Closing down sale

I headed out early on my run today, thinking that I might get to see a good sunrise or something from the top of Maungawhau. However, the morning was cloudy and there was a slow and constant drizzle throughout the run. My attempts to show the city covered by misty rain succeeded too well. Nothing was clear as a consequence of dull light, low cloud and misty rain.

On the last part of the run home, I went past an antique shop advertising that this is their last week. They are closing down. Little other than the table, the lamp and the poster was readily visible from outside this early on a drab morning.

I was taken with the size and good condition of the poster for a great film, and was going to entitle the picture "Does anyone still care?" It seems likely that they do, although the poster had yet to sell.

Then, an early trip north to meet at the Beach House with the electrician about various problems, and to advise him where the last light fittings need to go. Embarrassed by the simple answer to why the dishwasher wouldn't work. The switch (hidden at the back of an adjacent cupboard, I say defensively) had to be turned on. But when the electrician took a while to sort out why just turning some switches on (without anything plugged in) tripped the safety mechanisms, I felt not quite so stupid.

Back to Auckland and collecting the boys from school and kindy, a game in the park (the wrong park according to a tantrumming Young L), dinner and then the minor parties' leaders debate in preparation for the forthcoming election. One hopes that Mr Brash's really poor performance may mean that the Act party vote will disappear.

This six person (five men and a woman) debate revealed some strange agreements across the divides. The one I agreed with most was opposition to the emissions trading scheme NZ has set up. As dear old Winston Peters put it so clearly; What is the logic in establishing a scheme that is designed to be used by bankers and financiers to trade continued high levels of pollution in order to make money?

Some years ago I discovered that he may be part of my whanau; his ancestors and mine came to Waipu from Nova Scotia on the same boat, and I know that more than half of the passengers were extended family of my great great grandparents.