Poneke Tales

My thanks to you all for your kind wishes on the next few months’ change of occupation.  I spent today on sick leave, not discharging my duties.  The pattern of the days when I am on my feet and on the job is not that different from the rhythms of teaching: thinking, preparing, doing, reflecting.  The difference is that I share my work now with a wider variety of people, and have a rather more looming sense of my responsibilities to others, because I am new at them.

Last week I endeavoured to combine a meeting in Wellington with a few days’ break.  It may have been a better idea to schedule the break after, rather than around, the meeting, but I am not necessarily the best decision-maker concerning my leisure.  Nonetheless, it was splendid to see so many people and do so many things.

I took in the shooting of an episode of Off the Ropes, in the company of Jo, Ms. Ratpony and others, not least among whom was the wrestler Lazarus Volt, for whom we waved glittery lightning bolts o’ cardboard and shouted down the Heels with due ceremony.  Later, an erotic reading at The Watusi was not quite what I expected, and even as the wine flowed, I considered, not terribly coherently, the problem at hand.

The next day I enjoyed lunch with MTNW and the Gamester at Large, then ambulated from Thorndon to Mt Vic to see the newest premises of Wanda Harland, where I was greeted, unexpectedly, by Kowhai at the counter.  This was my chance to see first hand so many of the household items and objets d’art that I have previously viewed only online.  Following afternoon tea with Megan, we took the opportunity for a second journey to the original shop in Petone, where I was delighted to meet for the first time the proprietress and make a small purchase.  Later I had dinner with Faith, working on luring her back  home for my hen’s outing in exchange for the imposition of my getting married on her birthday.  (I promised not to do it again.)

After Friday’s all-day meeting there was just time to take a glass with most of those heading to the WOW opening (which my eye continually misreads as WoW, thanks to where the señor’s interests have lain), and on Saturday morning I enjoyed brunch with Dangermouse, with whom I considered the relative ease, or not, of coordinating family members away from home while attending a wedding.  During the afternoon I was considerably entertained by the company of Stephen, Kathy and Hannah (whose latest work you can see here), who took me around the south coast, including the sadly-named Happy Valley and the intriguing Carlucci Land.  Here, salvaged goods became newly rendered on the landscape.  My favourites were these foreground spheres, which rolled out like totems along the driveway.

I returned home to a newly-shorn señor, although the extent to which his more conventional crop has an impact upon the world’s gender confusion remains to be seen.  We have now less than a month until our wedding, to which I continue to look forward.  There are a still a few matters of which to take care, and for which I hope to have more enthusiasm when I am feeling a little more well, and I thank my Wellington friends for their company on what was technically my last out-o’-town outing as a spinster.