50 years ago
this small notebook was mine

my mother kept it
all those years

astonishingly
just recently
it was returned to me

in it I wrote such naive poems
that make me feel astonished

who is she
this girl of 17

in love with the thought of love

when belief was certain

she left the notebook
and her few possessions
and life as she knew it

left her mother
her family

a last look at her home
the sandy bay
the hilly peninsula
as if she'd never seen them before

then
without looking back
she went

never to return

life is like that
at 17
when romance will last forever

we think

we are the travellers

never still

forever curving through the endless space
of our universe
of darkness

powered by
a solar engine
so bright
so light
we dare not look at

Just wondering..

"Even in a world that's being shipwrecked..
remain brave and strong."


I came across this quote and was thinking about our planet.
Loss of rain forests.
Pollution.
Global warming.....

a world being shipwrecked for sure.

The quote however
is from
Hildegard of Bingen
who lived from 1098 to 1179.

So we've been shipwrecking the Earth for a long time.

For all her visions and insights, Hildegard could not, I am sure,
have imagined the life we live today, almost a millennium later.

The Earth survived.
Regardless.

               'Give them wings that may fly' .. with love, Crawshaw School.
The Best Little School in the West!

A place in my life that will stay with me forever.
A heartland.
A place of growing and learning.
A place of inspiration and love.
This is truly
the end of an era.    Remember.. children of the sky!

Goodbye to a Friend..

Kevin died this morning.
Friend and supporter
in good times and bad.

I will remember you always
with thankfulness and love.

Teacher, poet and lover of music and books and words and gardens and trees....
Orange and Green will always be our colours my friend.
In-jokes about belief and who we are.



Today indeed I am a sad 'Irish Catholic',
but the richer for having known you.

Gratitude fills my heart
for precious last times together;
for having known
you and Ann.



Go in peace.
Kevin and Ann.

With love for a special friend..

Maybe you'll remember about one year ago
my dear friend Ann died of cancer.
She had been a loved deputy principal of a very special school.

Ann's husband Kevin has been principal of this school for many years.
Now it is Kevin who is very ill with cancer.

There is a big sadness at the school.
Staff and children and all of us who know Kevin are feeling very sad.


Today two friends, Felicity and Jan, and I
have worked since early morning at my place,
sewing together a quilt made up of small artworks by the children and staff.
We felt honoured to be stitching this work of love together for
the children and teachers..

We worked from 8am until 5pm,
when two teachers arrived to deliver the quilt to Hospice where a very ill Kevin is tonight.
A very special quilt made with a huge love and caring for a special man.

Our love is with you dear friend.
Our love is with you.
Love to a special school with special teachers and children.
You are the best!

Sunday afternoon..

my doorbell rings
and two little girls
with a gift of flowers

all short stems
and beautiful

we're bored
they say
so we brought you some flowers

I put out the paper
and the soft chalk pastels

and deck them out
in my oversize aprons

and while I sew
two quiet little girls
are lost in their art
for an hour or so

as peaceful as beautiful flowers

I have just finished reading
The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean.

A young Marina works in the Hermitage Museum/Gallery
in Leningrad at the time of the German invasion.
She helps pack the precious paintings,
removed from their frames, to be taken into hiding and safety.
Marina memorises each work of art,
building in her memory a mansion, room by room full of artworks.

Years later, living in America and suffering from Alzheimer's,
Marina begins to live again the horrific
Leningrad years and we go with her into that
memory mansion in her mind and visit the paintings.

I have loved this book. How wonderful to seek
the paintings on google as I read, and to explore the Hermitage.

I enjoyed Debra's post script explaining how she came to write this novel,
without ever having been to St Petersburg,
and her reaction to her visit there after the book was written.

Alzheimer's has suddenly become especially real to me lately
as I support a very dear friend.
Debra Dean's book is one I will remember on many levels,
and a visit to St Petersburg and the State Hermitage Museum is
definitely on my Bucket List.

The Longest Night of the Year
tonight.


and today was more like an autumn day,
crisp and warmly sunny.
People are still wearing light clothing.

I'm sure the blackbirds are singing spring songs,
and spring flowers are out already.

