view.

Vermeer, a 17th century painter, lived in Delft, a small but beautiful city, and died young, at 43. Little is know about him, but there was a drawing school near where he lived, and he has a small oeuvre – 38 or 45 paintings, depending on whom you listen to. He was brought up Protestant, but his wife was a catholic, and they had 11 children, 8 daughters and 3 sons. 

I had seen an exhibition of Vermeer’s work at the Washington National Gallery in 2006, but it did not include all these works, especially not his early works. They’re all wonderful, of course.  He was influenced by Caravaggio and other Italian painters.  There was an early painting of Christ with Martha and her sister Mary; also a painting of Diana with her nymphs, but no portraits, self-portraits or otherwise, and few groups – the only one we saw, The Procurer, features four people, one of whom may be Vermeer.  There is a splendid oriental rug in the background. Vermeer did wonderful things with light and colour – the Master of Light, he’s called. An authority commented that he wasn’t concerned with perspective, but his keen use of perspective was one of the first things that I noticed in is paintings, remembering my perspective lessons. 

But what wonderful paintings! It seems there are two main subjects, but none of his women (or girls, some look very young) look oppressed or unhappy.  The setting is usually similar – a somewhat plain corner of a room, with black and white tiles on the floor, a simple desk, or keyboard, and, most importantly, an opened window, through which light comes. Letters often feature – being read, or written, so his heroines must have been literate, and one remembers how important letters were as a means of communication, in these days well before mobile phones, email and other forms of direct messaging anywhere at any time.

Within this simple setting there are interesting backgrounds, mostly of maps, but sometimes of scenes from myth, such as a naked cherub!

And he really likes pearls: often the heroine is wearing a string of pearls around her neck, and a pearl earring; there are jewellery boxes with pearls; and in the later paintings the lady wears a dress trimmed with ermine fur. In one painting the lady seems to have papers in her hair to produce ringlets! I remember my mother trying to produce Saturday night ringlets in my (and my sisters’) straight hair. In one painting the lady looks at the artist, with a light smile on her face, and through the window, each time, Vermeer does wonderful things with the light, shining perhaps on the earring; the dots of light in his early paintings become more sophisticated blobs of white. But there are no brush strokes.

Afterwards, JD said he was on his way, so I had an oat milk latté while I waited. The café was extremely busy; when JD arrived, we had something to eat, and discussed Vermeer’s work.  Then JD drove me to Wellington Hospital, to the Grace Neill Block, where I’d had four of my babies. But this was an emergency exit, and we had to find another entrance.  I was early, and so had to wait for a bit. There was no one else in the waiting room, which I found a little odd. Thankfully no one quizzed me about my cold symptoms. Actually I wasn’t coldie while I was there.

The upshot of the appointment is that I should have another blood test and a scan.

Afterwards, I found my way to the Wishbone coffee bar, not a great place. I ordered a coconut latté – which I couldn’t drink, it’s not nearly as nice as an oat milk latté.  Then JD picked me up, and thankfully there’s a pick up area at the main entrance, with plenty of places to sit down.

In the US, Trump continues to threaten the people who would hold him accountable, such as Jack Smith, Fani Willis, and Alvin Bragg. Meanwhile he continues to rise in the polls.

I’d better stop now. In Ukraine, brutality continues, and it remains difficult to know what is happening.  Slava Ukraini!  Ngā mihi nui.

An artist’s depiction of Trump in court in Washington D.C.

It’s Monday July 31^st, 2023. Kia ora!

There have been 3615 new cases of Covid-19 reported in New Zealand over the past week and 22 further deaths. Of the new cases, 1781 were reinfections. In addition, 116 people were in hospital as at midnight Sunday, and five in intensive care. The seven-day rolling average of cases was 514.

Last week saw 3764 new cases reported and 24 further deaths. The numbers are coming down, at last, although people are still getting Covid 19, many having avoided it up till now.

A friend of ours came for lunch.  We had a lovely chat, and I think the food worked out all right!  I don’t usually invite people for lunch!  For the record, I made rare roast beef sandwiches with mustard, horseradish sauce, mayonnaise and mesclun leaves; Havarti cheese with crackers and quince paste; and a rather nice slice with coconut, sultanas and chocolate pieces, and plenty of tea and coffee, of course. I would have liked to buy some fruit, but at New World in Khandallah most things I wanted were either missing or really expensive.

It’s now Thursday August 3^rd.

What a lot’s been happening!  Yesterday Trump was indicted on charges relating to the January 6 2021 insurrection, not of inspiring his followers to be violent, but for his actions consequent on refusing to accept that Joe Biden had won the November 2020 presidential election and conspiring to stay in power.  Many lies were told, not only by Trump himself, but by others who lied for him. Well, it’s been some time coming, but I felt yesterday morning, and still today, that it’s an important moment, and one to savour. As Susan Glasser said in this norming’s Bulwark podcast, justice is being delivered, even if politically Trump is stronger than ever, according to a recent poll.  This poll had De Santis’ support declining further, and none of Trump’s other Republican contenders made over 2% in this particular poll.

Of course there were several emergency broadcasts and podcasts yesterday, providing a feast of listening, if one is so inclined. For the many Americans who’ve been on Indictment Watch, this has finally happened, and as it’s an ongoing case, there may be further indictments; of course, there’s still the Georgia case to drop, by brave Fulton County DA Fani Willis.  And there’s another case to be held where E. Jean Carroll is suing Trump for defaming her again (n CNN!), and Alvin Bragg’s case about hush money payments to porn stars before the 2016 election. This is regarded as small beer by many, but not by all, however. Whatever the outcomes, it all adds up to a lot of time in court, and a lot of legal fees.

On Tuesday I met two old friends from Tai Chi for lunch in Johnsonville.  How I miss Tai Chi!  It was lovely to see them again. They’re both tutors, but they’re a bit short of other tutors for their weekly classes (now Thursdays only: I used to go on a Tuesday but they no longer hold classes on a Tuesday).

Afterwards JD and I went to Porirua where we bought cupboard handles and drawer handles. But sadly, no new curtains: Mitre 10 Mega doesn’t sell curtains. We had afternoon tea at the lovely Columbus Café there, sharing a cheese scone (still delicious) and an apple and berry shortcake with our oat milk lattés. 

On Wednesday morning I got up early to go to hymn singing. During Tuesday night it was quite warm – I was too hot, although it was forecast to be much cooler. It was quite mild in the morning, too, although it rained off and on. However I went to a Te Reo Māori class afterwards, and when I came out it was freezing cold, with a very cold wind. JD wasn’t answering his phone; I had expected to stay later for an exercise class and go shopping, but it was too cold and I was too tired to stay. I caught a bus to Johnsonville, after waiting a few minutes in the cold bus “shelter”, and then another bus to Churton Park.  Later that afternoon JD and I went to New World in Thorndon, where we bought rhubarb, raspberries and coffee beans, but sadly there were no potato-topped pies. It felt too cold for salads.

Last night it was very cold indeed. We are currently watching the latest series of “The Bay” on TVNZ+, since our viewing options are very limited now.   I went to bed quite early, thinking I’d be warmer in bed. I’ve finished reading Ruth Reichl’s memoir, Tender at the Bone, and have that typical sense of dislocation on finishing a book which I’ve really enjoyed, and being reluctant to start another one.

This morning I went to my Thursday morning singing. Despite the freezing cold, there was a good turnout there. JD had dropped me off early, so I was able to have an oat milk latté and a cheese scone beforehand.  The irony of avoiding dairy milk in my coffee, but presumably having it in my scone, does not escape me. However I enjoy them both. Afterwards a friend brought me home, and then JD brought some things home for lunch.  Now I’m comfortable and nearly warm enough as I listen to more indictment stuff.

