Here We Come 2022

Onwards and Upwards.

Two favourite quotes today – 

“Don’t wait for a light to appear at the end of the tunnel,
stride down there and light the
bloody thing yourself.”
Sara Henderson – From Strength to Strength

“The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something.
Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen,
you will fill the world with hope; you will fill yourself with hope.” Barack Obama

It’s January 3rd here in sunny, warm, Wellington, New Zealand. 

By now we are getting used to seeing 2022 on newspapers, email, etc., and 2021 is rapidly becoming a memory.

I have written my list of achievements for the last year, and may I say I was agreeably surprised at the length of the list.  Some are very small things, but a couple were life changing for me.

As Douglas Adams, (he who wrote The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) said.  

“I may not have gone where I intended to go,
but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.”

Did you make resolutions on January 1?  I didn’t because I know that they won’t last even until the end of January, but I do set goals at the beginning of each year.

My goals for 2022 are written down and shared with Chris, the other half of A World Apart.  As we say, a goal is not a goal unless it is written down. Until then it is a hope, a wish, or a thought, but it becomes a goal once it is on the computer or preferably on paper. And it must be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. 

Now time to take off my Life Coach hat again.

Having said I don’t make resolutions, I do like these resolutions from Bridget Jones Dairy. They are so unachievable’ they make me laugh.

“Resolution number one: Obviously will lose twenty pounds.
Number two:  Always put last night’s panties in the laundry basket.
Equally important will find a sensible boyfriend to go out with and not continue to form
romantic attachments to any of the following:
alcoholics, workaholics, commitment phobic’s, peeping toms,
megalomaniacs, emotional fuckwits or perverts.
And especially will not fantasise about a particular person who embodies all these things”

So now onwards and upwards into 2022.

As you know, it is summertime here and most people are still on holiday.  Offices reopen on the 5th or 6th. But as is usually the case, many people enjoy themselves without thought of the consequences.  New Zealanders love the ocean and all the water sports. But some do not swim in safe and patrolled areas. They put themselves and others at risk.  Surf Lifesaving NZ reported “Three people have died in separate water-related incidents while swimming at beaches on Boxing Day, as surf lifesavers urge people to stay safe.” And The NZ Herald reports  today, “Two men have drowned in the notoriously dangerous Manawatū River this afternoon. It comes just days after a woman and young girl who were refugees from Burma drowned in the same section of the Palmerston North river.”

And what about drivers?  Fourteen deaths have been recorded over this holiday period so far. There are three more days until the period is officially ended, and the number of accidents are not recorded.

And so, to add to the two deaths we suffered in our family during 2021, we have these other 14 at the very beginning of 2022. Even though I don’t know these people, I offer my heartfelt wishes to their grieving relatives and friends.

********

Time to move on from the melancholy!

Wellington has been described by Lonely Planet as the best little capital in the wold. I live here and with my family and friends know it to be true. And you can’t beat Wellington on a good day!

A crowded city beach!!

Time now to sit in the garden in the sunshine, with a sandwich for a late lunch and because I am English, a cup of tea.

” Go ahead, get excited about the future; the past won’t mind.”
Judith Baxter, Blogger, Writer, Grandmother and friend. 1938 –

 

Down Memory Lane Workbook Now Ready

Hey, hey.it’s Saturday again.  Time for Six Word Saturday

I am sorry to say that the site no longer exists, but some of us are continuing with Six Word Saturday. Please join us for a bit of. fun.

My six words are in the title if this post. “To live in lives we leave behind, is not to die.”
Judith Baxter 1938 –

In 2009 I devised and have since run a course on Memory Witing,  This is not to write your life story, but to record your memories to pass on to future generations. But now, after so many years, the time came for the workbook to be updated.  And now it has been,

The course is ideally, run as a group, but sometimes I have had people who either didn’t have the time or the desire to work in a group, and so they have successfully worked through the course on their own using the workbook.

The course comprises six sessions and depending on the number of people involved, will usually take about one and a half to two hours.

I introduce the course with a few remarks:-

On and off over the years, I have written my memories.
I told them and read them to my young children when they were too young to read for themselves, and they treated them like fairy stories.
Those memories were the bricks on which we built our lives My growing up during and after World War Two was a totally foreign environment to them. And as we moved to New Zealand when they were seven and four London was mostly foreign to them too, although I called it home and we visited family there bi-annually.
The children grew up and made their own memories, but I continued to write mine.
At one time, I printed out the memories. I had them ring-bound and they sat on the coffee table along with other, much better-presented coffee table books.
Friends began to notice and ask how they could/should start to collect and collate their memories, and so the course was devised and with it came this workbook for participants.

