City of Joy

In the process of looking up V-Day  ( www.vday.org ) we discovered the amazing City of Joy and the V-World Farm, begun in DR Congo by Dr Denis Mukwege, Christine Schuler Deschryver  and Eve Ensler in 2011, with support from Unicef and many contributors world-wide,  to help women rape survivors in the DR Congo become community leaders – TURNING […]

And then a love story…

We went to the premiere of the film Carol, a lesbian love story based on an early Patricia Highsmith novel The Price of Salt, with some reservations, thinking it might be a Hollywood let-down.  But actually we loved it – all our group of eight very different women found it moving, and beautiful in its portrayal […]

Summer at Earthsong

    We’ve been enjoying a peaceful, gentle time at Earthsong over summer – no meetings, emails or cooking teams! – and delighting in homegrown summer vegies and fruit from the garden. We also appreciated a Christmas delivery of delicious citrus and early plums  from Alison and Steve at earthtalk. The sad event here has been […]

Mai Chen, MIXIT and The Girl from Niue Island

Mai Chen on Cultural Competence A fine article in the NZ Herald (18 January 2016) by Mai Chen celebrates New Zealand’s cultural diversity . She makes a strong case for us to become culturally competent, and a couple of video clips in her on-line article illustrate what this can mean, and how valuable and empowering it […]

Can you believe it – Charmaine loves exercise too!!

  Tanya continues to do her regular mixture of tai chi, exercycle and swimming lengths at The Wave pool in Henderson to try and keep her arthritic joints open and moving. Now Charmaine’s got the bug, after a lifetime of exercise phobia, and goes off to a gym when Tanya goes swimming –but this is […]

Ranui in the Sunlight

How lovely to open the Weekend Herald and find Steve Braunias celebrating Ranui and its library! We feel very proud because this corten steel canopy was created by Nic Moon of Nelson, from Tanya’s extended family…     We especially enjoy the people of Ranui, too, as those who have read our earlier blogs will know – […]

Diversity in Dunedin…

We had a week in Dunedin last month – and managed to find all the ingredients of a fine holiday: catching up with family and friends, lesbian company, cultural activities, conservation projects, and a political visit. We stayed the first night with former Aucklander, Pleasance, in her hilltop villa, and joined a monthly dinner group of Dunedin lesbians.  Ann Charlotte, whom we met there, […]

A Fan for Flax..

We went to Okahu Bay Domain at Orakei for the final wananga of Te Ara Reo Maori which Tanya has been attending all year at Te Wananga o Aotearoa.  Musicians were a big part of the day, including Whirimako Black, Justin Kereama and Pikiteora Mura-Hita and others. Just as we were leaving we saw this number plate […]