It’s now Friday August 4^th.

Today (actually yesterday in the US) Trump was arraigned in a Washington court.  MSNBC and TYT have reported on this. Also the BBC.  The reporter bravely asked a Trump spokesman some questions. It was difficult to watch!  Even the BBC aren’t used to this kind of stonewalling. She denied that Trump had committed crimes!  And of course we had what-about-ism with how dreadful the Democrats are. Well, whatever your thoughts about the 2020 US presidential election, it’s hard to deny that Trump committed crimes, along with many who went along with his lies. Mehdi Hasan just did a show demonstrating police violence using tear gas and bomber planes towards Black Lives Matter peaceful protests in Washington after the death of George Floyd at the hands of police.  Mehdi showed again the huge double standard where republicans are prepared to come down hard on BLM marchers, but give any of their own cronies a wide berth in overlooking their violent and disgusting behaviour.

Lawfare have also made another emergency recording about the Trump arraignment.  Only the American media can make so much out of a seemingly smallish event, on every channel, but then this is a really big moment – for the world. The Lawfare broadcast gives lots of information, like the fact that Evan Corcoran is there, seemingly for Trump’s defence, although he is a likely prosecution witness in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. That is strange, although perhaps Trump is really short of lawyers. Apparently Jack Smith was there, looking relaxed and even smiling; he and Trump made eye contact. Unusually, several judges were there, including Amy Berman Jackson, who judged a number of the Mueller cases.  Apparently Trump pled Not Guilty to the four charges (I heard there are 78 felony counts in all? That can’t be right, surely? (It was repeated by Chris Hayes on his All In program). He’s claimed that his arraignment is a sad day for America. Indeed, it is. Most presidents don’t do crimes: keeping and showing and lying about classified documents, raping someone, concealing hush money payments, and not only inspiring an insurrection, but failing to close it down, despite people being hurt and killed. Oh yes, he called on his supporters to hang his vice-president. Most people don’t do those kinds of things. But yes, on this occasion I agree with Trump. He was accompanied by Nauta, his body guard, also indicted, in the Mar-a-Lago documents case.  None of his family turned up.  There didn’t seem to be many fans outside, either. The biggest crowd was the press, and plenty of people who were there to celebrate this moment. The arraignment took place very near the scene of the crime – the January 6 crime.

Actually it’s really interesting listening to different reactions and descriptions. Apparently Trump had to wait quite a while (15 minutes) in court.  That’s interesting; I doubt if he’s kept waiting very often. He was also addressed as Mr Trump in the court. He cut a rather sadly different figure, fidgeting while waiting for the judge to arrive; He was finger-printed!   Some humiliation there then.

Back here, in Auckland, there’s been another shooting, leaving two people injured. The gunman got away on a Lime scooter. One of the men shot later died.

Today it’s not so cold, and it’s kind of fine and sunny.  Still, we won’t get carried away just yet about the cold spell being over.

In the afternoon we went into town so that JD could get a blood test.  We found a carpark, and he showed other people the routine – that you take a number, and scan it, and wait for your number to be called, but sadly the blood test request was out of date!  We had put off going earlier because SCL staff were on strike! I went to the Mojo Café across the road, but sadly the kitchen was closed, it was very expensive, and not very good.

Afterwards we went out to North City at Porirua, where I moseyed around the shops. I do find the odours in the Food Court quite upsetting! It was nice to go but I didn’t see anything much to buy there.

It’s now Saturday August 5^th.

It’s kind of fine, and quite cold here again; JD wants to see Barbie (the movie); he figures that since it was made by Disney, it won’t come on Neon or Netflix.  But bookings for both Barbie and Oppenheimer are very full, if not fully booked, so I don’t think we’ll be going today.

I’ve watched and listened to yet more podcasts about the third Trump indictment. There are some great takeaways: Mike Pence selling merchandise with T shorts featuring “Too Honest” (Trump reportedly told him he was too honest to steal the election). Another one is from Jason Miller, still a Trump supporter, who talked about “Conspiracy S*** sent down from the mother ship”. Really, a line for the ages. And one of Trump’s lawyers, John Lauro, admitted in an interview to some of Trump’s wrongdoing.  That too has been picked up by several commentators.

Meanwhile, local politics is annoying. The media seem to really want a National Party coalition to win.  Act has ruled out working with Winston Peters’ NZ First; Christopher Luxon is not so sure. Peter Dunne (who once belonged to Labour) now decries them.  Do people really want Luxon as Prime Minister? Hipkins is doing quite well as preferred Prime Minister, but some of his party are letting him down.  Still, as I said to a friend recently, my biggest hope is that Biden wins the next US Presidential election. As long as that happens, I think I’d be prepared to put up with a National led government.

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

An old, comfortable if shabby couch – free to a kind home

It’s now Monday July 24, 2023. Kia ora!

Well, it’s carpet laying day today, and the carpet layers turned up promptly at 8 am.  I got up well before 7 am and was duly breakfasted and showered before they came. The builders came a little later, and continued their work of pulling up the existing carpet and nailing down floorboards.  I moved more things from the master bedroom into the ensuite bathroom, and moved essential stuff downstairs, such as meds, toothbrush, newspaper, mobile phone and charger, computer and other essentials.

JD and I went up to Simmer Café for morning tea again.  It’s very cold this morning, and raining off and on, so we drove up rather than walking. I remarked that there weren’t many people there, but JD reminded me that it was only 9 am!  We had our usual oat milk lattés, and I had a cinnamon pinwheel (freshly baked), while JD had his usual – a blueberry muffin. Delicious. When we returned home, we went downstairs to come into the house. I am quite comfortable in one of the downstairs bedrooms, with the heater on, of course.

Yesterday afternoon JD made a superhuman effort to clear the dining room table, and other papers that he’d managed to hang onto. I say superhuman, but he’d left it to the last minute, and I was very cross with him.  We photographed and packed up the large jigsaw puzzle that was on top of the table.  I proceeded to establish that we can take the extension out of the table. What a lovely dining table it is. It’s quite wide, so you can have it as a table for four; you can put up the folding extensions at either end and have a table for six, or you can put the extension in the middle and have lots of people sitting there, providing you can find enough chairs that are safe to sit on!

I hope that JD can be tidier after this. 

Last night we watched the first episode of the new series of Brokenwood Mysteries; I managed to stay awake for the whole episode, and I also picked the guilty party.  Fern Sutherland has changed her hair – or is she wearing a wig? The detective now sports some grey hair, has gained more weight, and has rather ugly reading glasses. Having said that, I thought it was quite a good episode, with lots of Shakespeare!

Today the weekly Covid 19 report is published. It is as follows: there have been 3764 new cases of Covid-19 reported in New Zealand over the past week and 24 further deaths.

Of the new cases, 1844 were reinfections – close to half. One-hundred-and-nineteen people are in hospital, and three in intensive care. The seven-day rolling average of cases has dropped to 535.

Five deaths were reported in Auckland, six from Waikato, one from Bay of Plenty, one from Hawke’s Bay, one from the Wellington region, three from Nelson-Marlborough, three from Canterbury, one from West Coast and three from Southern.

Last week saw 4332 new cases reported and 13 further deaths.

It’s now Tuesday July 25^th.

