Writers
Susan Grimsdell
After retiring from audiology some years ago, Susan’s finding life’s pretty good with lots of time to do what she likes. That includes walking, reading, having coffee with friends, and a bit of activism thrown in. Also, day by day doing her best not to worry too much over the many threats to our gorgeous planet.
Read Susan’s Blog
Trevor Plumbly
Meet Trevor. He’s had quite a colourful career, from his early days as a pub manager in Tunbridge Wells he went on to become Dunedin’s leading auctioneer. Trevor is a published author and was something of a TV personality in the 1980s as a regular panellist on a show about antiques.
Read Trevor’s Blog
Emily Smart
Emily is very loud, and has really bad taste in cheesy pop music. When not at work flogging goods to the public via advertising and marketing campaigns, she can be found hiding from her partner and children at the local pub. If you’re easily offended or don’t appreciate the constant use of profanities, then you probably shouldn’t read Emily’s posts. You have been warned!
Read Emily’s Blog
Angela Caldin
Angela has had many roles in her life including: schoolgirl, student, daughter, friend, civil servant, wife, lover, mother, manager, magistrate, landlady, teacher, grandmother, blogger, editor and proofreader.
Read Angela’s Blog
The latest
Three score and ??? by Trevor Plumbly
I’m staring down the barrel of 78; old age has arrived and I’ve been collecting wisdom to compensate. There’s lots of theories around; for example, someone said (I don’t know who), “The thing about old age is that you can see the good in people more easily.” My research suggests that that’s a load of bollocks! That sort of sanctimonious crap belongs in Christmas cracker mottoes, or to old fogies wanting to clock up a few brownie points before the bloke with the scythe visits. It’s a bloody mysterious caper this age… Read More
Confusion – the mess we’re in by Angela Caldin
There is confusion worse than death, Trouble on trouble, pain on pain. This quotation from The Lotos-Eaters by Alfred Lord Tennyson sprang to mind as we started here in the UK on the new prime minister’s first week in power. He’d already promised that we would leave the EU on 31 October come what may, do or die, but he’d also assured us that the chances of leaving without a deal were a million to one. Impasse Then on Monday, Michael Gove, the new Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who has… Read More
Leaders of the US of A by Susan Grimsdell
Next year the US will hold a presidential election and Trump is going to run, hoping for a second term. Discrimination I was thinking back to June 11, 1963 when another president was in office: John F Kennedy. He addressed the nation on that day about the issue of civil rights. At the time, in many parts of the USA, black people had to send their kids to separate (and inferior) schools, they had to use toilets and drinking fountains marked “blacks”, they were not allowed to have lunch in cafes marked… Read More
Huff and puff by Trevor Plumbly
Grumpy old git part 2 It’s cold and wet in Auckland and I’ve got all reflective about a couple of law changes in the offing. Odd things in life seem to matter at my age; even so, at the risk of contradiction from my fellow bloggers, I regard myself as a pretty normal sort of bloke. It wasn’t always thus, but age tends to water things down a bit. In my formative years you were either the sort of boy your girlfriend invited home to meet mother, or useful as a cudgel… Read More
Yorkshire mini-break by Angela Caldin
I’m up in Yorkshire enjoying a few days immersion in all that is wonderful about this county including its down-to-earth people, its direct talk, its breath-taking landscapes and its wry humour. Northern rivalry I should point out that I’m from Lancashire, a diamond of a county, but locked in a centuries old rivalry with its neighbour over the Pennines. Who remembers learning about the Wars of the Roses in the fifteenth century with the white rose for the House of York and the red rose for the house of Lancaster? As if… Read More
The Writers
We’re four Brits who made the big move from the UK to the other side of the world. We love New Zealand, the English language having a good laugh and the occasional moan. Ah, just read our posts and you’ll get the gist.
