Well, a few of you know I’m up north doing my first visit to a couple of outposts of our College to run two workshops. Who decided to open these outposts here? (I wonder) I must ask.
I’m currently in the second closest Motel to WITT. This has free broadband. More with it than some snazzy places I stayed in last year where you get this deal .35c a minute up to a maximum of $33.00 per day. 
Nothing deep today. Just some musings about being a lonely passer through in New Plymouth.
Haven’t been here in PN for a while: I drove up for a funeral in 1991. It’s totaly unlike what I expected. Met rushhour traffic that was similar to Riccarton Road. (ie long q’s and stopped).
I did a dumb thing last night ordering Curry in a Celtic bar having been lured in by the thought of a nice beer and the sign “Live music every night”. It looked like Watties instant curry, served fusion style. (Pesto spread around the Huge plate to provide colour). I should have stuck to the special, Smoked fish pie, but the blackboard menu was hidden. The barman had that studied aloofness and distance that only comes from practice, when what I wanted was some cheery word.
The walk on the foreshore was good. Really good. But what a contrast!! Who on earth in their right mind created this awful dreadful 45m high straw that sticks up into the middle of the air here?
That’s really a rhetorical question. I did find the plaque. He died in 1981, and this was some misguided implementation of a vision he had for the new millennium. More like a nightmare. But who on earth actually paid for it and let it get put here? There was this superb exhibition of stone sculpture on the foreshore in the balmy NI air, with the sun really low.
Nothing like some real art if there was no real music. There are two great buildings with a mix of untreated in any way hardwood finishings. And this shiny red monstrosity in the background!!
Living under the shadow of something like the mount must be fun. Lived at Kapiti for a while, and we had the island. Nothing much in ChCh though. Just the wind. Took a great snap of the mount at dusk. Will do a small workshop tomorrow and then on to Tauranga. I feel quite remote from Interact, staffing problems, merger talks, press button coffee. But really sad to miss Brons’s haere ra.
I was leaving Christchurch, in a Boeing 737 a year ago – very rough – the aircraft was thrown around by extreme turbulence. I wondered if we would make it. Then there was a voice that said two things: THIS IS YOUR CAPTAIN SPEAKING. and I DON’T THINK ANY OF US ENJOYED THAT.”