Last night we were back to some kind of normality, in the main living room, anyway. I was going to put china back in one china cabinet, but it’s hard to get to this china!  We discovered that although the Sky cable has been cut (by mistake), we could log into TVNZ+ On Demand using my login, so although it wasn’t very consistent, we were able to watch Nicola Walker in Unforgotten (Series 4).  I think I have seen it before, but no matter, it’s good to see it again. JD thinks we don’t need the Sky cable; I still like to watch some things on Eden, or Prime, or Bravo;  it seems we can get Te Whakaata Māori on screen and select something to view.  It would be nice to not need the Sky cable any more.

This morning the carpet layers were due to come at 8:30 am. Accordingly I set my alarm to 7 am. It was still dark, but I got the newspaper in, started the dishwasher, and made some breakfast. I duly showered and washed my hair and got out of the master bedroom by 8 am, so there would be free access for the builders to move remaining furniture, and the carpet layers to finish their work.

JD and I went up to Simmer Café for morning tea again (to get away from the noise!) Actually I will miss this, in a way. We enjoyed café lattés again, and I had a cheese scone while JD stuck to his favourite – a blueberry muffin.  I must admit, they do them rather well.

Now I’m warm and comfortable in one of the downstairs bedrooms, before the big task of putting things together again.  Over morning tea we discussed where to put the lovely rugs, mostly given to us by a cousin of JD’s (now deceased). For years we had placed them to hide wear and blemishes in the old carpet; now we have different choices, and what a joy it is to have them. Perhaps I can feel a little proud of our house again, and remind myself that I also own it.

It’s now Wednesday July 26^th.

Last night it was supposed to be very cold (very cold in my book is below 10°C), but I wore fleece pyjamas and was rather too warm in the night. What a strange problem to have.  I got up early to go to hymn singing (which is really a bit of a lie-in compared to the last two days; I try to get away by 8:55 am), but as I was eating a quick slice of toast for breakfast I  read an email to say it had been cancelled, so I needn’t have hurried after all.  It’s pretty toasty in the master bedroom, although I believe it’s very cold outside. It’s raining heavily off and on, but now this afternoon it’s sunny and a little warmer.  After hymn singing I was debating whether to go to an exercise class at 12 noon (there’s a bit of a gap between that and hymn singing), but I think I won’t be going anywhere today.  I am really tired today, but I have done a bit more unpacking: I’ve moved remaining things out of the ensuite bathroom; and I’ve unpacked and restored precious things in one of the china cabinets. That feels like quite an achievement.  I’ve also put some things in there that were formerly in the other cabinet, and so there’s more room on the kitchen table.

I should put back things that were on top of this cabinet, but I should really clean the silver before I do so.

I am getting a better picture of where things are.  Again, I am wondering whether to throw away things of JD’s that I don’t know what they are or what they’re for.  I asked him for my suitcase that I took to Australia in January and to Taiwan in May; he took this without asking, and now it contains papers, I’m told. What happens next time I want to go away?

We also got more Persian rugs in from the garage, and have placed them in different spots, since they’re no longer needed to hide stains or specially worn passages of the old carpet.

I have also cleaned the downstairs shower now that it has a new fan, and got rid of some cobwebs.

Yet again, the weather’s not too wild here, but it’s snowing in places in the South Island and in Auckland the Harbour Bridge is closed because of wind – again! Before the last year or two I don’t remember the Auckland Harbour Bridger ever being closed because of wind.

It’s now Thursday July 27^th.

This morning I went to my Thursday morning singing, which was lovely, of course, although I had a really croaky voice to start with. Thankfully this cleared up.

Afterwards JD and I shared a pizza for lunch. Then we went out to Kenepuru to return the carpet sample we still had, and bought some new curtains for the mezzanine area.  We also swapped the part JD had bought to fix the lamp I’ve been trying to get repaired. We bought some tape to hold rugs down, since one of our rugs has a tendency to turn up, providing a tripping hazard.

Overseas, some strange things are happening. In Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu is persisting with a judicial overhaul that would further limit powers of the Israeli Supreme Court to deal with his corruption, despite significant ongoing protests, which are now being met with tear gas. In Ukraine, fighting persists, although Putin has raised the military recruitment age to 30. In Greece and other parts of Europe very high temperatures and forest fires persist, forcing evacuations. Sinead O’Connor has died, and Kevin Spacey has been cleared of sexual assault. Mitch McConnell froze for several seconds (it seemed like a long time) during a press conference he was holding. Actually that’s what happened to me when I first became ill – I couldn’t speak. Just saying.

In the US everyone is on Trump indictment watch, but it hasn’t happened yet. Lawfare really got into the weeds with a podcast about the practicalities of perhaps running four trials of Donald Trump, and the risk of Republicans politicising the effort to hold him accountable. He’s “running” i.e. standing for president, after all.  Actually he’s standing for the Republican nomination as their candidate for President. He’s polling far ahead of any other Republican candidate, so far, although Asa Hutchison, a candidate for President, believes Trump won’t be the Republican candidate. That may be wishful thinking, although there are differing views of Trump’s electability vis á vis his electoral support.

In Nigeria, an army coup has overthrown the “democratically” elected leader. In Spain’s recent election, the far-right Vox party did not do as well as expected.

It’s now Friday July 28^th.

This morning the builders fixed a number of things around the house, the main one being adjusting doors as necessary for the new carpet and underlay.  Consequently I breakfasted in the kitchen, rather than in bed as I usually do. They also installed brackets to secure a bookcase and a china cabinet against their walls. I unpacked more china and put it in the china cabinet. They’ve also put a new hinge on the letter-box opener, and installed a new toilet-roll holder in the guest bathroom. Now JD will have no excuse for not changing the toilet toll!  JD has put up the new curtains we bought yesterday; they’re “ivory”, not white, but they’re a bit lighter than the previous curtains, and not as wide.  Perhaps we’ll change them – they weren’t expensive, and we have to go to Bunnings again.  The pantry door in the kitchen has been fixed, and the front door too – it used to stick, sometimes.  The doors to the ensuite bathroom, and between the kitchen and living room, have been adjusted so they shouldn’t rattle any more. 

This morning I went to a NZ Film Festival movie on behalf of a friend, Saint Omer. It was a French movie, with subtitles, where I chose to read the subtitle instead of trying to understand the French. The dialogue was very important, and I didn’t want to miss any of it.  The movie centred around a court case of a young woman from Senegal who had killed (and admitted killing) her baby daughter.  This case was watched by another young woman, also from Senegal, who was pregnant with her first child. It was a complex story, with several interweaving strands, resulting in almost a desire to see it again and understand it better. The material, however, was disturbing.  It’s very disturbing when a mother kills her child/ren; the film had shots from a film of Medea, too. I had studied Euripides’ play Medea when I was at university. It certainly raised disturbing issues. While it’s very upsetting when an angry boyfriend kills a child, it’s even more disturbing when a mother kills her child. Alongside this we have daily evidence from the Lauren Dickason trial, where she is on trial for killing her three daughters.  I am very upset indeed by the idea of children not being safe and protected at all times: there’s a new podcast series entitled “I love my children, but…”. I now feel strangely normal.  I loved (and still love) my children enormously: they didn’t ask to be born, I used to keep reminding myself. Children now seem very vulnerable again.

Afterwards I had lunch with my friend and her sister and her husband, and we talked about the film, and what it meant.

It’s now Saturday July 29^th.

Today, thankfully, we don’t have to do anything.

Last night we had Egg Foo Young for tea – delicious. The place where JD buys it provides some rice as well, and furthermore, there’s enough for two nights.  Last night we watched another episode of the latest series of Unforgotten. The lovely Nicola Walker’s character has died, and she’s been replaced with a difficult woman who has issues of her own (her husband told her he’d been unfaithful; she’s devastated, she’d had the “perfect marriage” until now. Ha!) the lovely Sunny Khan doesn’t like the new “gov” (not “ma’am”), and she has made no effort to get to know the staff or get along with them. So although in this series we miss the lovely shots of Cambridge, which are replaced by ugly wind machines, it’s still well worth watching.  Of the odd things worth watching on TVNZ on demand, this is one of them.

