It's Sunday morning so I want to go back to bed ... It's a bit of a worry since I have been up since 5.30 am and its now 10, but that's another story. My father in law, who unfortunately passed away earlier this year loved this piece of Shakespeare ... It was truely his lifes inspiration, so today I borrow from him. We miss you Alan. "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all" hmmm Interesting! Enjoy x To be or not to be, that is the question; Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing, end To View More >>

I am so very proud of being kiwi, and yearn to be back in Aotearoa when I am travelling abroad. Of course I think the rest of the world is wonderful, with its own magic ... but it is always wonderful to be home ... This country is part of my soul Aotearoa |a??te???r???| the Maori name for New Zealand . ORIGIN Maori, literally "land of the long white cloud.” To View More >>

With great sadness we have said goodbye to two family members over the past few weeks. The first farewell was to to my Auntie Rita, who passed away after a long but brave battle with cancer. She is actually my Mum's Auntie, but always felt like a Grandmother to me. A beautiful woman that everyone loved from the moment they met her. My first memory of Rita is when, as kids, we visited her family in Wellington. She made us "Spiders", a messy mix of Coke and Vanilla ice cream ... and instantly became my hero. My last memory of Rita is of a woman, her body failing her, surrounded by a family loving To View More >>

Hi Everyone. I have been away for a while, so am sorry for the absence of blog entries and thanks to those who wrote to see if everything is ok. Basically it was so busy through Europe that attending to email from home took priority and work has been silly busy since our return. The amazing thing is so much has been going on so hopefully I can catch up and share some of the stories soon. Stay well and look after yourself Stephen To View More >>

One of the incredible blessings of working in the Queensberry Group is the wonderful people we get to spend our time with, and few are more inspiring than Peter Haythornthwaite. [flickr]photo:3099049094[/flickr] I was sitting at the kitchen table about to take a photo of this wood pigeon when I got an email from Peter commenting on my blog. Amongst other things he said "I guess a natural 'other' would be small videos of family discoveries at the beach - your area, your 'forest' area, your Titirangi - why do you live there etc." The timing made me smile as this beautiful bird perfectly symbolizes To View More >>