Mike Riversdale

I'd like to thank some people, if that's ok. When the COVID-19 lockdown kicked off here in New Zealand on Saturday 21st March before coming into life changing effect with Level 4 on Thursday 26th I was left with zero income, a wonderful yet expensive new rental home, a lot of questions, quite some anxiety, and yet a sense of calm and peace that we were truly all in this together. Like many in countries all over the world I started a  #StayHomeNZ Activities document so we could all watch enlightening videos, learn a new language, increase our knowledge of the universe, and generally work our way through the boredom we all foresaw coming. I never used anything off that list. Almost nothing. People got me through the initial New Zealand phase of SARS-CoV-2., here's my thank you. In New Zealand there was ONE voice to listen to before it all kicked off and during the early days, Dr Siouxsie Wiles ( @SiouxsieW ). Without Siouxsie, and her Spinoff collaborations with Toby Morri...

The power of life, it will find a way. (Pohutakawa bud growing through a near vertical wall)

[erected] in memory of Sister M. Cecilia Benbow, one of the pioneering Sisters of Mercy who arrived in Wellington from Melbourne in 1873 [..] a gifted teacher, musician and artist. source:  http://www.wellingtoncityheritage.org.nz/buildings/1-150/120-our-lady-star-of-the-sea-chapel

As I drove around the bays, tears in my eyes, feeling the loneliest I'd ever been My daughter sat next to me, deep in her musicals I saw the upright, confident walk of the lady in her salmon pink coat And I thought, "Is she feeling the same?" Do we feel the same? Right now, as I bounce from thinking there is no point to There is all the hope in the world, this is our chance to make it right Our chance to build the world we want Ach, what's the point, they'll never change. We're fucked I don't have the energy to carry on, I don't have the skills to make a difference I don't have the love to extend to the world The Murdochs, the English rich, the American power hungry All of them and more, they won't let it change, they will fight, with bombs if needed They'll get men with guns, with ideas of loyalty, with status quo. My daughter sat next to me, deep in her musicals Her noise cancelling headphones blocking out the rage I was projecting The te...

Waikanae Pool  is the best summer pool in the region. Fact.

A simple snap of the Wellington International Airport control tower build during a shopping visit. With a few taps it's turned into something a little more snazzy.

Gorgeous Edwardian facade at 33-39 Cuba Street (Wellington), designed & built in 1905 for two sisters. More: http://wellingtoncityheritage.org.nz/buildings/1-150/71-kennedy-building

The Beano summer annual  was a staple diet of my childhood and this Island Bay mural reminds me of their covers

War, it really is good for absolutely nothing. Killing others over ideas is crazy, especially if the idea you're fighting for is one made-up by another person. ( Pukeahu National War Memorial Park , Wellington)

My son looking up at a diorama from the now closed " The Great War Exhibition " created by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, Peter Jackson and WingNut Films. The exhibition was held in the former  Dominion Museum and National Art Gallery  in Wellington.

Imagine my delight when I finally got a Max Headroom photo - thanks Te Papa underground parking

Hard to tell what is doing what to what here, but it doesn't look good for one of them. Thanks Te Papa + Weta Workshop  Bug Lab  for a week of fine photos. Oh, this is the Jewel wasp ( again ) injecting venom into a cockroach’s thorax and brain, turning it into a zombie - charming. (Jewel wasp, Ampulex compressa )

Enjoy the colours, shapes, and reflections

I tried to edit every one these 6 photos but tbh they always looked best just as they are. None of them work on their own either, you can't see the fly when far away but not what the fly is standing upon when close-up. So here's the Jewel wasp ( Ampulex compressa ), doing brain surgery in a cockroach

Dragonflies are cool, they come from the worlds of SciFi AND Fantasy but live in ours (Dragonfly, Procordulia smithii )

I visited Te Papa in January 2017 and specifically the Weta Workshop created " Bug Lab " exhibition. You are about to have a week of photos taken during that visit (Model of Orchid mantis  Hymenopus coronatus )

Leeds Street is host to a number of funky eateries and bars. It's also surrouded by tall buildings and walking back to Dixon Street is always a step back into the light of everyday life

Whilst these are no "Hildas ducks" they are better than a mountain muriel (3 wooden wall birds)

A rabbit perhaps? Or a kids drawing of a plane? Maybe a whale with an upturned tail? What do you see?

Here's a thing my UK family and chums will have no concept of - around the home I have many many bottles of water stored for when an earthquake hits. Everyone in NZ does, or should:  https://getthru.govt.nz/emergency-survival-items

So hot, so sleepy, so not moving

We're nearly there Aotearoa, Level 2 in a few days and we can give friends and families those long waited for hugs (if they want, no force hugging please)

Wellington bays and beaches have many benches dedicated to locals that have died. Not many still receive flowers.

To my Mum, Betty Boyle, who's bored witless in the UK lockdown, and to all mothers doing it tough for all the reasons during these COVID-19 times, you're passing on amazing skills to next generation. Thank you! (You are quite correct, my daughter may chose not to have kids, but the experience of being a woman will always be there and the lessons passed on by all the amazing mothers in her life are priceless)

Isn't it so mesmerising, when even a small wave hits a rock and a kasploosh of water explodes upwards and out

Heavily filtered view of a small Wellington wharf

Cute eh, or twee perhaps? House roses of Karaka Bay (Wellington, NZ)

Through The Keyhole  with Lloyd Grossman (and David Frost I've just read) is a memory filled with just one phrase in one 'accent', if you know you know it ... do you?

The changes made evident by a signpost, no longer diverted to the right but straight on to the new and exciting

The connection that comes seeing your son love something as you did at their age is life affirming

Without some way of marking the passage of time it has been so easy to wake up one day, forget what day it is , slump back into the couch and exist for another set of waking hours. It's a well known phenomenon that the older we get the quicker time seems to travel . It doesn't of course, unless you are observing someone travelling at a much quicker rate than yourself, in that case time truly does go at different rates. We're all going at the same speed, so why do we feel like our time is all fucked up at the moment? Even those with a  work routine  are saying how it's all different from pre-COVID-19. The work is not the solution then, even having a routine is not resolving our time fucked-upness. So what to do? Experiences, when we're young are all new, the world offers up an ever flowing series of new and exciting events. All the biggies to start with, individualisation (realising we are not the centre of a one-person universe), walking, talking, and conne...

Packet colours of New World frozen vegetables

Whilst the tower is Wellington's tallest building I enjoy The Majestic Centre for its lower design and the 'crown of thorns'. I assume they are flag poles but, in the 22 years I've lived in #Wellington, am yet to see a #flag flap from them.

"Can Inspector Gjelstad turn away from the bottle and solve Wellington's political murders?" An 'Inspector Adam Gjelstad' novel not by Michael Alan Riversdale

Wooden sound