A strange season
but lovely.

My wish is to wake early and see Matariki in the sky...
the stars that welcome in the new light.
From here the days grow longer
but I think the cold is still to come.

everyday is the journey

the journey
itself
is
home..

                               Matsuo Bashi


I am reading yet another book about The Camino.
It is becoming an obsession.

I've read..
The Year We Seized The Day. By Eli Best and Colin Bowles

I'm Off Then.   By Hape Kerkeling.

The Camino. A Journey of the Spirit.  By Shirley MacLaine

and now I'm reading..
Walk in a Relaxed Manner.  By Joyce Rupp.

The walk is becoming very familiar.
One day...

I doodle while I listen.
I was listening to the radio,
to a recording from NZ Post Readers and Writers Week.

The phone rang and someone, probably in India wanted to ask me about my power bill,
and would I like a reduction and 50 Fly Buys.
No. I didn't.

When I returned to my doodling and the radio
Mr A A Gill
UK Restaurant Critic and TravelWriter
was just saying

"I'm part of something really big.. something huge..
a big experiment that is all of us.."

A bluebird of happiness?

His name is Eeyore.
 It must be the rainy day. 

The Bay of Plenty..

I've been away on a little tiki-tour to The Bay of Plenty.
There is something special about this journey.
Travelling through the lush green of Waikato farmlands
to the steamy place of hot mud pools and geysers.. Rotorua.


This is Mokoia Island in the middle of Lake Rotorua.
The island of Hinemoa and Tutanekai.
Hinemoa swam the lake, to be withTutanekai,
following the sound of his flute.
On the island is a hot water pool where Hinemoa warmed herself after the swim in the cold lake.
A Romeo and Juliet story of forbidden love. 

Swan spirits of Hinemoa and Tutanekai?

I stopped by Lake Rotoiti

and the big male swan postured and hissed to let me know he's boss.

A lovely break before driving over the Rotoma Hills.

A twisting, turning road, up and over, through the bush.

I spent two days with my lovely sister.

This morning we went out to Whakatane Heads,
before I set off for home again.
In the far distance you can see White Island,
an active volcano,

and Whale Island, peaceful and beautiful.

I travelled home along the coast to Tauranga and over the Kaimai Hills.
The sky was strangely pale and the sun was strangely ringed.

Tonight there is a ring around the moon.
It could be a sign of rain coming,
but it could be the ash cloud from the exploding volcano in Chile
that is disrupting air travel in NZ.

We seem to be so aware these days
of the dangerous and shaky planet
whose thin crust we inhabit.

Papatuanuku
Earth Mother

Now look here!
Settle down!
Enough is enough.
Go back to sleep.

It seems she's just got to do
what she's just got to do.

Our thoughts are with you Christchurch,
as she turns in her bed once again!

Mirror, mirror, on the wall...

Oh dear.
I dropped my hand mirror.


I quite like the new aspect.

I showed it to some of the arty female faces in my house
and I think they agree.
An interesting reflection on life..

"I love mirrors.
They let one pass through the surface of things"
                                                             Claude Chabrol

'Life is like a mirror.
We get the best results when we smile at it"
                                                       Anon.

"It is a city of mirrors,
the city of images,
at once solid and liquid,
at once air and stone."

                                                                                               Erica Jong

"Fantasy mirrors desire.
Imagination reshapes it."
                       M Cooley

A Birthday Mandala
for Ann..
with love
and wishes.
A birthday celebrated in both north and south hemispheres..
family and friends around the world.

We love you Ann!

The fact my car wouldn't start this morning,


and then the garage door remote refused to close the garage door,
all together, making me one hour late for sewing class..

and the way it rained and rained all day
without stopping,

making water rush down the gutters
and big inviting puddles everywhere..

.. might have caused me to feel a little "inverted" ..



but it did not stop me from having a very lovely day


or from doodling a Miro inspired doodle
while I watched
clever people dancing on ice this evening on the tv.

I do like Miro's creativity.

'I make no distinction between painting and poetry.'
said
Joan Miro.
1893-1983

I feel the same about doodling, dancing or scribbling down words.