And I am now pleased to say the workbook is ready to go onto Amazon to be sold. But before then, I should like to offer a copy to any of my followers who would like to receive one. Please send an email to judith@judithbaxter.net.nz with Memory Lane Workbookin the subject line and I will respond asap.

This is really a great and precious gift for your future generations, so I hope to hear from you.

“Circumstances or people can take away your material possessions,
they can take away your money, and they can take away your health.
But no one can ever take away your precious memories.”
Judith Baxter, friend, mother, sister, aunt and blogger. 1938-

I Took a Trip on a Train

August 16, 2017, was the second anniversary of the Architect’s death. It was also the day a friend and I were taking the TranzAlpine train trip  So as Sinatra sang:

“I took a trip on a trainAnd I thought about you
I passed a shadowy laneAnd I thought about you
And every stop that we made
Oh, I thought about you”

The Architect and I had planned this as one of the many trips we were going to take together.  Instead of which, I was with a friend aka Two Tarts on Tour, making the trip. The TranzAlpine is one of the world’s great train journeys covering 223 kilometres (139 miles) one-way, taking just under 5 hours.

We departed from Christchurch at 8 am and sat back to enjoy the ride.  Pretty soon, however, we were up on our feet in the observation car taking in the fantastic scenery, the snow-topped mountains, the high lakes, and blue water gushing waterfalls.

 

We came across a film crew working for Kiwi Rail.  They were taking photos for a new ad and so we were asked to be part of that ad, along, I might say, with other travellers.

Soon the journey came to an end and we arrived in Greymouth.  We had a tour of the Pancake Rocks booked for that afternoon.

Even though it was a sunny and calm afternoon, the Tasman Sea was showing us how fierce it can be.

Pancake Rocks?  We are told “The Pancake Rocks at Dolomite Point near Punakaiki are a heavily eroded limestone area where the sea bursts through several vertical blowholes. The foundations of the Pancake Rocks were formed 30 million years ago when minute fragments of dead marine creatures and plants landed on the seabed about 2 km below the surface.   Read more…..

The day before I found this little plaque – so I did as it directed and had a good day.

 

The next afternoon it was back on the train for the journey to Christchurch.  We were lucky that the trip over was bright and clear because, on the way back, the rain pounded down and so much of the view was hidden.

So my trip on a train was a success and

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Adventure Begins

Well, I have now been in London for 14 days.  I arrived after two very long flights from New Zealand exacerbated by a mix up in bookings. But the frustration was quickly forgotten when I eventually arrived at my sister’s house.

Since then the time has been spent mostly in catching up on each other’s news and meeting family.  And I am part of a very large family.  Father was one of 13 and each of the siblings had a couple of children, with the exception of one sister and one brother who had none.  So while there are only two surviving siblings of Father’s there are plenty of cousins.  And my sister has three children and six grandchildren so life has been rather busy.

One highlight was a visit to a retirement home where one of the surviving sisters lives.  She is suffering a form of dementia.  She was perfectly lucid for most of the time we were there but then she couldn’t remember any of us, not even her son, his wife and their two little girls.  How very sad.  She also became very tearful when she was told that her brothers had died.  Very sad and scary because she is only 8 years older than I am.

Today we have been to NZ House to have a copy of my passport certified.  Somehow I have mislaid my driver’s licence so I had to apply for a replacement.  Have you travelled on public transport in London?  One bus ride, three tube trains and one hour and forty-five minutes later we arrived at the Haymarket and NZ House.  I had quite forgotten how big, noisy and crowded London is.  It is a shock to a “colonial” even a “colonial” who was born and brought up in London.

And how strange it is that when I am in NZ I call England “home” and when I am here I call NZ “home”  Today I felt quite at home in New Zealand House.

You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it’s all right.
Maya Angelou, American author and poet 1928 –

And London has of course changed since I was last here.  The changes to the East End are amazing –  this is because the Olympics were mainly staged in this area last year.  More on these changes shortly.

Time To Move On

I have been absent from the blogosphere for several weeks recently and I apologise to my faithful followers for this.