In other news, the very troubled Irish singer Sinead O’Connor has died, aged 56. We presume she took her own life, as did her 17 year old son Shane recently.  While this must have been devastating, she still has three living children, who now have to deal with the deaths of two people close to them.

A Russian right=wing blogger has been arrested; the foreign minister in China has disappeared; in Nigeria, an army coup has taken power and deposed the democratically elected president; and so on and so on.

Yesterday there was more shocking news about Donald Trump, with serious charges added to the Mar-a-Lago/classified documents indictment. There are now 41 charged (or perhaps 42?) in this case alone, and another person has been indicted, a Carlos de Oliveira, a maintenance manager at Mar-a-Lago. It seems that Trump wanted security footage, as held by a server, destroyed. He’s accused of impairing justice by destroying footage of handling of classified documents.  This is serious stuff, whatever his supporters may think.

Oh, and Mitch McConnell just froze for several seconds during a press conference. I like to joke that he choked on the word ”bipartisan”, but he was unable to speak for several seconds and was escorted away, although he returned soon afterwards, saying he was fine.  There is concern about him, however.

In Ukraine, it seems the counter-offensive by Ukrainian forces is ramping up; Putin has cancelled the grain deal, whereby he allowed Ukrainian grain to be shipped out from Crimea to African and other nations. As if the world didn’t already have huge problems.

Today we went to Peppermill Café for lunch and had yummy Belgian waffles with our oat milk lattés.  But we couldn’t get a new fastener for a kitchen cupboard, because neither of us had photographed or measured the existing one, so that’s a shame. Back in Johnsonville, JD decided he needed to get petrol, and we ran into a traffic jam.  It has been a fine, sunny day, after a very cold start, and now it is getting cold again. One could get quite used to this climate! We can cope with very cold evenings and mornings if it’s fine and sunny in between, with little wind and no rain.

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

Le Picotin in Paris

Paris 10, 11, 12 Fevrier 2010

We realize we are in France already when we finally board our Air France flight at London’s Heathrow Airport and are greeted with a cheery “Bonsoir!” from the staff.

The flight to Paris is smooth, with clear air over London and Paris, but I am concerned about the landing. It seems ours is the first flight to depart for Paris out of Heathrow this afternoon, with two others hard on its heels. This was after bad weather and frosts prevented our earlier scheduled flight. I need not have worried. The plane lands very smoothly, taking what seems an inordinate amount of runway to do so. It is a very long taxi to the terminal. It’s new and spacious – no problems with immigration and no indication which baggage reclaim to head for. But we get there and retrieve our bags. We had planned to catch the train (RER) into the city, but as it’s snowing JD suggests a taxi. We find one, he quotes us 50 Euros. That’s far too much, says JD. We go back inside the terminal where we are accosted by a perfumed African. €85…75…there are no trains etc etc. This just makes us determined to catch the train. Several stadium lengths traversed and escalators later, we go to buy train tickets. There are major delays: there has been an accident on the line. By now it’s so late and we are so tired that we decide to taxi. We go to the official rank, and driver #3 says it won’t be more than €60. We’ll take it. The drive is fast and efficient. We have reached the Allegro. It seems terribly late, but we are welcomed and check into room 209. We ask about dinner, and are recommended Le Picotin at the end of the street.

Picotin is superb:  small restaurant/bar with red gingham napkins. There are several groups there. We sit in bliss watching snowflakes falling outside. John and I settle for the special/prix fixe for the day: spinach soup with salmon garnish; escallop of turkey with sauce and rice (garnished with an aubergine slice), fondant du chocolat (rich chocolate cake with pouring cream), with lots of bread, and coffee (double espresso).  Everything tastes wonderful – the rice accompaniment, gently mounded; the French bread; it’s a superb meal. The gentleman at the next table tucks into his cassoulet with serious dedication and obvious enjoyment. The people around us speak French. Everything seems so civilized, and so grown up and stylish, after the UK and its ubiquitous CCTV, PA systems, and irritating officialdom.

We make our way back to the hotel and obtain a password for the internet.

Next morning we tackle breakfast at 7 am. What a treat: beautiful coffee from a pot; breads and pastries; cereals and fruit and yoghurt; cheese, jam, butter and cold cuts and juice. What a feast.

However daylight reveals that our hotel is not in a great state, once we leave our room and look at the state of the hallway in the light of day.

Eventually we tackle getting out and about. We make our way to Picpus station, using a BNP Paribas ATM along the way. A very helpful lady shows us how to buy two-day tickets for the Metro. It all turns out to be quite easy, really. We catch the train to Place d’Italie, and then change lines to Palais Royal. And we are at the Louvre. It is vast, but we make our way inside and buy tickets and an audio guide.

We start with the Denon wing as recommended by our guide, but it is really confusing. Some of the Greek and Roma artifacts aren’t available today. I want to start with Greek – pre-Classical, but we can’t find it. The museum seems to be a random vast series of galleries, with classical famous and not-so-famous sculptures along the way. JD is going too fast for me, I want to read and translate every label.       

We do see a lot of stuff. Then we start on the paintings.  I would like to see the Rembrandts and Vermeers, but they don’t seem to be with French and Italian paintings. The standout as usual is Caravaggio. The museum has three of his paintings: the fortune teller (with beautiful boy); the death of Mary(?) and a portrait, the latter two presumably early works.

At some point we decide to have lunch. We find one of the cafes: (Le Molien) and eventually we are seated. We look out where it is still snowing, and feel safe and warm inside the musée. I have Quiche Lorraine and salad, and it is delicious. I can taste the mustard seasoning, and the nutmeg. It is totally authentic and tastes wonderful. Even the vinaigrette which accompanies the salad in its sachet is delicious. JD decides to go hard out on dessert, so it’s Tarte Tatin for me, with two dollops of whipped cream, and apple pie for him – great choice for me, not quite so great for him. Our double espresso (at least we get that right, and recognized) is wonderful and rounds off a delicious meal.

After lunch we wander around some more, stray into Sully and see lots of Greek vases. Eventually we head into Richelieu – we see the Smyrna excavation exhibition, then we try to find the Flemish paintings. We are being kicked out when finally we find them. Amazing, of course. Then it’s back and out again.

The Musée d’Orsay is open till 9:45 pm on Thursdays, so we decide to walk there. It’s cold and windy along the Seine, but we get there and get in. There are some lovely Van Goghs…then it’s dinner in the restaurant. Not such a good choice. The Carbonnade de Boeuf is served in its own casserole with potatoes, but it is really too salty, and the beef is rather tough and gristly. Oh well, the rest of today’s (and yesterday’s) food has been truly amazing, including lunch at Heathrow’s Terminal 4 Café Rouge.

We make our way back to the Hotel – no problems, and we turn in for the night.

Tomorrow: the Marmottan; Sacre Coeur in Montmartre, perhaps; and what else?

Friday 12 Feb

We made our way to the Marmottan Gallery, which had been recommended to us, and features some of Monet’s works. It is very cold – -2C, and there’s a queue for the museum. I would have to say that I find it a bit underwhelming, although it’s nice to go, of course. It seemed a little dark, too.

Afterwards we toy with visiting the Eiffel Tower, but there are huge crowds on the way and plenty of pickpockets,even on this very cold day. We couldn’t get near it.

