Road trips are all very well and good but...

You see this place - this is the entry into Gisborne , if we were in South East England, it would fall into that category of "Gisborne-on-Sea". It's quite late in the day, and I've been on the road for the whole day. I went to go and try and find room at the inn and couldn't - Sunday night, but I did find a friendly policeman who booked me for speeding. Not funny, and has tarnished my view of Gisborne for ever. I high tailed it out of there.

The night was getting darker, I was getting more weary and it was time to draw a halt on the proceedings. I found a suitable spot to kip down in the back of the car and slept like a baby. The next day was just a couple of hours drive and I was home - sweet home. It was a lovely trip but I had definately stayed over my seredipidous time. I'd pushed it and it had pushed me.
When I returned home, I knew that something had changed. I couldn't go on thinking that I was on holiday any more. Something had to give, something had to change.
But first - a quick trip up to Hanana to do some physical work and get some meditation in. It was time to do some netting. Nearly four days of isolation and working in the fields and this is the result.
spread the net wide

peg it down

take some lovely photos and hey presto! ARt - oh yeah add to the mix a title "This Network is closing down - I didn't hear it through this Grapevine" and a healthy amount of ego.....
Can I say it's a reflection on the closing down public information through public media networks. Saw it in the States and now NZ is at an impasse - to go the way of the UK or the US> humm...tough decision.

No art work would be in the least bit convincing if it didn't show the artist's tools.
All very high tech.
It was lovely and my mind was made up. Time to get productive.
I've been writing and keeping sober. I'm submitting a paper for conference in London. Rehashing my thesis into an 1000word proposal was hard, is hard. I'm still working on it, but it must be e-mailed to them on Monday. I don't hold out much hope for it's acceptance, but it's been a useful exercise to sort out what I think I'm going to be doing for this PhD. The guide lines that you get with these call for papers are all very useful.

I've joined a small writing group which pleases me greatly, so every week I take to them a four/five page segment of either my tome about
Georgia, or a short essay on some local news topic. This week I'm going to write a little something inspired by an article that I saw on Yahoo News page, entitled "Dementia linked to educated people" - well blow me, I thought we educated people were above all of that. I hope that you're all keeping up with this, as this blogsite is supposed to be some reflections on the ideology of contemporary education. Admittedly, it hasn't been completely focused on that.....

So I've been solitary and sweating over a hot computer and today, this very morning, I went to the opening ceremony of the biannual New Zealand International Arts Festival. I don't think I'm going to be here for the next one, so I'm trying to catch as much as possible.

It's a dawn ceremony to welcome all the participants from the local Maori community. It's all about the land and ancestors. We were all reminded that we bring our ancestors to their land and the desire is that they don't start warring immediately, so lots of singing and lots of graciousness. As the sun came up and the speeches went on, we delighted in sound of Maori songs, and then the lady who led the singing, was inspired and got us all singing "you are my sunshine" for the English contingent and "Alouette" for th French. The chinese sang their own and there was some mysterious American song that I had no idea what it was. Here's a few images.

And just before I sign off for the day. I'll just leave you with a lovely night sky.