Sanuel Pepys had a busy day at work and so did I but I went with the Gentleman Friend to visit the Auckland gallery. It was adequate at best, but had a good collection of portraits of Maori notables by one Gottfried Lindauer. Though the jewel in the collection’s crown they were oddly displayed, along […]
Mount Eden
Mount Eden is one of the inner suburbs, with quiet streets (are there any others in this country?) lined with larger houses than most others we’ve seen, with gardens, and a little so-called village in the London sense which is far more compact than the other commercial zones we’ve. It felt a bit like Hampstead. […]
Hipper Auckland
I woke up before the Gentleman Friend as usual and spent the morning listening to some of the top songs of 2018 lists. It is remarkable how one falls behind with music as one grows older. Even leaving aside the 8 month period in 2005 when I was an indie music freak in Montreal, I […]
Cold and wet
Woe indeed, for Auckland was cold and wet today, with a blustering wind. Most of my day was spent indoors, working away, except for lunch at an Italian restaurant nearby and a stop at the supermarket on the way back. I was impressed by the milk selection. At least in the section that I was […]
A night’s sleep
A night’s sleep after a very long time, it feels! Certainly since leaving Thailand. I did wake up at 6, having slept at 1, but then forced myself to sleep till 8. Happy day. The rest of the day was quiet. I worked away on one of the reports in the flat, which is fortunately […]
Cosh to the head
We left our flat to catch a 9.30 flight, forgetting a delicious croissant on the counter so had to buy breakfast at the airport. I was impressed by how well arranged the security and immigration was. Immigration was entirely through electronic gates, I had to place my passport on the reader and go, that was […]
In the garden
I took advantage of the time difference to finish work due this morning by around noon, and then had my first proper day in Melbourne. We went first to the very cool Rose Street with excellent graffiti and the hippest patisserie I have ever seen. We bought three pastries – a plain croissant, a pain […]
Market morning
In the morning we went for brunch (of course) and there was a long queue, but enlivened by a little sparrow picking delicately at a croissant, and the Chinese Malaysian (I think) man ahead of us who was clearly much more interested in chatting to other people than his glum companion. Interesting, the clientele was […]
Melbourne
We are in Melbourne. It was an exhausting day yesterday, as our flight was in the evening right at rush hour, and we stupidly decided to walk to the train rather than getting a taxi to the station (rush hour, so the airport would not have been a good idea). Just the five minute walk […]
Old haunts
The first time the Gentleman Friend and I came to Bangkok we stayed in Phra Arthit, just to the north of the older parts of town. On Saturday, after I finished up with some work, we went first to Siam Square where the GF bought a new telephone to replace the one that was old […]