Lunch at the café de Seine; a buffet meal; why is it that food in France is generally either wonderful or terrible?  It’s so hard to find great food in this home of fine cuisine.

Then we went to Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur; we rode the funicular up the hill and walked down afterwards. Although this church is very famous, I wasn’t enamoured of it either.

Then we went to  L’Ile de la Cité and Nȏtre Dame; the famous market has been  cleaned up and is a shadow of the one we saw in the 70’s;

Nb the snow from yesterday still hasn’t melted everywhere!

Nȏtre Dame Cathedral is amazing, but unfortunately the towers are closed (too slippery), le trésor is very recent and very Roman Catholic, and like the Sacré Coeur every chapel is asking for money.

Sat 13 Feb resumed on route to Venice

Dinner at a bistro: we get back to Picpus and the Allegro, and head off to Le Picotin for dinner. Sadly, and in a very Gallic way, they don’t open for dinner until 19:30 pm. Even the bar isn’t open. We roam around the immediate area but it doesn’t seem right for dinner: there are bars, and snack bars, but nothing like the trattoria or bistro we are looking for.  So we decide to head for Paris Bercy – then at least we’ll be where we need to be for the train departing at 20:33 hrs. Bercy is sadly a new, characterless station; the waiting room is full, and there are no food vendors. I check with the ticket office, but we don’t need to be there until 20:00 hours. So once again we head off to look for dinner. There’s a Japanese restaurant; and several “Cobb and Co” looking places, although not all of them are open. This area of the city, near the sports arena with grassed slopes, is ugly and unattractive. We settle for a bistro but it is on the Italian side and catering for foreigners. The menu is mostly pizza. Our waitress brings us very good bread, which we eat messily with the beautiful olive oil on our table. We ask for a “plat” and she looks at us strangely and brings une assiette. There is a party of Australian tourists there. It doesn’t feel very French.

Eventually we board the overnight train for Milan. It will go via Switzerland, and so we are asked to hand over our passports so the friendly guard doesn’t need to wake us. We were understandably reluctant to hand them over, but were assured they’d be returned in the morning. And sure enough, they are! We’re woken with a welcome cup of coffee, and our passports, ready for our next adventure.

That’s it for now. Ngā mihi nui.

The Hotel Intercontinental, Tahiti

Tahiti June 2006

On our way home from our eldest son’s graduation from Yale, JD had booked a three day special in Tahiti. We were flying Air Tahiti-nui, taking advantage of their special prices; we were new to the issues surrounding special resort prices for three nights. We were unaware that three nights was a bit of a misnomer, seeing that we arrived so late; also, that the Monday was a public holiday, meaning that much of Papeete was closed.  I had not expected that Tahiti would be such a contrast to Washington D.C.! Silly me, in the American capital, as in Rome,  almost every building was a monument, with too many gorgeous art galleries and museums to visit in one week.

Our flight from New York was greatly delayed. Flights out were evidently operating under Visual Flight Rules. We waited for several hours at JFK Airport in Long Island, and eventually boarded our Air Tahiti-Nui Airbus 340 plane. Then there were great delays in taking off. We waited a long time before boarding the plane. The plane then taxied in a very long line-up, (I counted over 30 aeroplanes!) but it seemed that US airlines were being given priority over us. Despite an announcement that our take-off would be delayed, all passengers had to be seated again with their seatbelts fastened; there was no going to the bathroom.  The air hostesses became very nervous over this. I was also very concerned about a “clunking” noise that sometimes occurred when we were taxiing, but when I asked about this I was assured that it was nothing to worry about. I later discovered that this was because we were taxiing on one engine. Our plane had a long flight to make to Papeete, but the flight-plan had us flying north over the Great Lakes, seemingly adding to the already lengthy flight-path. Finally, after taxiing on the runway for a long time (the engines went “clunk” alarmingly!) we took off into the cloud and seemed to fly north for a long time.

We eventually reached Papeete by early morning, where we were welcomed by dancing ladies and given shell necklaces. They’re rather beautiful – I still have mine, I think. There was a shuttle to our hotel, which was very near the airport. I think we reached the International Hotel by around 4:30 am, although we had paid for the night – we were there in time to see the sun rise. Sunrise and sunset both happened very quickly. The room was beautiful, with a bathroom, mosquito net over the bed, and a private balcony overlooking the sea. The sunrise was over very quickly. When we went to the dining room for breakfast, I was amazed at the beautiful food, and at the prices, which were very high. A downer here was when we unpacked I found there had been water damage to my big suitcase, and my nice cream suit which I had worn for graduation had water marks on it and was wet. C’est la vie!

After breakfast we hired a rental car, dents and all, under some kind of warranty, from the airport, and headed off in the rain to drive around the main island. I had hoped to do lots of walking here, but it turned out to be even hotter and more humid than Washington.

We drove and drove and eventually had lunch at a French restaurant by the sea. This was very primitive by our standards: a dirt floor, formica-topped tables, some kind of awning to keep the rain off our heads. Against my better judgment I ordered curried shrimps on rice. I was given a huge plate, and it was delicious. And there were no ill-effects.

We drove on and looked at a waterfall, some way down a primitive driveway, and then stopped at a store on the way back. The store was also very primitive, with a generator and no proper refrigeration.

We drove on, feeling slightly threatened by now, both by how primitive everything was, and how much resentment we seemed to arouse in the locals. Driving through the township to get here, we had been saddened by the general state of disrepair of most buildings that were not government-owned or tourist hotels. Many buildings had large damp spots on them and dampened curtains, if they had them.

At one point we found and visited the Gauguin museum. This did not have any paintings by Gauguin, but had material about his life, and a list of museums where his paintings were held (some of which, of course, we had visited).

We visited a supermarket, Tahiti-style, on our way back to the Intercontinental. That night we were very tired so we skipped dining in the hotel, although they put on some kind of local entertainment and rang us to see why we weren’t there.

The next day was fine. We went kayaking, in what turned out to be a leaky kayak, sailing out past the reef bar, and then making our way back with some difficulty! After this adventure I got JD to get me a drink in the “Pool Bar” – I think a gin and tonic, they didn’t have fancy cocktails. In the evening we ate in the exclusive French restaurant, which was very expensive but did not have very nice food.

On the Monday several things went wrong! We had to vacate our nice room by 10 am, although we weren’t flying out until midnight that evening; the hotel did give us use of a bathroom with a shower and access to our bags, though; it was a public holiday in Papeete, so most shops were closed, and we were very short of things to do,

We met a nice Chinese-Canadian couple from Victoria Island and had lunch with them. There was bound to be a Chinese restaurant open in Papeete! Some of the jewelers were open, but charged outrageous prices.

We tried to get a ferry to Moorea, but somehow got the times mixed up; we had decided against risky flying, being too nervous to fly in a very small plane.

Eventually we went back to the Hotel. We had now found a cheaper way to eat at the restaurant! And so eventually to the Airport, where our flight was delayed, of course, and we spent our last French francs on a bottle of Amoretti and a brooch with a Tahitian pearl. The prices were outrageous, especially for jewellery. After another hair-raising experience on Air Tahiti-Nui, we arrived safely back in Auckland and so on to Wellington.

It was interesting to get a package-deal to a resort (and see the inherent flaws in such schemes).  The next time we stayed at a resort was in Mooloolaba on Australia’s Gold Coast; we were there because our eldest son was attending a conference where he was to  deliver a paper, and we were to look after our granddaughter there.  That’s another story!

Generally when we travel (how I wish it were more!), we remain independent and “do our own thing”, with quite a bit of planning involved. We rarely join a tour, although tours of the Louvre and the Prado in our 2016 trip were amazingly good value for money. We were largely free to roam where we pleased, and we avoided the long queues!

