55 years on

I choose how I will spend the rest of my life

On June 11, 1967 my two children and I first set foot in New Zealand.

On this date in 2017, I asked the question “Where did the years go?” Click here to read that post.

And now it’s another five years and still I wonder where the time has gone. Much has changed of course since that far-off day when we arrived in this far-off land. The children have grown, moved away and now have their own families. And each has two sons – my strapping young, handsome grandsons. four young men of whom I am justifiably proud (no bias here you understand). Unfortunately 25 years ago, their father, my DYS died and life totally changed for all of us. But it doesn’t come with a choice so “Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again” so sang Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire in the 1936…

View original post 35 more words

Five Word Friday

I choose how I will spend the rest of my life

May flew past and now we are in June and it’s the first Friday. My Five words –

Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Art

We are told “Founded in Paris in 1895, Le Cordon Bleu is considered today the largest network of culinary and hospitality schools in the world with more than 35 institutes in 20 countries and 20,000 students of over 100 nationalities are trained every year. Le Cordon Bleu combines innovation and creativity with tradition through its certificates, diplomas, bachelors and master degrees.”

With a group from our Probus Club, I went on a tour of the Wellington Branch of this iconic cooking school. It was a reasonably large group of 20, but there was a long waiting list of members.

We were greeted by a young woman, Stella, and taken to a lecture room, where she and one of the staff, a chef, briefly explained how the…

View original post 227 more words

Z is for – Zenith

Oops. Sorry I forgot to reblog the final in the A- Z Challenge.

I choose how I will spend the rest of my life

And so we reach the end of the alphabet. Zenith is defined as the highest point reached in the heavens by a celestial body or the culminating point. And this then is the culminating point. I have enjoyed rereading earlier blog posts. Occasionally I have said to myself “That’s pretty good, clever, dreadful..” or whatever. But mostly I have been happy with my shared thoughts. and even my rants and raves.

So there you have it. And. let me share the poem The Journey by Mary Oliver. You may be aware that she is one of my favourite poets. Over the 12 years of my blogging journey, I have shared snippets of this poem with you. Today I am reproducing the complete work. Enjoy.

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you kept shouting
their bad advice –though the whole house

View original post 134 more words

Y is for – Yesterday when I was Young

Almost at the finish line

I choose how I will spend the rest of my life

As a very new blogger in March 2011 I had plenty t say although I didn’t know whether the only one reading my blog was me. In that month wrote about the life I had lived up until that time. Oh and on reading the post again, I am pleased to note there were 19 comments.

YESERDAY WHEN I WAS YOUNG

Posted onMarch 30, 2011|19 Comments|Edit

Yesterday when I was young
The taste of life was sweet like rain upon my tongue,
I teased at life as if it were a foolish game
The way an evening breeze would tease a candle flame,
The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned

I have just been listening to the local radio and they have played Charles Aznavour singing “Yesterday when I was young”. Charles Aznavour has always been a favourite and I am happy…

View original post 498 more words

X is for – X-rays

And today’s post

I choose how I will spend the rest of my life

I could find no published post for X and so I’m writing a new one.

“Don’t be pushed around by the fears in your mind.
Be led by the dreams in your heart.” 
― Roy T. Bennett, Author of Light in the Heart

Way back in 2016 after I had my misadventure, it seemed that I spent a lot of time at the regional hospital having x-rays MRIs, CTs, and other scans.

Of course, my daughter attended all these appointments with me. We were taken by ambulance from the rehabilitation centre at the beginning but after a couple of weeks, we went in my daughter‘s car.

On every occasion, and we saw different technicians each and every time, we were treated with the utmost respect and concern for my well-being.

Of course, initially, I was concerned because I had never had my brain x-rayed, or at least not while I was conscious…

View original post 326 more words

W is for – What a Difference a Day/Year Makes

And another

I choose how I will spend the rest of my life

So many posts have the title What a Difference,
sometimes followed by “a day makes” and sometimes it is a year,
but always making a difference.
Many years ago I wrote this post and yes, truly what a difference once the tree was cut back.

******

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES

Posted onMay 14, 2011|11 Comments|Edit

“What A Difference A day makes
24 Little hours
From the sun and the flowers
Where there used to be rain.”

Well, what a difference. Yesterday the large tree that overlooked the back courtyard and bugged me with falling leaves, stood keeping light and what sunshine there is at this time of the year, away from the back of the house.

I saw a man working on a tree across the road and asked him to look at chopping my tree. Incidentally, he told me it was a…

View original post 306 more words

V is for – (The) Visitor

A few days late. Sorry

I choose how I will spend the rest of my life

I have written about this unwelcome visitor several times since starting this blogging journey in March 2011.
And still, she bugs me. But after so many years of her staying uninvited in my place,
I guess I shall have to accept (graciously or not) to her presence and perhaps learn to ignore her!

THE VISITOR

Posted onMay 14, 2012|33 Comments|Edit

We all grow up with the weight of history on us.
Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains
as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden
in every cell of our bodies.
Shirley Abbott, magazine editor and writer
1934 –

I have written before about thisold ladywho seems to inhabit my house alongside Lotte and me. I haven’t invited her in, but wherever I go she is there before me. When I go into the bathroom she is looking…

View original post 443 more words

U is for -Update to Yesterday’s Post

I choose how I will spend the rest of my life

I think WordPress is playing games with me today. Nowhere and Nohow could I find the post that I was updating –
and of course, there were no other posts starting with the letter U.
I do know that it was about a blogger I had discovered 10 years before.
After reading Eliza’s post, I wrote a post in 2012 titled I know this place
But shortly after I published the missing post in January 2022,
the blogger decided to no longer write in English, her second language.

******

UPDATE TO YESTERDAY’S POST

“Friendship … is born at the moment when one man says to another
“What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
C S Lewis

Firstly, apologies – I didn’t give you the link to the earlier post on Africa. If you read it through you will see what I missed. –…

View original post 203 more words

T is for – Taken on Trust

Nearing the end of the alphabet now.

I choose how I will spend the rest of my life

Over the years we have read of kidnapping, the kidnappers,
those who were kidnapped and the reasons for the kidnaps.
We have read and I have written about the Boko Harum
kidnapping of the schoolgirls in Nigeria,
and we all know about the earlier kidnapping of
Charles Lindbergh’s infant son.
Now I offer the story of Terry Waite,
the Special Envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

******

TAKEN ON TRUST

Posted onMarch 16, 2012|15 Comments|Edit

I have this old, dog-eared copy of Terry Waite’s book, that I have read several times in the 20 years or so since his release.

I bought a copy when it was released and enjoyed it so much that I gave copies to various friends as Christmas presents. I was reminded again of this man when reading about a recent failed attempt tofree hostages in Nigeria.

In 1987…

View original post 615 more words

S is for – Stalking Charlie Fox

I choose how I will spend the rest of my life

One of my favourite authors, Zoe Sharp and her protagonist Charlie Fox,
can have me sitting and reading for hours.
I have read all the books in the series.
And I am not the only follower of this author and her characters.
Lee Child said, “If Jack Reacher were a woman, he’d be Charlie Fox.”
High praise indeed.
Now you can read what I was doing in 2012.

******

STALKING CHARLIE FOX

Posted onJuly 19, 2012|11 Comments|Edit

“If you stay involved with Sean Meyer you will end up killing again,”
my father said. “and next time, Charlotte, you might not get away with it.”
Charlie Fox’s father in Road Kill.

Yes, I am still reading and following the adventures of my favourite heroine Charlie Fox. I have somehow got them out of order, but as I have already said, each novel stands alone…

View original post 510 more words