Great news from our children travelling in Europe. Our daughter-in-law (the journalist) has just picked up a 3-month contract at CNN, based in London. We don’t know many of the details apart from it being in their digital team, and she might get to do some presenting, which she is good at.

Hopefully, by December they will have realised how good she is and offered her a permanent role.

Happy birthday to our youngest child. He and his wife are currently on a bus tour through part of Europe with a bunch of Aussies. They seem to be having a great fime, and I think he got more than one birthday party.

Currently in Venice.

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The last time we all got together at a farewell party for Angus and Charlie before they went to Europe for their OE.

Crash, bang, flash. The thunder and lightning has arrived.

A new pain?

I woke up early two days ago with a very sore shoulder. A newish pain. What could that be? (CW: medical talk)

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Want to read: The Magician by Colm Toibin 📚

My mother-in-law lent this to me a few weeks ago, and it has joined a small pile of ‘one day I’ll get to this’ books.

My father’s bible given to him by the Kelso Presbyterian Church after he enlisted in the Army in World War 2, and went into basic training.

The referenced verse, 11 Timothy 2:3, says “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Christ.”

We have another, more battered brown copy, which I think Dad carried with him and got more use.

Photo of inside cover of small New Testament bible, with inscription to Lance Corporal Robert MacLean
This was one of the versions of the New Testament of the Bible given to service personnel in World War 2. It includes a message from King George VI

Regarding the news from Auckland today about the City Council considering when stores can sell alcohol.

I reckon anyone who wants to buy alcohol at 11pm has probably been on the sauce for a while and doesn’t need any more!

A new notebook

I’ve just created a new section in my bullet journal for September. It’s the last one I have any room for in the notebook. Given my prognosis at the end of last year, I didn’t think I would be doing this. But, things have changed, and I have even had the confidence to buy a new notebook for October and onwards.

It’s not exactly one of my highest priorities regarding my health, but I will be interested to see how much of the new notebook I get time to use!

Community newsletter for Pukerua Bay

If you’re interested in what we’re doing in our little community, check out our two-monthly community newsletter (edited by my clever wife).

The latest issue of Kōrero (kōrero is Māori for news or talking) is online.

Here you can find information about the PKB Hub’s Pop-up Parlor, the Climate Action spring series, and a link to Maringikura Mary Campbell’s Facebook page with her artwork.

Also, lots of informative articles. We hope you enjoy it.

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I’ve been experimenting with the

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element and attribute for images in micro.blog.

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Your immune system is not a muscle

A fascinating description of the incredible complexity of our immune system. Not too technical for a non-clinical person to understand.

Rachel Thomas, PHD - Your immune system is not a muscle

The weather’s really crapped out in the past half hour. Wind’s up, rain’s back. We’ll have to console ourselves with the memory of yesterday’s perfect weather.

Visit to Wellington Botanical Gardens

It was such a beautiful day, that my wife, mother-in-law and I decided to go to the Wellington Botanical Gardens. It was the first time I had been there in at least a couple of years. Hardly any wind, full sun, and no crowds. A great day!

Bank of azaleas
Bank of azaleas.
Magnolia tree in flower
Magnolia tree in flower
Iceland poppies in a garden
Iceland poppies make a colourful mixture.
Small white daisies - Mauranthemum - planted in a mass
Mauranthemum daisies make a good solid block of colour.
Small purple flowers - Primroses
Primroses bring a dash of bold purple to the gardens.
Iain and Constance (mother-in-law) by the rose garden
Me and the ma-in-law next to the rose garden by the Begonia House at the entrance to the gardens.
Grey-haired man and woman sitting on park bench showing their almost matching walking sticks
Me and the ma-in-law with our almost matching walking sticks. Kate and the dog don’t get a very brisk walk when they go out with us.

Birds in the garden

It’s nice going out into the garden in the morning to fetch the paper and hear the tūī going for it in the trees. We have a growing number of them in Pukerua Bay.

Dedicated amateur pest controllers – i.e. residents with rat traps in their gardens – have made the village much safer for the birds. We also have lots of kererū (wood pigeons) that have come over from the wildlife reserve on Kāpiti Island. There are so many, they even have their own ‘Slow down’ road safety signs!

Burning Spear - Marcus Garvey

🎵This was the first Burning Spear album I bought. It’s also very devout and hard-core Rastafarian. Also very political, given it’s a homage to Marcus Garvey, who was a Jamaican political leader dedicated to the ‘Back to Africa’ movement. An anti-colonialist, he was also fairly controversial in the company he kept (the KKK) and being an anti-socialist, despite being a trade unionist.

However, the Rastafarians liked the back to Africa aspects of his politics and regarded him as a prophet who predicted the crowning of Haile Selassie (aka The Lion Of Juda) in Ethiopia.

Cover of Burning Spear record Marcus Garvey. The picture shows two figures holding spears. The title Marcus Garvey is written along the bottom of the picture and Burning Spear's name is diagonally at the top.
Cover of the Burning Spear record 'Marcus Garvey', released in December 1975.

Useful algorithms

I don’t generally like online algorithms that decide for you what you want to see (Facebook and Twitter, I’m looking at you). But I find the radio one Tidal plays once your playlist or album has finished to be a very good stab at what I want to keep on listening to. I can let them run for hours without getting bored. I’ve got a contemporary jazz one going now. There’s a bit of repetition, but I can live with that.

White English rock band hints at reformation; critics in a lather

🎵Or are they? The band, I mean, not the critics; they’re wetting themselves with excitement about the possibility.

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Open letter to the oil industry

Greenpeace has launched an open letter to the oil industry telling them they are not welcome in New Zealand. It’s pretty blunt and leaves them in no doubt that people will not make it easy for them to get what they and the government want.

You are not welcome here.

We pledge to do everything we can to resist the oil and gas industry if the New Zealand government overturns the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration.

You can sign it online here: Open letter to the oil industry

Too many SM accounts?

Questions I’ve been thinking about recently inspired by joining micro.blog.

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Finding treasures when tidying

We’ve been cleaning out a space upstairs in the next-door house, where our daughter lives. It was tidy at one time, but when we moved out we dumped a lot of stuff we couldn’t be bothered sorting out in there. Kate had been going through it and bringing over things for me to decide whether to chuck or keep.

Some have been treasurers, such as my father’s detailed account of his time in the army in World War 2. Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force, 26th Battalion. Sent to Greece in time for the retreat when the Germans invaded. Back to Egypt to fight in the relief of Tobruk and captured by the Germans in one of the big tank battles in that campaign. Three and a half years as a prisoner of war, first of the Italians and then the Germans when Italy capitulated.

More prosaically, we’ve been able to clean out some untidy shelves in our office where I had thrown junk I couldn’t be bothered sorting. They now hold books we’ve brought over from next door.