Category: family

Beauty in the eyes of the beholder

Tutukaka and Wellington’s Bay from the Lookout point.

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder but I suspect you would find it hard to find someone to fault the beautiful day and the beautiful vistas. We took a trip out to what have been some of our favourite local haunts over the years. Tutukaka for lunch and to take in the Marina and the sound and smell of the boats, and then on to Wellington’s Bay which has always been our safe beach when the children were smaller and our family favourite. Today I wanted to visit the lookout point as I had never ventured there before. It was  a little windy to say the least but it was worth the effort and the views from the top were stunning. A good day to live. A good day to be out and about.

Portrait of a Photographer-Stephanie Sinclair.

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Series-Handmaidens of the Lord – 1. Portrait of a Photographer- Stephanie Sinclair.

(The photo is of Auntie Shirley’s wedding BTW.)

This is a first for me, but as next week is our “Say no to violence” week I wanted to celebrate some of the women whom I have been inspired by over the years and reflect on their compassion, resilience and advocacy for women across the globe and to give acknowledgement to the amazing lengths they have gone to, to empower, strengthen and rebuild the lives of others – hence the title- Handmaidens of the Lord.

My first is Stephanie Sinclair. She is an amazing and award-winning photo-journalist who has captured the stories closest to many women’s hearts across the world. In 2012 I first came across her work on “Too Young to wed” It was based on a series of photographs she had captured over a long period of time for the National Geographic telling the stories of marriages and marriage celebrations across the globe. I came across it trying to find something different and of substance to inspire my teenage students who were looking at sexuality marriage and rites of passage.

2012 had been a humbling year for me, and whilst teaching High School students can be complex I have always regarded it as a privilege especially when I have senior classes full of bright and empowered young women. I wanted to share with our young women the stories of women around the world. I wanted them to be empowered and recognise their place, privileges and opportunities in a world where more than 700 million women were married before the age of 18. I wanted them to embrace their lives and value the education and opportunities offered to them by living in a culture and society that generally supports and recognises the value of women, where my students are unlikely to die before the age of 15 in childbirth unlike their peers in countries like Afghanistan.

I found Stephanie, and I found Nujood Ali and I found a beautiful colourful but corrupt world. It was the beauty of the imagery and the short succinct nature of the film that made it perfect to use in class and my students accepted it in stunned silence. Some even went to the library and borrowed the book by Nujood Ali. It was the first year I took my students globe-trotting in an attempt to get them to value their own roots and I will never regret it.

Stephanie Sinclair demonstrated compassion integrity and tenacity in her endeavours to get the issue noticed in the Western world. Her advocacy and its continued impact for women has continued to send ripples through society. We faced further horror as the years went by when we recognised the other darker sides of the treatment of women and recognised that for many our experiences here in New Zealand would seem beyond the stuff of dreams.

Stephanie set up a global initiative based on “Too young to wed” aimed at creating positive experiences and rehabilitation for women who have suffered from the abuse of child marriage. The links to the video clips and the websites are at the end of the blog. Stephanie Sinclair continues to work to support and advocate and help women to heal in other projects she is involved in. One of the latest projects is called “Story half told” and it documents in portraits the struggles and journeys of women and their families living with, dying with and surviving Breast Cancer. Again the link is at the end of the blog.

So my first portrait in my series of acknowledgments to women who have made a difference to the lives of other women is of Stephanie Sinclair. Thank you for all that you are, all that you have done and all that you continue to do. I believe my life has been richer from appreciating your work and I believe that I, in turn, have passed some of that beauty and richness on. Much love. XXX

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c_zppPutQw

http://tooyoungtowed.org/

http://www.storyhalftold.com/meet-stephanie-sinclair

 

A very blustery day….

As I am sure Pooh bear would have commented it was a very blustery day. A day to blow away the cobwebs, with some salty sea air and a brisk walk along the waterfront in the City of Sails. A change is as good as a rest.

