Kia ora koutou, its December so this is the last Busk for 2020. As always I take December and January off. Here’s some hopes for 2021.

In fact I hope everyone is paid a universal living wage. The idea of a universal basic income has a lot of merit but while I’m sure it will come eventually, it won’t be this term.

I hope there’s lots of watermelons. You know that salad? Cubes watermelon, cubes feta cheese, black olives.  So simple and so delicious. Nice on its own or with green salad, some ham or fish.

I hope there’s a safe vaccine found for Covid very soon and that’s its cheap and available world wide.

I hope my tomatoes do well. I bought dwarf plants, well that’s where I was pointed and what the sign said, but they’re about eighteen inches high already (you work it out in metrics) and have had to be staked.  They’re flowering so that’s promising.

A friend, who does some gardening for me, found 9 little ripe strawberries. This season’s crop still going. Actually they only stopped fruiting for a brief time between seasons last year. Grow them in bins, change the potting mix every two years, ditto the plants, add good dollops of sun and rain and you’re away. For some mysterious reason birds don’t worry about them in bins.

I read for pleasure over the break but I always have a purpose in mind as well. Last year I checked out our romance writers. This time I’m going to read crime novelists. I’ve read a few new ones this year but like I said, its a big whare and we have a lively and burgeoning company of crime writers and I need and want to check them all.

I’ll catch up on some podcasts. Our Changing World from RNZ and Caroline Crampton’s Shedunnit, for example. I’ve listened to most of Shedunnit but there’s a couple I missed and I want to go back and do the whole lot in sequence. I liked and was informed by Getting Better by Emma Espiner and Bird of Paradise productions so I want to listen to that series again and no doubt I’ll get a couple of recommendations from whanau over the holidays. Or you might have one you’ve enjoyed and want to let me know about.

I hope sexual abuse survivors get some justice. By justice I mean they get some recompense in the form of money and in the form of seeing their abusers brought to trial. Whether these were state employees or private institution employees they need to be held to public account. I’ve been hoping this for a long time. The so called ‘faith–based’ institutions are making the right noises now, although, like the State, it took them long enough, too long. Its time for the oh so ponderous wheels of justice to speed up, okay?

I hope everyone drives safely. I’d like a Christmas and New Year period with no accidents, not one injury please. In fact I hope everyone is safe wherever you are.

I wish you and yours every happiness over Christmas and an abundance of good things in 2021. Its been a difficult year for a lot of us and I’d quite like a long warm summer of nothing much happening except lazy days and reading. Its getting harder for me to read but my trusty iPad still makes it possible. Just.

Love and thanks for your reading and comments in 2020. You make me smile and laugh and I really appreciate your words about the Busk. I started the blog and called it WednesdayBusk because Wednesday is my favourite day and busking is such a lovely scary theatrical thing to do. You stand alone on the street and hope someone is listening or in my case, you write on your own and hope someone reads it.

Thank you so much for reading WB in 2020, take care and I’ll see you again in 2021…

Renée