Sunday - A day for doing the things that matter.

Today was a good day. As I said in an earlier post, Sundays are for doing the things that matter with the ones you love.

We started our Sunday by going to the food market down on the Wellington waterfront. It's such a cool place, people gather to buy vegies, herbs, tofu and hot food. A boat sells whole fish where you can have it filleted right before your eyes. All sorts of people gather at the market; it's a vegie filled melting pot.

After the market we went to the National Irish Feis for the second day, I watched my first game of hurling and supported our young Club members (I'm the Secretary of the Hutt Valley Irish Society) perform their story telling entries. I took my whanau with me today and it was nice to have company.

I entered the oratory section, I entered a month ago and entered in the hope that it would encourage more entries. I hadn't prepared anything as I didn't want the stress but I had intended to speak about the Irish Society as my marae. Once I got there I was told the topic was a prolific Irish figure. Lucky I had the letter I wrote to my ancestor in my bag. I spoke about my Great Uncle, William Arthur Ham, the first New Zealander to die in the First World War. He was born in Bray, Ireland.

I "competed" against one of my fellow Club members, he is one of my favourite members, he wears Sein Fein "Free Ireland" t.shirts, he is warm and kind and his speech was about Gerry Adams. As the adjudicator said, it was a real history lesson. It was an honour to stand beside him and "compete". My friend has a stutter and when he does public speaking it just disappears. It's magic.

Not a dress but how good does this look.

After my speech (yes Laura, I got a medal) we went over the hill to the Wairarapa to visit a very dear friend. He has a beautiful home (an old villa he moved) on his ancestral land and grows kai, looks after chickens, collects books and has pet tuna (eels); it's a perfect mix. The heart of the home is his coal range which I'm standing in front of. I love my friend and when I go to his home I can't help but think about my Dad and how this is how I know he would love to live. We made our dinner of meat, kumara and our own damper over the open fire under the stars. It's a type of paradise. In fact, I saw a shooting star & I didn't say anything, you always know when I'm spell-bound because I go very quiet.

Two pumpkins.

I got this dress from a friend of mine. She was selling some stuff and gave me this dress for free! I love it because it came from a friend and because I can pull it on and run around and feel naked. It's so light and wonderful for summer. One year I wore it on Christmas day and my (way cooler than me) brother and sister made me wear it with the skirt pulled up so the shirt like bit hung over the waist band bit. I wear it how it feels comfortable, and this is how. Yeah, suck on that siblings.