We had planned to dawdle up the South Island towing a caravan, see my whanau in Nelson and then dawdle back again. But two nights ago I developed a dull ache in one of my molars which turned into a very bright ache indeed and within a very short time went on to qualify as a fully certified genius of an ache. Luckily my dentist started back from his holidays the following day and could see me first thing in the morning. One root canal later I am able to sleep without mainlining codeine, but will need to see him again in a week to get part two done: 90 minutes of staring at his ceiling and trying to reply to his chat with several thousand dollars worth of ironmongery in my mouth. So, we will be belting up the country, seeing some of the best and wisest people I know and belting home again. I'll try and keep you posted
The Christmas before last our kids gave us Ancestry.com kits. You know the deal: you spit into a test tube, send it over to Ireland, and in a month or so you get a wadge of paper in the mail telling you who you are. I've never, previously, been interested in all that stuff. I knew my forbears came to Aotearoa in the 1850's from Britain but I didn't know from where, exactly. Clemency's results, as it turns out, were pretty interesting. She was born in England, but has ancestors from various European places, and some who are Ngāti Raukawa, so she can whakapapa back to a little marae called Kikopiri, near Ōtaki. And me? It turns out I'm more British than most British people. Apart from a smattering of Norse - probably the result of some Viking raid in the dim distant past - all my tūpuna seem to have come from a little group of villages in Nottinghamshire. Now I've been to the UK a few times, and I quite like it, but it's not home: my heart and soul belon...
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