60th Wedding Anniversary

60th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY CLEBRATIONS.

They started with the arrival of Vicki and Maurice from Vancouver.
It was September 1.

That evening, all our offspring, Paul, Vicki, Vivienne and Carl,. with their spouses, took us to dinner at Remuera restaurant. We had a wonderful time, and the other patrons raised no complaint about our noisy presence.











Next day was the family affair.

We stood, as we had on the church steps in 1947,

for the informal photos;



And, although it was a little smaller than the original, and was in another place
it was cut in the same style

Certainly revealed...by an Angel

This is what I have been trying to post, failing to achieve that until Marie, also known as Angel9991, unlocked the procedure. For those who don't know the Chinese Toon, the earlier posts, together with the following poem, will reveal all.

I just wanted to share with readers, my fascination with its seasonal cycle.

Chinese Toon

Winter

Masquerading as
A gorgon’s head!
Startled serpents,
Stretching for the sky!

Spring

Stirring

Blood red snake tongues
Tentatively
Tasting the air.
Timidly venturing
Into weak spring daylight.

Encouraged.
Extending into
Bright pink tendrils
And beyond
Blushing in the broadening spring;
Putty in the alchemist’s hands,
Paling from rose madder.

Overnight
The tendrils mature;
A sniff of summer;
A celebration of grass green
Overcomes the faded taupe
And flutters in full multi-leafed
Splendour.

Summer

Emerald
Fronds in the summer sun
Flirting with the fickle eddies;
Pan’s pipes playing
To vanity.
Conceit
Blinds the eye
To the devastation of the rays
Upon the verdure;
The creeping stain of fawn
Upon the fading flush of youth
Heralds the wily closing
Of the Fall.

Autumn

Rapidly
The fronds are shed;
The deceit revealed
For all to see.
Serpents no more!
Those lying limbs
So recently encased
In petticoats of rose and green,
Stand naked,
Unashamed,
To defy the world
Of winter’s herald,
And thrusts their scornful phalli
To the sky.

FRH. 2004

The Chinese Toon

Is it a tree? It doesn't have a central trunk, but grows rather like bamboo, sending up new stems from its earth bound suckers. So it matures as a clump, slowly spreading year by year, unless controlled by removing the new stems as they emerge. In winter, it appears as a stand of barren, upright rods. With the first hints of spring, however, the new growth appears as deep crimson frills that become fernlike as they grow, but pale constantly so that, by the arrival of summer they merge, from the crimson to pink to beige, and finally to green, a constant changing of hue. . It is this spectacular display that fascinates Toon lovers, a seasonal, riotous cycle of colour. My earlier post shows it in mid-summer, in full green.

Our stood outside our bedroom, finally urging me to set it in a piece of verse that can never do justice to its beauty.

Our house(s)

This picture was taken in mid Autumn, two years ago. The house is the one we had lived in for over 30 years. It had just been sold.

I think we had already started to grieve; we were now to look for a smaller home, with a much smaller garden.

On the right, partly obscuring the bedroom window, there is a tree, a Chinese Toon. I had planted it as a young sapling, tearing it from its parent tree. And in the clay soil of St Johns, it thrived, delighting us each year as, from its bare branches it reached out its young red tendril leaves that faded into beige and then to bright green, from which it discoloured again to fall in winter, leaving just the bare branches.

Looking out to it from our bedroom window, I was moved to try to write a poem. It was that kind of tree.

New Firefox profile - whoohoo!

I have managed, with a lot of help from Ju's Little Sister, to create e new Firefox profile. And that has allowed me to recommence blogging.

So we will be in action again soon.

Cathedral Cove

A selection of pictures at Cathedral Cove.

More birthday pics, and some from Black-Jack

The cactus bloomed

in the morning.

They shot the breeze in the afternoon

and they relaxed at Black-Jack, Kuaotunu, still eating and drinking. But it New Year by then! Maurice and Vicki, from B.C.