That’s it for now. Ngā mihi nui.

The unforgettable (and terrifying) sight of a nuclear test from the 1950’s

Today is Monday July 10, 2023. Kia Ora! Mānawatia a Matariki!

There have been 5417 new cases of Covid-19 reported in New Zealand over the past week, and 21 further deaths. Of the new cases, 2547 were reinfections. The total number of deaths attributed to the virus in New Zealand is now 3159. In addition, there were 184 cases in hospital at midnight on Sunday with three in intensive care. The seven-day rolling average of cases was 771.

Last week, 6578 new Covid-19 cases were reported and a further 21 deaths were attributed to the virus.

It’s now Thursday July 13^th.

I haven’t written the last few days; I have to admit I’m quite unsettled since our lovely trip to Taiwan; I just want to go there again!  It’s been very cold here in the mornings and evenings, although most days we’ve had sunshine and warmth in the middle of the day. I am feeling the cold, although it looks as though we will get two heat pumps installed sometime soon, at last.  We’ve been arguing about just where they should go.  They have to be quiet, act as a dehumidifier, and be remote-controlled, so that we can turn one on when we’re on the new expressway driving back from Napier (or anywhere else, for that matter).

On Monday morning a dear friend came to have morning tea with us. On Tuesday we went out to have lunch at the French café at Eastbourne, Tartines. The weather wasn’t great, so it wasn’t much use going to a place with a view, since there’d be nothing much to see. It fined up here when we left, but it was raining in Eastbourne. JD hadn’t brought a jacket, so we didn’t go for a walk, or look at the Rona art gallery.  I had Quiche Lorraine with salad; JD had chicken in a creamy mushroom sauce and the lovely pommes frites. The servings were quite large, although there were mainly older folk there;  afterwards we shared a chocolate hazelnut tart with our oat milk lattés. It was nice to go there, but I doubt if I’d go again; it seemed to have changed hands since we were last there, for my birthday lunch, one time.  As we paid for our lunch I looked eagerly at the goods in the deli, but they were quite expensive.

On Wednesday I got up early to go to hymn singing; as tends to happen when one gets up extra early, one thinks one can get more things done, and consequently I was almost the last to arrive, although being school holidays there as little traffic. A highlight was our singing Arahina e Ihowa (Guide me o Thou Great Jehovah) to the beautiful Welsh tune Cym Rhonda.  I think we did rather well, although we’re by no means a Welsh choir.

Afterwards I met an old friend for coffee. It was lovely to see her, and we had a good chat.

This morning we went to a funeral at the new parish of St Francis of Assisi, formerly the Catholic Church of Sts Peter and Paul.  It was quite cold and windy; we parked in the Johnsonville Shopping Centre carpark and walked up to the church. Thankfully it was warm in the church.  The funeral was for a cousin of John’s father; i.e. JD’s first cousin once removed, although her youngest brother is someone he’s kept in touch with. Her younger sister had died exactly two years earlier, and we had gone to her funeral in Havelock North. It was nice to see family members again, and reminisce over ones who had passed on.  Afterwards JD and I went shopping at New World in Thorndon, and bought pies for lunch.

It’s now Monday July 17^th.

The weekly Covid 19 report is published again. There have been 4332 new cases of Covid-19 reported in New Zealand over the past week and 13 further deaths. Of the new cases, 2048 were reinfections. The total number of deaths attributed to the virus in New Zealand is now 3172.

As of midnight on Sunday, there were 185 cases in hospital, with four people in intensive care. The seven-day rolling average of new cases was 615.

It’s now Thursday July 20^th.

It’s been a busy old time. We are having new carpet laid upstairs (at last), and I’m trying to clear the way so that furniture can be moved. Thank goodness we’re not moving house (yet); I didn’t realise that I had so much stuff stored under chests of drawers, in the walk-in wardrobe, and in the cupboard under the stairs. I undertook to clear the master bedroom; I have put heaps of stuff in rubbish bags, labelled it, and put it in the hallway.  My husband’s solution is to put everything in the garage, which kind of defeats the purpose. One way or another, we each will have to leave this house someday, and I am determined to throw away as much as possible. While it’ll be nice (I hope) to have new carpet, I feel as though I’m on the point of divorce much of the time. I think JD severely underestimates how much needs to be tidied away or thrown away. For the last few years I thought I could do nothing about his mess, but try and keep a kind of spot for myself (and my things). Now I’ve lost several files of things that I really need right now.

I have also been endeavouring to empty two china cabinets. One of them is done, and what a mission that was. When we moved to this house, I didn’t pack things – I unpacked them.  It is really hard work, and I don’t want to break anything. With regard to the other cabinet, I’ve packed perhaps one and a half shelves; I’ll do the rest tomorrow.

There’s good news though: I have a specialist appointment at Wellington Hospital (I’ve been waiting six months); and ACC have agreed to reinstate my home help. Although I have to be assessed again to make sure that I’m really not going to get better.

This morning our Thursday singing resumed, and although there were very few sopranos (Yes, ladies, we can do this!); it was lovely to be there again.

It’s now Friday July 21^st.

Things got very busy yesterday, as the builders took up much of the existing carpet so that they could nail down the floorboards underneath (they creak sometimes).  I tried to wrap the china from the other china cabinet, all the time frustrated that I was very tired and JD was not doing his bit to help. Actually he did take all the wine glasses out and put them on the kitchen table, where I was planning to put something else.  When we came to eat our dinner, there was very little room for me to sit at the table (which is my preference).

After they left, we were left with an almost empty, cold and echoey space! Last night I didn’t sleep well, until early morning, of course; I kept going over Things I Still Had To Do, of which there still seemed to be quite a few.

This morning, the builders came early, but only for half a day. I finished wrapping the precious china from our other cabinet, and cleared a lot more stuff from the walk in wardrobe.  Now of course I can’t find things!  Actually the guys cleared the carpet in the main living room, and nailed down the floor boards. Thankfully they didn’t clear the master bedroom, although I’d moved several things into the ensuite bathroom.

Mid-morning JD and I escaped for morning tea at the café up the road: oat milk lattés and a savoury muffin for me, a blueberry muffin for JD. Our newspaper wasn’t delivered this morning, so I bought a copy from the local supermarket.

After we went home we based ourselves downstairs, turning a heater on in one of the bedrooms while it was noisy upstairs. At midday the builders left, but first they put back a couch in the main living room, so we can be comfortable and watch television. What an upheaval it all is!  And I wish JD would get rid of more stuff. The rubbish bin and the recycling bin are both full, so we’ll have to hang on to other rubbish for a but longer. I am prepared to get rid of a comfortable four-seater couch that needs re-covering; I’ve sent a photo to the Salvation Army asking them to come and pick it up, but so far I haven’t heard back from them. There’ve been two trailer-load trips to the tip, however.

Meanwhile, the Matariki Market that Hōhepa Hawkes Bay has been cancelled, because bad weather is predicted;  that’s a shame, but we couldn’t go, owing to our expecting carpet layers on Monday; our daughter made some beautiful star-shaped cookies, but I’m sure she won’t have any trouble finding grateful people happy to eat them.

There’s bad weather up north, especially in Auckland, but here in Wellington we continue to experience beautiful weather: cold mornings and evenings (some frosty), but fine sunny daytime hours with little wind. It rained yesterday, but it’s fine again today, if cold.

