Daycare by Angela Caldin
I’m back on daycare duty. It’s quite a few years since I used to take my grandchildren to kindergarten and occasionally stay for a while to help with their activities and prepare the fruit for morning tea. It’s an even longer time since I took my own children to one playgroup or another and rushed off home to make the most of the freedom, until all too soon it was time to pick them up again. Not that I was anxious to get rid of them, but they needed the socialising and… Read More
Identity crisis by Trevor Plumbly
Don’t ask me, I only work here! Despite sight loss, I can still get all manner of stuff: audio books, podcasts, international news and as I’m writing this, the machine is spelling out the text for me. But when it comes to talking to somebody, especially corporate employees, I have problems; they’re pleasant enough, but they’ve got a sort of spray painted unworldliness about them that I find difficult. After having a credit card ‘compromised’, we rang the 24 hour number, the cards were duly cancelled and the replacements arrived in record… Read More
Let’s hear it for the curmudgeons by Trevor Plumbly
That’s me in the corner I’ve never been much of a party fan, especially since sight loss, and in recent years I’ve invested a fair bit of effort into becoming a grump. Now I feel I am reaching my peak, as they say in sporting circles. Time was when grumpiness was considered an affliction, age related, brought about by arthritis, bladder problems and so-on, but, with a bit of cunning and dramatic talent chucked in, I reckon it could become an art form. You see there’s people out there I just can’t… Read More
Clash of generations by Susan Grimsdell
Mind blindness Two recent incidents left me puzzled and also upset. First, walking past the Olympic Pool in Newmarket where the footpath is not wide, and made narrower by obstructions along the curb, leading my blind friend who had her cane out in front of her as a signal to other pedestrians. We took up most of the width of the path. Ahead of us, a young woman came to a sudden halt and started texting on her phone, in the middle of the path, impossible for us to pass her. I… Read More
Finality by Angela Caldin
I’ll always remember the Christmas of 2022 because, a few days before, a friend of mine died and I felt her loss deeply. She died unexpectedly away from home, so there was no opportunity to say goodbye or to tell her what a good friend she had been. Suddenly she was gone, leaving a vast hole in my life. She had lived all her life in Auckland and took great pleasure in introducing us to lovely places. She took us to the Pah Homestead, an imposing old building now housing an art… Read More
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