I am feeling incredibly depressed and anxious these days. Admittedly, I have been incommunicado for quite a while, dealing with the ongoing decline and recent death of my elderly mum from dementia. Added to that is the even more recent death of my father-in-law, so my feelings are probably quite
James is 8. He is a bright, imaginative, sensitive and caring little boy, who loves being read to and adores animals, his family and playing with swords, toy guns and Lego. He is soon entering his fourth year at school but he still cannot read even at his age level
The Prime Minister had the gall to offer up on Christmas day, what can only be described as a limp and pathetic, even desperate attempt to persuade and convince us that she’s “one of us”, by deciding to prostrate herself on the altar of domestic and kitchen realism, with
Another tiring day, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually in our/my troubled times. A couple of wines with dinner and by 9.30, that’s it… bed beckons. A few pages of my book as per usual, and then head down… not too long before it’s Zzzzzzzzz… Suddenly I’m
In recent months, and within a relatively small circle of family, friends and acquaintances, I’ve heard of a range of identity issues gradually or even suddenly arising among a few quite disparate teenage girls. There seem to be some common denominators with these kids, in that they are all
I have a cartoon book that was created several years ago, entitled “Dear Teacher”, bought for me when I had a class of primary children myself. It was a humorous compilation of supposedly real written excuses supplied by parents for their child’s absence or non-completion of homework etc, and
Information Satire Once upon a pandemic, in the desolate locked-down wilderness of Nova Zelanda, the Red Witch Queen and her minions were in total control and enjoying every minute of it. Over many months, the brutal gales of Level 4 had only abated to the icy winds of Level 3,
Floating around in the alphabet soup, T suddenly let out a huge sigh, followed by a wail of despair. K kicked himself upright and peered at T questioningly. “What’s up, T? Why so glum?” “Ohhh!” replied T, miserably, “I’m just SO fed up being ignored by the leader,
The other night on TV, there was a short feature about a young Polynesian New Zealander who had recently won the role of George Washington in the musical “Hamilton”, scheduled to begin its Sydney run early next year. Well done, him, were my first thoughts, but then I recalled some
The recent NZ election has seen a number of new MPs voted into our parliament, including one controversial newbie from the Green Party. Almost before his induction into the ranks, he has already made a name for himself by declaring his opposition to swearing an oath of allegiance to the
Dear Judith, I know you’re out there on the campaign trail and all that, and you’re probably hugely busy, listening to your PR advisers and doing your own brand of kissing babies, shaking hands and so on, but some of us are getting a bit worried, quite frankly.
It would be fair to say that in the 3 months that I worked with these young people, they came to see that they could trust me. I wasn’t planning to up and leave after only a few days, and perhaps as someone old enough to be their mum,
About 24 years ago, as a former primary teacher and with a new Certificate in Teaching English Language under my belt, I began in-home after school tutoring, working with new immigrants, largely South Korean and Taiwanese high school students. A couple of years later, I got my first job in
Oh for God’s sake, please STOP! The latest piece of garbage from the woke brigade demands that Shaun Wallace, AKA “The Dark Destroyer”, from TV’s “The Chase” should do away with the descriptor “dark”. Shaun himself says that he’s perfectly happy with his name and, in case
The inability of the left to accept, let alone see an alternative viewpoint continues to astound me. Take political cartoonists as an example. I understand that the role of a cartoonist is to hold a cracked mirror up to a society, thereby enabling all its many facets to be sharply
In the light of all the ongoing hooha from the BLM lot, and assorted bandwagon-jumpers in New Zealand, I found myself thinking about where the outraged protests, statue-defacing and clamour for renaming anything deemed offensive by the braindead mob, might extend. At the higher end, what about Queen Victoria, for
