Thursday, July 22, 2010

25 Years of Shared Books!

Today's doodle turned into a bookmark.
Our Book Club is going out to dinner tonight
at The Woodbox
to celebrate.
25 Years ago,
I, a much younger teacher, farmer's wife and mother of two young boys,
rang around 12 local women to ask would they be interested
in forming a book club.
Everyone of those women said yes!
Five of the original twelve are still members.
We could write a book about our book club.
We have sadly over the years buried some of our children and husbands,
mothers, fathers and siblings.
There have been marriages and divorces.
Careers beginning and careers ending.
What started out as a supper of a cup of tea and a biscuit
over the years turned into High Supper

Every month on the evening of the fourth Thursday we all head back to
Josie's house at the foot of Mt Pirongia
to discuss the book of the month, and to open the parcel from
WEA, Christchurch, to find the book for the next month.
A group of close and loyal friends
who all love
BOOKS!

Posted by Picasa

10 comments:

  1. How wonderful J, a wonderful club but more importantly, what a wonderful supportive group of friends who have been there for each other in good times and in bad; I love your bookmarks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for visiting my blog - I am enjoying your lovely doodles (though I think that "doodle" is too casual a word for them, they are works of art!)

    ReplyDelete
  3. so many threads that have woven this club together
    how wonderful to have them
    25 years...that must be a record
    ours is about 10....and yes we have the same threads
    lovely bookmark

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have always wanted to be a part of a face-to-face bookclub, but alas it has just not happened (yet). I think it is fantastic that there are five of you who have met for 25 years!

    The bookmarks are just lovely and a great way to mark this special occasion.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love your doodled bookmarks. What a delightful way to help celebrate 25 years. Your style and details amaze me.

    I thought our book group was doing well to be approaching 23 years, but, yours has our beat. We, too, have gone through the ups and the downs of life, passings and illness and grandchildren and such and I cannot imagine my life without our monthly gatherings around books.

    Please tell me what Te Pahy means.

    ReplyDelete
  6. These are wonderful bookmarks!!!! I love doodles!!! Did you see that I have an online calligraphy class?? www.creativeworkshops.ning.com
    FYI

    ReplyDelete
  7. Theres a book club at library near me and I've often thought of joining as they seem such a nice group of women.
    If I can find out where they've moved my local library too (no joke it has moved) I might join as its only once a month.

    Well done to your group on its anniversary. How lovely to have it running for so long.

    ReplyDelete
  8. How lovely Joan, friends for all those years. I hope you had a lovely evening out. Jane xx

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thankyou all for the comments.. I'm a bit tired today. We had a lovely feast to celebrate and I finished with a coffee which along with the wine ..I took a long time to go to sleep.
    Penny ..Te Pahu is the name of the farming district where we all lived at the feet of Pirongia the mountain. The maori word means - the gong - but why it was named that is unclear. There were many other names for the area .. Harapepe, Karamu, Kaniwhaniwha .. but because of postal areas, Te Pahu usually covers the whole area now, and the one school, one garage, one church and one community hall are all sited at Te Pahu. It has a website. WWW.tepahu.co.nz

    It is a beautiful place to live .. I am enjoying city life now but love to return. I miss the dark sky at night full of stars.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I have had those long nights after coffee or other caffeine too late in the day, Joan. I hope you enjoyed a more restful night.

    Thank you so much for your explanation of Te Pahu and leading me to the website, which I visited just now for a while and learned of your rich history. It reminds me very much of the history of many of our rural areas here, especially of the history of our state of Hawaii, also a group of islands settled in much the same way. Thank you for today's history lesson.

    ReplyDelete