Out With The Old ...

Sometimes things come together in unexpected ways.

I make the decision to buy a new computer and at about the same time hear that the Earthquake Commission contractor can start work on Bedroom I, which is where the old computer lives.  

So moving on...  is moving out, dissembling not only an ageing family computer, but also Elwin's office. Before he died, the desk above with its personal touches, was a civil servant's office.

My new computer sits on a different desk for now. I love writing with it, this Lenovo. I never imagined that writing this way could be such a pleasure. It feels as good as writing with a gold-tipped pen, in my finest hand on the smoothest paper. The juices flow, even though I may only be writing up a list of registration costs for a dancing holiday.  Finding my way around new systems is more of a challenge! Although I now have Google Chrome to satisfy Blogger I have lost access to a WordPress noticeboard that I had set up.

I find myself now with a new hoard of clutter: what if I still need some of these cables? One day?

But now the old office corner is empty and awaiting its future.

The Library Under the Bed

(And other books)

I found this a couple of days ago - not under my parents' bed, but in a box of their books.  I'd never seen a copy of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung before,

although I knew that my mother particularly, had certain leanings.

I was surrounded by books as a child and feel like some of them I have absorbed through my skin.

Unlike Chairman Mao's Red Book,

I knew about my father's Antarctic book collection, though it was stored in some private child-proof place.  I only discovered today that J.M.Barrie wrote the introduction for Scott's Last Expedition.

Stored with those Polar adventures was this handful of books.

They sit by my bedside now embracing the development of the Renaissance man from Bacon to Darwin.

But these are the reminders of home comforts, books that were always within reach on the family bookshelves.

May Day, appropriately is also the birthday of NZ artist, printer and Morris dancer, Leo Bensemann. There is a fine example of his bookcraft at

 http://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/blog/bunker-notes/2012/05/01/leo-bensemanns-birthday/