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

Kia ora koutou, its true that roses don’t seem to last long enough. There’s that first flush of buds, then the swelling of the flower, the lushness of the blooms and if you’ve chosen well, a delicious  perfume, then just as you think this is why I love spring, the blooms droop, die, need to be deadheaded after which you then wait for the next lot to appear.

Of course just as I make plans to deadhead the spent blooms it rains so the garden looks dreary and sad, drooping heads everywhere. I can still see the blooms, not actual detail but the lushness, so I can also see the lank fading of the blooms as they droop and wither.

Dead heading is a tricky business these days, not only because I can’t see the dead buds clearly but mainly because I can’t see my fingers clearly either, or the blades come to that, so there’s the definite possibility (probability?) that I might cut my finger off instead of the dead rose. Friends are good in these circumstances because they take over the deadheading and I peer from the window.

The other thing I notice is how hard it is to find the broad beans. I always tended to miss some anyway but now I think I miss a lot. I only like broad beans when they’re young and I only grow a few, which means that while they last my daily green vegetable is broad beans. The poor faithful silver beet is lush and green but has to wait until the beans are finished. Fortunately, from the silver beet point of view, the broad bean season is pretty short.

I’ve noticed the differences more this spring I think – inevitable when you depend on peripheral vision. Being able to see only out the side of my eyes is hard because its often fudgy and, nearly always, misses detail. For example I can count out tablets and then only see some when I come to swallow them. I know I’ve counted them out which is a real blessing because they have to be there so I peer around, use my fingers, to herd them into my line of vision.

The kitchen bench is in front of windows which makes it easier to prepare food. Any job that’s been done a million times is easier anyway because my fingers know what they’re doing and the familiarity of the motions seems to get the job done without too much trouble.

So the familiarity of things is not only a blessing but a necessity. The electric jug in the same place, the baking ingredients are taken from the cupboard,  in the same order, peered at, put on the bench in the same order, peered at again before I start, then put back in the cupboard in the same order. I rely on the plates and cutlery being in the same place when I reach for them.

Sometimes I think its a bugger not being able to see my face in the mirror and sometimes I think its probably a blessing. I can, of course, feel  my hair, so when I comb it and pat it, those lifetime repeated gestures, I know (sort of) when it feels like its okay and when its not. There’s not a lot I can do if its not okay though. Best to be philosophical about it. I’m lucky its got a wave because if it does look a bit untended maybe people will think its the wave?

There’s an online programme, Sight Unseen, which is prepared and presented by Lynley Hood and Mary Butler, so if you know anyone who would benefit from reading/listening to other people with poor vision talk about their challenges and how they manage them, then have a listen or a read. As you know my computer is set up with large print so I can still read but its good for me to have these other options too, to get into the swing of listening, before I actually have listening/audio as the only alternative.

There’s something very reassuring about listening to other people’s experiences and solutions and realising for certain that you’re not the only one in the world with this problem. If you have a family member, a friend or lover, who might like to hear other people’s stories, point them towards Sight Unseen. They will not be disappointed. Just the opposite. They’ll be informed, intrigued, interested and involved.

As for the broad beans they’ll go on giving because once the beans are finished their stems and leaves will get chopped up and trenched into the garden. I read somewhere years ago that the stems and leaves have everything the soil needs. Having seen my mother and our neighbours dig most greens back into the soil once they were finished this season’s job, I think they probably knew that too.

In the meantime, I’ll go out and peer at the branches and see if I can locate the beans.

Renée