In the Northern Hemisphere, especially in Europe, the US and China they continue to experience very hot temperatures, far too hot – temperatures in the 40’s and 50’s Celsius.  There are also forest fires – outside Athens and still in Canada, I think.  This is a serious warning to anyone who still doesn’t believe in climate change: regardless of what part human greed has played in causing it, the fact remains that it’s uncomfortably hot for many people.  While we feel a bit guilty here for enjoying fine, temperate weather, one is reminded that Wellington has long had a reputation for cold, windy weather; it has usually been several degrees colder here than in Hawkes Bay, when we return to Wellington, although it can be cold and windy in Napier too.

In Ukraine, the brutality continues: when will there be an honourable peace? I am reminded that there were wars in the past that were very hard to stop – remember the Balkan Wars?  But they do stop, eventually, even if the truce results in an uneasy peace.

In the UK, there have been by-elections, for Boris Johnson’s former seat, and some others. I don’t think Labour have done as well as they may have hoped. Evidently the Conservatives have just held on to Johnson’s seat.

In the US, former president Donald Trump is in further legal trouble, having been informed that he’s the target of a Jack Smith investigation. That is a distraction, of course, as legal eagles continue to pontificate.

After Matariki celebrations, the country (here) woke yesterday to learn that there was an active shooter in the Auckland CBD, who shot three people dead (including himself), and injured several more, including a policeman.  Meanwhile, I watching with great interest a three part series on Television One called Murder in the Pacific, about the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.  As well as this, the trial continues of Lauren Dickason, who has been accused of killing her three daughters: a six year old, and two year old twins.  Infanticide seems very extreme, but small children can be very irritating, and being in isolation for two weeks for Covid 19 can’t have been an easy time. Still, it is really puzzling, that someone would be so unwell as to do this terrible thing. One thinks of Medea, who killed her children, and I remember analysing the various pressures she was under, as well as how evil she was as a character. Euripides, one of the great Greek dramatists, wrote a play about her. Whatever the circumstances, infanticide remains a shocking crime.

It’s now Sunday July 23^rd.

This morning I went to church, but I’m not having a great day. We worshipped in the Hall this morning, which is supposed to be warmer, and more casual, but somehow I (and several; others) were very cold, although I was wearing a roll neck jersey and a light top, and a woollen jacket over it; I was wearing a long woollen skirt which I’d found too; that was fine, but I still had cold feet!  Although parishioners were having coffee and croissants, I wasn’t brave enough to do so: it’s very tricky to eat and drink in this situation, and I’m more comfortable going without.  Unfortunately, JD didn’t bring me a cup of coffee at home before church this morning; why not, I don’t know. I could have bought an oat latté at the café nearby, but navigating carrying a hot drink was tricky too, so I did not do so.

JD couldn’t pick me up, so I had an oat latté and cheese scone after the service while waiting for my bus. I went to the Johnsonville Shopping Centre and changed a book at Whitcoulls; the one I chose was $10 cheaper, so I now have a $10 gift card. I had a look at the Wild South store, where they were having a sale, but sadly, perhaps, all the sale goods were in colours I found unattractive.

The cinemas here are advertising “Barbenheimer”, the double billing of the new Oppenheimer movie directed by Christopher Nolan, which is three hours long, and the Barbie film starring Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken.  It was made by Greta Gerwig, who made the latest version of Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women, with quite a feminist bent.  I had intended not to see the Barbie movie, but perhaps I will when it comes on one of the streaming services.  Then I won’t have to wear pink – which colour I do not wear, as a rule.

When one of my granddaughters had her fourth birthday, what did she want but a Barbie doll!  I was amazed, and amused, and I still seek to remind her of this when she’s twenty one; she’s a bit of a tomboy, and not very princess-like. Personally, I had a lovely walkie-talkie brunette doll that I called Patricia, but I never ever wanted a Barbie doll. My granddaughter’s mother thought that a friend of her at kindergarten may have put her up to it. In the event, she got several Barbie dolls!  Now she’s much more into Care Bears. Our children had Care Bears, which came in pastel colours, back in the 1980’s.  Now they come in all kinds of colours.  I thought I was ordering a yellow one for her one Christmas, but the one I ordered turned out to be a deep green.

There are lots of reviews of Oppenheimer, which seems to be a very good film; in fact, there’s so much hype about this movie (and the Barbie one) that it’s a bit off putting.  The Rest is History podcast did three episodes on the actual history of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Morning Joe interviewed the director and senior cast members; the Guardian podcast sought to interview Cillian Murphy.  By all accounts, he plays this part very well indeed. 

It’s useful, I guess, for all to be reminded of the horrors inspired by nuclear fission, and the dreadful and long lasting contamination it causes.  There have been plenty of near misses and not near misses, such as the Three Mile Island incident in March 1979, the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, the Fukushima disaster in 2011, as well as the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, chronicled by Max Hastings in his recent book Abyss; those are the main ones we know about, but there’ve been other near misses too, and many nations as well as the US and the Russians have nuclear weapons, for example, North Korea!  The world is a very dangerous place, and perhaps the fear of radiation contamination has prevented the use of nuclear weapons to date, since the atom bomb was used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this ending the Second World War.  At present, during the war in Ukraine, the nuclear power plant at Zaporizhia is used by the Russians as a very scary target where their brinkmanship is displayed from time to time. Putin wields immense power partly because in addition to being an autocratic and heartless leader, he has nuclear weapons. How well do they work? Who knows, but hopefully no one is willing to find out.

I remember the CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) protests in the 1970’s; back then we thought that nuclear war and testing of nuclear bombs was the biggest threat faced by mankind. Now we face additional threats:  the climate crisis is very much upon us, with very high temperatures continuing in the northern hemisphere, and the coming of AI – which has the potential to change – what, and how, exactly? Who knows.  I probably won’t have to deal with it, but my children and grandchildren will.

What a world we live in. But there’s still much to be thankful for, in this temperate land, even if it’s a little cold.  It’s easier to warm up than to cool down. What will next summer be like, I wonder?  In Ukraine, fierce fighting continues, as people speculate over Putin’s position and potential weakness. He seems adamant to continue his crazy war in Ukraine, however.  In the US, the trials of Trump continue to fascinate, as legal eagles continue to find plenty of things to argue about. And in the UK, in recent by-elections Sunak, Starmer and the leader of the Lib Dems each won a seat, although the Conservatives only just won the seat previously held by Boris Johnson. 

That’s it for now. Tonight another series of Brokenwood Mysteries starts on Television One. I will try to stay awake for it, while continuing to mourn the loss of Breen (the redhead).  Slava Ukraini! Ngā mihi nui.

A celebration of Matariki at the Khandallah Town Hall

Today is Monday July 3^rd, 2023. Kia ora!

This morning we had an electrician coming at 8 am.  It was very cold. And I got up at 7:30 am to turn more heaters on.  He came, and installed a new, more effective heater in the ensuite bathroom, and moved the not-very-effective heater down stairs to the spare bathroom (it’s not so cold down there, and not many people come to stay). He also installed a power point in the downstairs bathroom; for some strange reason, there was a power point for some electric shavers, but not modern shavers.  There wasn’t a power point for a hair dryer, for example, which caused problems when our daughter and a carer came to stay for our youngest son’s wedding. It’s silly not to have a power point there! We also had new lighting installed in the main living room, which was very poorly lit.  We had bought a new lighting board on Saturday, which we collected from Lighting Direct (now L.D.), in Lyall Bay. There’s quite a shopping complex out there now:  it’s annoying, though, not to have clothes or bookshops or shops I might want to look at in these industrial shopping complexes.  It took a long time to get there, since the traffic was heavy; we had lunch at Elements Café in Kilbirnie, which thankfully wasn’t too busy. I had scrambled eggs again – very plain, but delicious. I’m building up a record of places that serve good scrambled eggs. They served an oat latté, too, another tick. Actually most cafés serve oat lattés, and some don’t even charge extra for oat milk.