The reasons have been many but at the top of the list is a decision I have made.  I have decided to sell my house and then take several months to travel around Europe, and France in particular.

Why now one may ask – well  I have always had “itchy feet”.  This was pandered to by my husband and his moving around the world during the busy years making a name for himself and a life for us.  When he died I spent several years between New Zealand and England where I had been born and raised; eventually deciding to settle down again here in NZ.  But here on the other side of the world, we are so far away from everything and I am feeling that if I don’t do something about this restlessness now I never shall.

Then a few weeks ago I read a post from Kathryn McCulloch about major changes she and her partner Sara have made.  Apart from selling their house and getting married in New York, they have embarked on a new life in Ecuador.  How very brave is that!  This, of course, set me thinking.  Oh sure, they are younger than me and there are two of them, but so what.

So I determined to have an adventure of my own.  I do have two special sisters, one in Los Angeles and one in London and of course, any odyssey will have to start with them.  Added to that my sister in London has agreed to come to France if only for a few days while we/I decide where to spend the next few months.  Isn’t that exciting.  And I have a very good friend in Paris that I have been threatening to visit so Kay watch this space.

And yesterday, to add icing to this cake, I heard that another blogging buddy, Joss at Crowing Crone has put her house on the market and plans to travel to France in September.  So I shall have the opportunity to meet with her and her husband IN REAL LIFE!

 

The excitement continues to mount.The house is on the market and the marketing has commenced.  It will be tendered over two weeks with the first Open Home on Sunday.  And if the other properties my Real Estate friend has sold over the past couple of months is anything to go by, it should sell easily.

Oh, and if you are wondering about the Beautiful Miss Bella – I have a very good friend who will adopt her for the time I am away.  I fear though that I might not get her back.

So Europe here I come.  I will attempt to be in the blogosphere more often now that the decision has been made.

“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.  I travel for travel’s sake.
The great affair is to move. ”
Robert Louis Stevenson,  Scottish novelist, poet,
essayist and travel writer. 1850 – 1894

and

Just Thinking About Christmas

Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere is still strange after 40 plus years living in New Zealand.  I have told of how the first Christmas we were here my then 7-year-old daughter, asked in her piping Scottish accent “When is it going to snow Mummy”.  That first Christmas we had a fantastic summer.  All the promises that were made in the coloured brochures provided to us by the NZ High Commission in London proved to be true.  Long lazy days at the beach but at Christmas?

Even after all these years setting up a tree with lights and putting decorations around the house still doesn’t feel quite right.  And reindeer – where’s the snow?  Another vexing question for my daughter and her younger brother all those years ago was how would Santa get here if the reindeer didn’t bring him?  And more importantly, would he know that they had moved from Lenzie in Dumbartonshire, Scotland to Auckland, New Zealand?  And of course, there was no chimney – so how would he get in?

That first Christmas, the day dawned hot and humid and of course, having been brought up in the Northern Hemisphere I did the traditional dinner with all the trimmings.  Everybody ate in their bathing suits.  Another strange thing for us to contemplate (and add to the list of strange things).

Things went back to normal when we lived in Montreal and Christmas was once again in the winter.  And if you have ever been to Montreal in the winter you will know that there was no shortage of snow.  And there were two chimneys in our house so that solved the problem of access and the snow solved the reindeer question but by this time my children were 9 and 7 and Santa Claus (or Father Christmas as English and Scottish children knew him then) was relegated to the arena of fairies and fairy tales.

But now we are used to the upside-down seasons and accept that it will be warm and hopefully sunny on Christmas Day.  My son will no doubt cook a barbecue and we will relax on a patio with a cold drink in hand, surrounded by family and friends.

And as I write this post on Saturday, December 8 at 1pm I find that there are only 16 days 10 hours 58 minutes and 26 seconds to Christmas.  Is that sufficient time to do all the things on my Christmas To Do List?   Well, it will have to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Related articles

• Christmas is here!! (michelle0harvey.wordpress.com)
• About to celebrate my second green Christmas (foreverinthepresent.wordpress.com)

An Eruption

There has been a rumbling, spewing of ash and sulphur smells filling the air this week.  Do I hear you ask where?

Here in New Zealand we have many volcanoes, most dormant, some extinct and some active.  As you can see from the map many volcanoes are centred around the middle of the North Island.

