Fatbastard: Blog

Kia ora tatou
Many New Zealanders now have children and grandchildren in Australia (sometimes known to those remaining as 'the West Island'). I am visiting my lot in Perth, and have been struck by the comparative wealth of the area. Some years ago, our late Prime Minister predicted that New Zealand would become a theme park, and Australia a quarry. He had it right!
Anyhoo, I am installed in my 4yr old granddaughter's room. No snakes, but Unicorns are a worry! Grandfatherly duties occupy lotsa time, but Ch33 half finished.

Kia ora tatou
People keep dying. I have reached the age and stage where lots of my friends are geriatric and frail, and it seems that lately, someone carks it every week. I'll be 80 in less than a week and fly to Australia to visit my grandkids if I don't fall off my perch in the meantime. I hope to post Ch32 before I pack.

The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley. The 'writing window' that last weekend was supposed to provide closed before my muse could get in. An organisation I am involved with (and it's members) suffered badly during Covid, and the membership was very badly split over the way it (the organisation) responded to our Govt's direction to lock down and the vaccine mandates introduced. Many people felt isolated, discounted, coerced, abused and hurt. Now, some years on, our organisation felt brave enough to address the division and facilitate a meeting to try to heal some of the hurt. That somehow seemed more important than the story of my further adventures with Pauline (and others). Another window this coming weekend.

Kia ora koutou
Everyone eventually dies. Old people do it more often. Not in individual terms of course - imagine if fifty year olds died once a decade, eighty year olds once every couple of months etc- by the time you got to 120 you'd be dying once a week! Anyhoo, my neighbour was 84 and had become unable to look after herself a few years back. She passed and the funeral seemed to occupy an inordinate amount of the week. Spring has well and truly sprung, and although the burgeoning growth is no match for sharp steel, lotsa cutting and trimming is all that stands between our household and the advancing vegetation. Talk about Triffids! Ch32 barely started, but I have a 'writing window' in the weekend if all goes well.

Kia ora koutou
A road trip to visit rellies in Hawkes Bay was extended by a Google Maps Directions screw up. The somewhat irritating female voice suddenly instructed me to turn off the main State Highway system, and I (poor foolish old man) complied.
When I was younger, the prospect of being led astray by a young woman was regrettably infrequent but not unwelcome. Now almost all women I meet are young, and the one giving instructions on this occassion certainly led me astray. Round and round in circles in the South Waikato until I finally turned her off and relied on my internal compass to take me back to SH1. Ch31 next week.