Happy Solstice, we hope…

  We wish you  a Happy Solstice, with a colour-full covid-free summer if you are in Aotearoa or the Pacific… …and if you are in the Northern Hemisphere, or in a Covid-infected area, and dealing with  lockdowns and deaths,  please take care, and know that we are sending our love to you, with our hopes […]

Some Brilliant Things…

Toi Tu, Toi Ora The most outstanding current event in Tāmaki Makaurau is the contemporary Māori Art exhibition in the Auckland Art Gallery – a wonderful celebration of 112 Māori artists (60% of them women) , filling the whole gallery, and ranging from works, several storeys high to tiny exquisite objects, and in many different […]

Stuff, and Ihumatao…

Congratulations to NZ Stuff Media for their courage in taking responsibility for their long history of institutional racism, and making a commitment to change.  This is the first time a major media group has acknowledged its bias, with examples, and taken responsibility for the change that is needed – throughout almost all media and other […]

Toys for the Boys

  We are doing our best to ignore all the fuss currently going on in Auckland surrounding the America’s Cup.  And the costs… the Government is paying more than $136 million and Auckland Council almost $99 million…and for what? A few bizarre-looking ‘boats’ trying to fly on the Waitematā Harbour… Chris Rattue, in his excellent […]

Farewell and gratitude for a wise elder…

    We are specially sad to hear of the recent death of Dr Rangimarie Turuki Arikirangi Rose Pere. We are hugely respectful of her deep wairua, courage, liveliness of spirit and vision, and her extensive work in education,  in Aotearoa and around the world.  We have admired her ability to challenge conventional Pākehā wisdom […]

A WORLD AWAY…

A World Away i te Nota (in the North) Our big adventure this month has been a six-day holiday in Tai Tokerau (Northland).  Most of our exploring was around Te Hokianga-nui-a-Kupe, the birthplace of Aotearoa – one of the very oldest areas of settlement by the Pasifika voyagers who were to become tangata whenua. It’s […]

A Political Painting..

We’re grateful to Garth, Tanya’s brother, for lending us this powerful painting by Margaret Lawlor-Bartlett- an 85-year-old grandmother!  She painted it in 2015- and now in her 90s, she is still painting, after a 60 year career as an artist. It will be displayed next year in a retrospective of her work over many decades. […]

Happy Helpful Honda!

We’ve just been thinking how lucky we are to still have our 2001 Honda.  She is now almost 20 years old, has seen us from the farm days through to the city, has done 456,120km, has a few mended scratches,  bangs and rust patches, and has faded somewhat from her original marvellous mauve.  But she […]