It was a great day for a road trip and although I had hoped for a little more festive decor at Sylvia Park, the carousel was pretty and the company pleasant. I even bumped into former students Jade and the beautiful Jessica Byrne and had a quick catch-up on their lives. Then we witnessed the vista of the waterfront with its showcase of Naval hardware ncluding something I am not accustomed to seeing-armed personnel.

I am no expert on shipping, and the wind made it exceptionally difficult to get a decent shot but the size, range and variety was fascinating. It would appear to be some kind of Naval convention and there were naval ships (they probably have real names like frigate….and such) from Japan, Sumatra, Singapore and beyond.

I think what fascinated us the most was the concept that 50 years ago many of these ships would have been extremely unwelcome and yet today here they all were working together and celebrating NZ’s maritime and naval heritage. I believe the ships are there as part of the Naval revue from November 12-21st,and if you can weather the sea-breeze it is well worth a stroll abroad and perhaps even aboard to see these magnificent beasts in our harbour.

What Folly is this?

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What is a folly?

a costly ornamental building with no practical purpose, especially a tower or mock-Gothic ruin built in a large garden or park.

Well we used to have them in the UK, Dallam tower was a folly just behind the school I first taught at. It was my understanding that it was a Victorian concept, it wasn’t so much a fake or mock up but a tribute to something that was a much larger creation or edifice

Our folly is for the great Hundertwasser project. Whangarei is great fan of Hundertwasser and is set to create a beautiful piece of architecture based on designs made in the Hundertwasser style. It divided a community.Many thought the idea was ludicrous and the building would look ridiculous. I quite liked the idea, a bit of higgledy-piggledy add a splash of colour, who can possibly object to that?

So is it really a folly? It is ornamental and serves no other purpose than to be aesthetically pleasing…but it that the case? It should be a tourist draw-card and make us all feel a little bit better about our town and our lives. Hayley has been working in the Fudge Farm, a delightful little shop at the Town Basin, it serves simply the best ice-cream in town and as we made our first homage to the Folly, we stopped for a lemoncurd small cone and she said it had been “busy as” all weekend. The car park and occupied tables back this theory up to. So perhaps it isn’t a folly after all. Perhaps it is a Wislly instead, something ornamental that has a wise purpose. Love to all. XXXX

Knickerbocker glory’s in tiger country.

knickerbocker glory

So you might not know what a knickerbocker glory is, I never had one but always coveted one…in every cafe we ever went in as a child I watched enviously as other children were given these beautiful treats by doting grandparents. I wasn’t the only deprived child, my husband also coveted a knickerbocker glory and never got one. This current generation with mcflurries and kiwiyo will never understand our loss, I suspect there must be something they covet…maybe it is cabbage or tapioca..or semolina…

Anyway I had to have surgery this week and it was classed as high risk and I am classed as high risk. I don’t have cancer, I have chronic diseases which is exactly like it sounds..chronic kind of slow and lingering. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis, Ulcerative colitis and a bit of Sjogren’s, I also bleed in surgery for no known reason and have allergies to a fair few antibiotics including penicillin and also a latex allergy, add in steroid dependency immunosuppressant drugs and I am quickly becoming the last person you want in your operating theatre we can now add in difficult intubation on more than one occasion and to be fair you wouldn’t touch me with a barge pole if you could help it.

It was my sixteenth surgery. That is my sixteenth surgery done with anaesthetic and cutting in Theatre, not including those other procedures like the colonoscopies, endoscopies, flexi-sigmoidoscopies, IVF procedures, MRI’s CT’s and minor intrusions.

There will be many of you out there that have been through more and many that have been through less but all I can tell you is that despite everything, which included losing 3 litres of blood in 2 minutes in my last surgery and nearly not surviving this one had terrified me the most. The sixteenth.