On Monday evening one of volcanoes erupted and we are told this was quite unexpected with no seismic activity being recorded in the area.   Mt Tongariro  in the centre of the North Island decided to put on a spectacular show for us.  The last time this particular “dormant” volcano erupted was in 1897 – a decidedly sleeping volcano.

Activity on the volcano settled down during Tuesday although steam was still billowing from the crater.  We are told that several new vents were formed during the eruption and today scientists confirm that there are three new crater lakes.  I was going to write here “Isn’t Nature wonderful?” but thought it might be read as a snide remark when in fact I meant it.

Rocks fell within 1km of the eruption, damaging  one of four trampers’ huts on the mountain, but there have been no reports of injuries.  Light ash fell as far away as Taupo and Napier ( about 140 kms) , while the smell of sulphur gas – similar to the “rotten eggs” smell experienced in Rotorua – had drifted to Wellington some 300 kms away.

One of our most active volcanoes is the neighbouring Mr Ruapehu.  I remember when Mount Ruapehu erupted in 1995 and again in 1996.  In 1995 we were going on holiday and driving past the mountain shortly after it erupted.  We were on the Desert Road that runs through the centre of the north island and here the mountain was clearly visible.  The ash that was thrown up settled on everything for miles around, including our car.  Traffic was stopped until the police determined that it was safe to continue so we had this unobstructed view of nature ‘throwing her toys out of the cot’.  But what a magnificent sight it was.  We were far enough away not to be in any danger and the police quickly determined it was safe for us to continue.

So while those of us who choose to live here call it “Godzone” we have several natural events to contend with.  Recently we have had earthquakes (and they are still continuing) tornadoes, floods and now volcanic eruptions, but Mother Nature keeps us entertained with her various shows of strength and wonderful activities.  We are never bored by Mother Nature.

Related Articles

• Dormant Volcano Erupts
• NZ Volcano Roars into Life

How Lucky Am I?

“When we are no longer able to change a situation,
we are challenged to change ourselves.”
Victor Frankl, 1905-1997
Austrian Neurologist and Psychiatrist

I am  constantly amazed at the fortitude of my fellow bloggers.  When I read of the hardships and abuse many have suffered and overcome, I wonder at my luck of having been born into a loving and caring family and then having the good fortune to meet and marry my ‘Dashing-Young-Scotsman’ at an early age.

I tell people that I have lived a blessed life.  If you have read any of my earlier posts, you will see that I had a long and mostly happy life with my DYS; I have two children whom I love and whose support I can rely on and appreciate.

My family is rounded out by four strapping young grandsons all of whom seem pleased to see their Granma and offers of help are often forthcoming.

Of course, no life is perfect.  I left my family in the UK to follow my husband in his move up the corporate ladder which entailed us moving around the world.  My children therefore, missed out on the companionship of cousins that I had when growing up.  And they saw their grandparents on rare (bi annual) visits home.  So they were very much part of a nuclear family – the four of us in a world far removed from home.

I am also very lucky to have two sisters, one in London and one in Los Angeles.  Could we have landed any further apart even had we planned it?  While they are not within easy visiting distance we still are in regular contact by phone and now of course, the internet.  Aren’t we lucky to live in this technological age.

Mother with her three daughters

There have of course been bad times in this long life of mine.  We lived in Montreal for a couple of years and I absolutely loathed it.  The French Separatists were very active and almost daily we heard of their actions against the English speaking population.  My children’s school was bombed and that coupled with the police going on strike, made the decision for us to leave and return to our adopted home, New Zealand.

This time we knew that it would be a permanent move and that family and friends in the Northern Hemisphere would see us only a rare trips home; but we made the decision in the knowledge that this was where we wanted to raise our children – on the beach in Takapuna, Auckland.  After a year my husband was transferred to Wellington, the capital city, but that’s another story.

I wrote about a time when I was in danger of losing my leg and a black day when I wanted to Stop the World, but my blackest day was 14 years ago when my Not So DYS died and the colour went out of my world for some time.  But living and moving on doesn’t come with a choice and so I am in the next phase of my life and most of the colour has returned.

So daily I give thanks for my life and know that I wouldn’t swap it for anyone else’s.  Oh yes of course, there are parts I would gladly change.  Those that are shared in this post and others but mostly I say thanks to god, the Universe or whatever power is above us for giving me this life.

