Art and Abart

Puzzles seem the ultimate time waster don't they?  You work and work and when you have completed your puzzle you take it apart again. It...

Over the past week I have been completely entranced by George Eliot's Middlemarch . It is so well written I have been reading very slowl...

Convalescence project: A multicoloured woollen poncho, intended for a 9 year old violin player who complains of the cold on autumn mornings,...

It has been five days since the Christchurch terror attack. It feels like a month. The previously much vilified Muslim community has been ...

The cover of Framley Parsonage shows that I bought it for $3:50. I have forgotten where. I read the first couple of chapters yesterday,, ...

Frankie, the cat with green eyes Well yes, all cats do have green eyes don't they?

It's the perfect read for the indisposed. Light, witty, and light enough to hold up lying down.

Taihape landscape I am feeling much better today after a sofa bound week. I made another little lamb painting to celebrate. They say ...

I heard a few episodes of this book on ABC Radio's late night program last year, then missed the rest,  so I ordered the book. It was a ...

Here are some lambs in springtime, painted from a picture taken years ago in Taihape. Ewes and lambs in Taihape My brother, who has h...

The Ordeal of Richard Fevrel is apparently the most famous of George Meredith's novels. Born 10-20 years after Trollope, Dickens, Thack...

Cardinal Pell.  Yuck yuck yuck. Pell, friend of the far right, bully and now convicted pädophilie. The decision by the jury was unanimous. ...

It has been a week since my last post and in that week I have learned what a nightmare shingles can be.  It isn't the itchy blistery...

Outside my window is a bush with little  butterfly-like flowers. The bees love these flowers which renew themselves daily as their long s...

I am on day six of the antivirals against shingles, one more day to go. I thought by this time I would be ' over the hump' but no, t...

I have been looking through the photos I took of Alan Pearson's portraits in Nelson's Suter gallery and in Wellington's national...

I didn't see much of Queenstown this visit as shingles makes you feel quite off colour and causes all sorts of odd aches. I developed a...

I had been waiting for Shingrix to arrive in Australia. It is a vaccine against shingles that is very effective.   The current alternative i...

Wellington on a good day is glorious. Blue skies, deep turquoise water, houses dotted along the hills all looking freshly painted. Tub ...

A couple of days without coffee means I am really enjoying the excellent coffee at a little warehouse type coffee shop called Emporio Cafe i...