Category: Uncategorized

Apparently it rained 26 days in May in Wellington. I am not shocked.

I cycled to work on Tuesday -6C into a southerly gale-with effective temperature of 0C.

Not so good.

Queen’s birthday-so it is raining.

This last week has been a series of events for Joe’s school. It is St. Pats 125th anniversary. There are not too many out there that have been around for that long, so something of an event.

Proceeedings started on Monday evening with “Jubilation” at the Michael Fowler centre. It was a celebration of the school’s cultural achievements, and was great to watch. The performers included current and past pupils, with Maori and Pacific events, barber shop singing groups and the school choir. One performance was ballet dance by a current pupil. This lad is obviuosly good, but I thought it was positive that he was on the bill-not the sort of thing all boys schools celebrate typically.

There were plenty of old boys who came back to perform-a testament in itself. They produced beautiful singing, the pick being the professional opera singer.

The rest of the celebration has involved cocktail event (rammed), all day sport on Saturday at the school, and a dinner on Saturday for a few hundred. Hundreds of old boys have turned up, so I suppose the place must have done something right along the way. Our friend’s brother came from Bermuda with his own sons for the weekend.

The sport on Saturday was predominantly against the brother school -St. Pats Silcverstream. We went to watch the 1st XV game. A fast aggresive and skilful game-just likeGunnersbury used to play?

The opera experts continue to buff. We were back the track of the popular pieces.

We continued our annual outing to the hallowed halls of St. James theatre
(great photo by the way).

Farce with music would be my basic interpretation. The sets were very well done, consistent good singers and quality costumes. The sound quality was a little disappointing as we were in the stalls, but under the balcony. The performance was a little longer than anticipated, with 3 hours of action.

So, we have seen so many operas now, we are such experts. that we will have to start seeing them for the second time around!

The lads finally won a game of rugby! A close one, but as Joe says, “a win is a win”.

An update on his weekend away.

Two things:

• you all missed my birthday!

• Isaac would like you to look at his blog which has just been updated amusingly

No not the one in the UK, but the one in Khandallah.

I would like to announce my failure to be elected to the Board of Governors at Isaac’s school. There were three slots available and I came joint fourth out of seven.

One successful candidate was previously a board member who had served her term. In the election statement another made much of his setting up, owning and being a director of three companies, and the third added a photo of herself.

I console myself that the results are a reflection of the electorate, and not a comment on my attributes. I will continue to uphold the democratic process, but will have a quick cry in a corner.