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  What do you do when children want to handle valuable and fragile things? Forbid them and make the object all the more attractive? Let them handle it under supervision and and so familiarise themselves with it? Noah Picked up my number 1 camera. My heart sank as I watched him totter under the sheer weight of it, but I could see he was curious about this thing which he associated so strongly with me, and I would love him to have the gifts a camera can bring: the ability to see; the ability to make something beautiful in a fraction of a second.  So I opted for the latter, and gave him his first photography lesson: Always put the strap around your neck. Never put your fingers on anything made of glass. Look through this bit. Press this one. When I uploaded the results today I wish I hadn't left it set to continuous shooting. There were a lot of frames, but amongst the many mis-shots were several I would have been proud to have taken myself.  True, the camera did a ...

Last Saturday I drove to Duntroon, to celebrate the 1700th anniversary of St. Martin of Tours in St. Martin's Church. On Sunday  I drove to invercargill to celebrate St. Luke's day in St. Luke's church. On Monday I drove to Nelson. 1500km in 3 days. I left home at 5.30 am. In Rolleston I called on Bridget, and Ada ran to meet me. I picked her up and she pressed her tiny body into my shoulder in the deepest, longest hug that a 1 year old can give. I stopped in Murchison in the middle of the afternoon and slept for a while, sitting in my car in the car park of a cafe, and got here in time for dinner. **** I spent Tuesday with my family. I sat at a table on the waterfront at Mapua for an excellent lunch of squid. I sat in my mother's serviced apartment in the Earnest Rutherford home and let her explain, again, a picture from her childhood. A group of my long dead kin stares resolutely at me from 1930: the men with moustaches and fedoras and rustic looking suits, the...

My granddaughter was born last week. She is named Ada after her Great Great Grandmother and Catherine after her Aunt. Perhaps names are prophetic and she will share with these two strong women a portion of their resilience and creativity and presence. There are details I know some of you will want -birth weight, length etc - but this sort of information passes through my cognitive system without leaving any lasting mark. I can tell you instead of the intricate delicacy and length of her fingers and the silky clarity of her skin; or the perfect symmetry of her tiny sleeping mouth; or how small she is in her blanket and how light to hold. She dominated my week. Nick, Charms and Naomi came over from Sydney and Clemency drove her ancient Honda up to see them all. My week was more than usually full, as I made up for the time spent on retreat, and, as well, I made two return trips to Christchurch to see my pregnant daughter and then my tired daughter and my latest mokopuna. Also, my com...