The sixteenth surgery was in tiger country. Not in my belly or my abdomen or some big roomy cavern but up my nose and into my head to the deep space beneath the brain that is called the sphenoid sinus. Tiger country because the membranes are all that stands between the scalpel and the brain, Tiger country because the membranes are all that stands between the scalpel and those major blood vessels and arteries. Tiger country because that is how Dr Shetty described it and that is how I found my peace on the afternoon of my surgery, he was going to be slow and careful and exercise stealth to remove the disease and infection from the tiger country.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night;

William Blake.
The team were meticulous in their preparation, no sign of latex, blood products on standby and two full anesthetists as well as an anaesthetic technician and I was swallowed in the most wonderful blanket of fentanyl to wander through the forests in the thick of night to hide from the shadows of the tigers burning bright. It was so warm and I was in a cafe and I was going to be getting my first ever knickerbocker glory, it had been ordered and it was taking such a long time to come. My mouth watered at the thought of the coolness of the ice cream and the lusciousness of the fruit. It was so hot in the cafe and I needed air, so I sat on the step in the doorway to feel the breeze across my face, and there it was on its way out to me when they called me back. They were calling my name rousing me from my sleep and it was so warm and I wanted to wait and get my ice cream- my knickerbocker glory, but the calling wouldn’t let me stay and I had to waken.
It was over. Job done. Temperature had dropped to 35.8 so I was laden with heated blankets and on oxygen, despite their best efforts I had been a “challenging” intubation and my throat was raw and sore, and my right eye was watering from the sticky gel they had used to protect my eyes from being shut so tightly. I looked at the clock and checked the time. it was 15.45 and I was alive. 15.45 and I had survived and Dr Shetty had removed the disease and brought me safely back from the Tiger Country.
I cannot thank them enough.
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Pug Love

So we have become temporary pug sitters or pug parents. It seemed a good way of helping out a friend in need and this is a pug of princess proportions who has appeared in high fashion namely an edition of vogue.

She is like a food vacuum cleaner and any food that is on the floor for more than a matter of seconds is fair game and so far she has hoovered up several cat dinners as well as her own. I have learned to be vigilent and move the cat bowls as soon as the cats lose interest but to no avail- I fail on  a regular basis only to hear the snuffling and shuffling that indicates the cat dinner is lost forever. I have googled this phenomena and apparently it is a pug trait. Pugs do food. It’s not their fault. It is like scorpions do sting…well pugs do food.

So have we found our inner pug…do we feel the pug love.

I have to say she has won us over she might be the ugliest cat that our cats have ever seen, and she might not do long walks in leafy suburbs, she fell off the laundry doorstep the first night and now refuses to use that doorstep…but she is very endearing in an under the skin kind of way. She misses her real mum on a regular basis and is sometimes very very sad and then at other she is is playful as a puppy and excitedd to be in the world.

I hope her time with us is leaving a good impression I get the impression that in her sphere of experience we are probably the equivalent of hillbilly rednecks, but yes we have found some of our pug love. XXXX

 

 

 

 

November 1st…the All blacks won back to back…in the rugby world cup

Well England got knocked out right at the beginning. It is important to notice what goes on in the world, the events be they political, social or even entertainment- they are like the beacons on our road map of life. They guide us back to our memories. I was born in the year that England last won the world cup-football that is…not rugby and for some reason that always seems to give me some sense of connection, it was a year of something instead of a year of nothing, a year remembered for something positive and not something of despair. So there I am like a little tiny star in the sky anchored by this one single event. My daughters were born on a day of history. They were born on the day that NATO began its aerial bombing campaign on Yugoslavia. Strange that- in my youth Yugoslavia had become a holiday destination, but that day marked a change that would last for many years and Yugoslavia ceased to exist in our minds as a tourist resort. And well that is how quickly and suddenly things can change. Our lives are so fragile, the webs we weave so intricate and complex and in one tiny breath we live and die, laugh and cry, hope and regret. Today we win. The All blacks… we win back to back in the rugby world cup. For someone somewhere it will serve as a positive beacon to guide them on their way and to guide them back to their connections at some future point in time.