On Saturday evening we went out to a friend’s 70^th birthday party. It was very cold, but we had a lovely time. It was nice and warm at the venue, parking nearby was easy, and the food was delicious.  We met some lovely new people as well as seeing some again that we hadn’t seen for ages.

This morning I went to town with three objectives: getting a toilet roll holder for the guest bathroom (the existing one needs to be unscrewed to hold a new roll, and it’s very annoying). I also wanted to get a part for a lamp; we had tried on Saturday, but L.D. didn’t have one in stock.  The third objective was to go to the Annah Stretton store where they were having a sale. Accordingly I caught a No. 19 bus to Johnsonville, and then a No.1 to the Wellington Railway Station. I then caught a No. 7 bus, getting off at Abel Smith Street.  Metlink has a new app on the screens on most buses showing which stop is next, which is very helpful. They also have a new app on my phone, showing the passage of the bus (like Uber), and where the bus stops are – wonderful!

When I got off at the intersection of Victoria St and Abel Smith St, there was a Mico Plumbing Store right beside the bus stop. There I was able to buy a toilet roll holder for $19.  Then I set off on foot for a hardware store in the industrial complex at the top of Tory Street – quite a hike, but I was still in Abel Smith Street when it started raining really heavily. Accordingly I changed my mind and instead headed down Cuba Street.  I was going to go to Kaffée Eis, one of my favourites, but there was quite a queue, and very few places to sit, so instead I walked down to the bus stop in Manners St and caught a bus to Willis St. It was wet, and so quite slippery. Once there, I went to Smith the Grocer Café, another of my favourite haunts.  After that, I had a look at the lovely things at the Annah Stretton store, but did not buy anything.

The Covid 19 report was published today, and at last the numbers seem to be coming down. There are 6578 new cases of Covid-19 reported in New Zealand over the past week, and 21 further deaths. Of the new cases, 3173 were reinfections. The total number of deaths attributed to the virus in New Zealand is now 3138.

In addition, there were 182 cases in hospital at midnight on Sunday with five in intensive care. The seven-day rolling average of cases was 933.

Last week, 7702 new Covid-19 cases were reported and a further 40 deaths were attributed to the virus.

It’s now Wednesday July 5^th.

This morning I got up early to go to hymn singing. It was lovely, of course, and it being school holidays, there was very little traffic. Afterwards there was a Matariki celebration in place of our usual Te Reo Māori lesson at the Khandallah Town Hall.  It was very enjoyable as we learnt more about Matariki, and even sang the Matariki song.  We all have great intentions of getting up early for Matariki and going to a place to observe the stars. We enjoyed a delicious chocolate cake baked by one supporter, and yummy kumara chips, and practised saying Manawatia a Matariki.

In the afternoon JD and I looked at carpet samples. Man, it’s confusing!  The time has finally come to get some new carpet, and now it’s a bit overwhelming, as is the thought of moving many things so the carpet layers and furniture movers can get around. 

I am rather missing the French Film Festival films. In the past, many would come on general release; I hope that they still will.  We tried watching Emily in Paris on Netflix, but found it too annoying, and switched to something else.

It’s now Friday July 7^th.

Yesterday morning I went to a dear friend’s house for morning tea; after that JD and I shared a pizza for lunch at the local café, and I enjoyed another oat milk latté. They do them rather well.  Later on in the afternoon we went out to a carpet showroom, and chose another sample to bring home.  The one I really wanted is much more expensive, and would add about $5,000 to the cost, so I really can’t justify that.  After all this I was “properly” tired, and we had minestrone soup and cheese on toast for tea.  I am rather enjoying a series we found on Neon called Everyone Else Burns. It’s a British comedy series about a family of what I call “Doomsday Preppers”, actually a strict religious group, expecting the end of the world; they are annoying but funny as well.  In a stereotypical way, the women are brainy and beautiful, but the men – authoritative and not kind.

It’s Friday but there’s no one coming from Access today to do some cleaning;  I try and reach ACC but I cannot log in to Myacc, even using my Realme login and the verification code they’ve sent me. There is some synchronisation problem; the 0800 number is equally annoying, so I email them – again; I haven’t heard from them since June 26, which is several days ago now.

Again, it’s a beautiful fine day, after a very cold and frosty start. We had lunch at Caffiend, one of my favourite cafés: a regular oat milk latté, and smashed avocado on toast with haloumi cheese and a delicious onion relish and salad and sliced tomato. Then we went to the Roger Pointon sale, which was also in Petone. I had seen this advertised, and noted it mentally, but JD expressed interest and so we went there, and fortunately were able to find a carpark nearby.  There were no small rugs left, but several larger ones and longer runners. They’re all beautiful, of course; older couples kept coming in and admiring the rugs, most of them buying one or two. We settled on one we liked, but apparently it had been placed on hold for someone else, although there was nothing to indicate this.  I settled on another possibility, Plan B, but decided I’d prefer my first choice. It took quite a long time to establish for whom it was on hold, and that they did wish for it to be still on hold.  Several rugs had Sold signs, but thankfully we settled on Plan C, a slightly more expensive but more beautiful runner, this one being from Afghanistan, rather than India. Accordingly we bought it’. When JD is in the mood to spend money, I try to ensure that he chooses wisely; I’ll be blamed for the choice, of course! We brought it home, and it goes really well, in the hall downstairs, where we aren’t replacing the existing carpet.   I would have liked to buy a smaller rug, but they’d all gone, and at these reduced prices, I’m, not surprised.

JD had an appointment in Titahi Bay in the afternoon; he did not drop off our carpet sample, but he did go to Bunnings and buy a part I needed for a rather nice lamp (that he broke).  Next Saturday I plan to take it to the Repair Café at the Ngaio Union Church.  I have been carting this broken lamp around for days, but it’s quite a mission to go to a hardware/lighting store if you don’t drive.

It’s now Sunday July 9^th.

Yesterday we went to New World in Thorndon to do some grocery shopping. We did buy a pie, but apparently they’re not making potato-topped pies any more!  There were no raspberries, but there were strawberries – not a favourite of mine unless they’re super sweet and delicious.  It was nice to go there, though. Last night we watched the final episodes of Ten Pound Poms and Maternal – a rather nice medical series that hasn’t been renewed.

This morning I went to the Johnsonville Uniting Church. It is raining, and it’s not an easy place to get to, but there were several familiar faces there. It was a lovely service: there is a new minister, Tony Wood, and we worshipped very much in the spirit of Matariki.  Ngā Mata o te Ariki – the Eyes of God, is an extension of the word Matariki. The stars of Matariki represent the Eyes of God, which is a lovely thought that fits into the three aspects of Matariki:  Giving thanks, Looking ahead, and Remembering those who have passed in the last year.  So the reflection was about astronomy, and the relative tininess of us here on planet earth, whereas formerly it was thought that the earth, and then the sun, was the centre of the universe. The more we learn about the universe, the more insignificant man appears. The texts were representative of this: Psalm 8 , Isaiah 40: 18, 21-28, and Luke 18″ 18-26. Three texts!

Turning overseas, President Zelensky of Ukraine is now at Snake Island, a memorable scene from early in Russia’s invasion where a soldier famously told the Russian invaders to “f*** off!” How he has aged since the Russians invaded!  Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare continues to annoy the Russian Embassy in Washington D.C. with his careful projections of the Ukrainian flag on the embassy and planting sunflowers, amongst other things.

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