And above all I thank my fellow bloggers for being so open about their lives, in all the ups and downs and for sharing with us how they have overcome.  In reading about their problems I have come to realise just how lucky I am.  This is their gift to me.  Thank you thank you!

As each day comes to us refreshed and anew, so does my gratitude renew itself daily.
The breaking of the sun over the horizon is my grateful heart dawning upon a blessed world.
Terri Guillemets, U.S. quotation anthologist, 1973 –

Associated Posts:

• For My Sisters
• Yesterday When I was Young
• Stop the World

Related articles

• Why I feel lucky to be American (expatedna.com)
• The Art of Appreciation (snspost.com)

Stop The World

One of the blogs I have recently started to follow is The Kitchens Garden from Cecilia, a New Zealander now happily living in the US.  Her post today brought back memories of another time and place in my life.

Haven’t we all had a “Stop the world I want to get off” moment at some time in our lives?  Well, mine was some 26 years ago – way back in 1986.  It was a beautiful summer morning a couple of weeks before Christmas in Blenheim in the South Island of New Zealand.  My dashing (well by then not so dashing or so young) young Scotsman was in hospital recovering from a burst, undiagnosed duodenal ulcer.

As was my wont, I arrived at the hospital shortly after 8am to be greeted by the nurses with a strained smile.  By this time we were all on first-name terms as he had been in the hospital for some six weeks, and I thought their strained greetings very odd.  I was also concerned because a couple of days before when I arrived, my husband wasn’t in his room and I discovered that they had punctured a lung while carrying out some procedure or other.  Of course, at the time, I did know what the procedure was but it has taken itself off with so many other things over time.

Well, when I arrived at his room husband was sitting up in bed reading the daily newspaper.  He too looked a little strained as I came in and so I asked the reason.  His response, after telling me to take a seat, was that our son had been admitted to hospital the night before with appendicitis. As we hadn’t a phone at the time (see Paradise, Phones and Phrustration) my son’s girlfriend had called the hospital to pass on the news.

Now in other circumstances, I would have taken this in my stride.  But just then…  Not only was my darling in hospital in the South Island of New Zealand, but my Mother was in hospital in London, England and my Father in Law was in hospital in Dunoon in Scotland.  And now my son was in hospital in Wellington in the North Island of New Zealand.

That was really a “Stop The World” moment for me.  Fortunately, my son’s operation was straight forward and he was released on the same day as my husband was released from hospital.  And as my daughter had arrived home from London having been summoned by her brother, we managed a happy Christmas with the whole family in one place.

“Said Mr. Smith, “I really cannot
Tell you, Dr. Jones—
The most peculiar pain I’m in—
I think it’s in my bones.
Said Dr. Jones, “Oh, Mr. Smith,
That’s nothing. Without doubt
We have a simple cure for that;
It is to take them out…..”
From Bones by Walter de la Mare
1873 – 1956 English poet, short story writer
and novelist.

And now I am off to a mid-winter Christmas dinner.  Well it’s hard to take the turkey, ham and all the trimmings on a brilliant summer day.

Google image

Happy Christmas to you all

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You’ve Got Mail

Here is today’s email.

To             The Citizens of the United States of America
From      Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,
Subject  Greetings.

In light of your immediate failure to financially manage yourselves and also in recent years your tendency to elect incompetent Presidents of the USA and therefore not able to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. (You should look up ‘revocation’ in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, David Cameron, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.  A questionnaire may be circulated sometime next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘colour,’ ‘favour,’ ‘labour’ and ‘neighbour.’  Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters,  and the suffix ‘-ize’ will be replaced by the suffix ‘-ise.’  Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels (look up ‘vocabulary’
2. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as ‘like’ and ‘you know’ is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S.English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter ‘u” and the elimination of  ‘-ize.’
3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
4.  You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can’t sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you’re not ready to shoot grouse.
5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
7.  The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.
8. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.
9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of  known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. New Zealand beer is also acceptable, as New Zealand is pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth – see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.
10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys.  Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one’s ears removed with a cheese grater.
11. You will cease playing American football. There are only two kinds of proper football; one you call soccer, and rugby (dominated by the New Zealanders). Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full Kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).
12. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the Australians (World dominators) first to take the sting out of their deliveries.
13. You must tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us mad.
14.  An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).
15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!