All good things by the verbalberbal collective
Angela begins We’re closing our beautiful blog. We’re putting it to bed after more than a decade of thoughts, ideas, musings and opinions. It’s been enormous fun and we’ve learnt a lot about writing and publishing. I remember the excitement when we first managed to upload a picture. For my part, I’ve now got eight grandchildren compared to the three that I started off with. They are a source of immense joy and though the family is scattered throughout the world, somehow we manage to keep in touch. I live permanently in… Read More
Ya gotta laugh by Trevor Plumbly
A funny thing used to happen Listening to an interview with John Cleese the other day made me wonder whether the current plague of PC is strangling humour. Comedy has always carried an element of cruelty: from the Buster Keaton custard pie sketch to the murder of sensitivities from Billy Connolly, somebody has to ‘cop it’ to amuse those who weren’t on the receiving end. Listening to Cleese, I realised that nothing was spared: all manner of sacred cows, including his late mother and ex-wives were woven into a barrage of hilarious… Read More
Fun Without Emily Smart by Trevor Plumbly
Always the Entrance! Some people do and some people don’t. Stand out, I mean. There are those that can fade into the wallpaper, whilst others, without exerting any great effort, can switch on a sort of inbuilt social booster mechanism. With Emily, there aren’t many flat phases in her life. Ange’s last piece reminded me of my birthday: the present seemed about half as big as Emily as she and Susan burst through the front door chanting ‘Happy Birthday to You!’ with considerably more vigour than melodic talent. She placed the box… Read More
Group Exercise Sessions in Auckland by Angela Caldin
Personal Training for those of Advanced Years Devoted readers of this blog may remember that before Christmas I treated myself to six sessions with a personal trainer called Nic. I got considerably fitter and began to feel muscles that had not been tried or tested for many a long year. I wasn’t sure what the next step should be, until, towards the end of January, Nic got in contact to say that her group training sessions were restarting after the summer break and would I like to join one of them. In… Read More
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