Aging is an extraordinary process, where you become free to be the person you always should have been – David Bowie.
Something a friend said gave me the idea of making day trips, or half-day trips, to small towns in Canterbury, which I’d otherwise probably never go to. These are the towns which we shoot through on our way to somewhere else, or are off the main highway. My idea was to make deliberate excursions to …
Continue reading A peregrination to Leithfield, a small town in Canterbury.
Beware of making casual off-the-cuff suggestions to kids. My twin grand-nieces had their 11th birthday recently, and it was arranged that they’d spend part of the day with me. I asked them if there was anything special that they’d like to do, and the answer was “shopping”. It seemed more of a formulaic response, than …
Her name is Flexi. She's a feline heading towards her riper years, and a typical tortoiseshell battleaxe towards her own species. I expect we'll rub along famously. Although my last two cats, Patrick and then Phoenix, both older cats, too, managed to avoid getting run over on the busy road I live on, I found …
It’s been more years than I can remember since I last stepped foot on a farm. That changed recently when I went and stayed for five days on my sister’s daughter and husband’s farm in Australia. They were going off on a holiday, and sis was asked if she was available to do farm and …
Continue reading Five days across the ditch on a farm in Australia. It was an experience.
I had a rather surreal experience the other night. There I was, comfortably ensconced on my couch, feet up, and watching a movie on my laptop, when I caught something out of the corner of my eye. Turning my head, I saw a rat. It wasn’t the biggest rat I’d ever seen, but there was …
For the first time ever, I attended an Anzac Day commemoration. Anzac stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, and Anzac Day was initially instigated to honour those who fought at Gallipoli after landing on its beaches on 25th April 1915. Gallipoli is a narrow peninsula of land in modern-day Turkey, and was the …
On the whole, I'd say that if you get a chance to watch the New Zealand-made move Tinā, do so. I've recently seen it, and can recommend it. The story plot is pretty much a tried and true formula, but it's still engaging, and I came away feeling I'd seen something worthwhile. Others have gushed …
My father brought my mother a metallic trinket box home to New Zealand from Japan sometime between 1945 and 1948. He’d been in Japan for a while, before they married, as part of the Western occupation forces after World War 2. He once told me he got his call-up papers two days after the war …
Continue reading “Made in Occupied Japan”, it says on the back of my inherited trinket box.
Funny day, yesterday. My sister, Jackie, and I set out to witness what, for us, was probably a one-time event - only to find there was no event. It started off when I spotted a news item in Chris Lynch Media about the arrival of a sailing ship into the Port of Lyttleton, which services …
Continue reading We went to see a sailing ship come into port, and missed it.
Christmas Day dawned in a lovely shade of grey. Not quite overcast, but the sun obdurately remained behind a cloak of cloud. However, it wasn’t cold, with a high of 21 degrees Celsius, which, whilst not hot, wasn’t the lowest ever Christmas Day temperature recorded in Christchurch. In 1975, a large southerly storm off the …
Aging is an extraordinary process, where you become free to be the person you always should have been - David Bowie.
Some of this. And some of that.
"The wound is the place where the light enters you" RUMI
Eats plants
Words, words, words...pressed.
For we cannot tarry here, We must march my darlings
Email to ziegler.bill@gmail.com
You - philosophical, thoughtful, witty. Me - still thinks fart jokes are funny. We should DEFINITELY get together!
On being vegan - the good, the bad, and the brilliant
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A B'Old Woman 