Recent Blogs
Mangroves: forests on the foreshore
Mangroves aren't one of nature's cuddly or conventionally beautiful organisms. In New Zealand mangroves are both a protected native species and a pest. This is a post about appreciating our local mangroves: Avicennia marina subsp australasica, also called manawa, the...
A Matter of Life and Death (2): Dear Eva
"Death is not the opposite of life. Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth." – Eckhart Tolle. Last week I was writing about death; this week it’s birth. Two babies have recently arrived in my extended family. Tawari was born in December, to Eva and Sam;...
A matter of life and death
This is a post about Linny the cat, Atul Gawande, and David Bowie. "Death is not the opposite of life. Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth." – Eckhart Tolle. "To the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure." - Albus Dumbledore,...
February 6th: Alice Day, Waitangi Day, Bob Marley Day
Today is my 55th birthday. It’s also Waitangi Day, the New Zealand holiday that commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. Waitangi Day is the closest thing we have to a national holiday. But for a whole bunch of reasons, it’s a day when many New...
All about the bass
The bass player is the unsung heart of a great band. They’re standing there on stage with a huge bass guitar, and an even bigger amplifier, but hardly anybody notices what they are playing. The impact of the bass is almost subliminal. Listening to recorded music, most...
The family bat
My mother, Susan Bulmer, has a bat named after her. Bulmer's Fruit Bat, Aproteles bulmerae. It’s a giant fruit bat from the remote highlands of New Guinea. And it used to be extinct, but probably isn’t. As a young woman, before she was tied down with children, Sue was...
How to eat
This is about my philosophy of eating. I believe food should be beautiful, delicious, interesting, creative, fun and social. Too many of us are giving away our power by not paying enough attention to what we eat and how we’re eating it. Food isn’t just fuel for our...
Songs to remember
How can music improve the lives of people with dementia? Every couple of weeks I drive to Auckland to make music with my mother, Sue. It’s fun and joyful for both of us. My mother has dementia. It has been gradually progressing over the last five years – maybe longer...
Smart plants
Brilliant Green is a provocative and ground-breaking book that’s been stretching my mind ever since I opened the covers. Italian biologist Stefano Marcuso, director of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology (LINV), and science writer Alessandra Viola make...
Not just a tiny guitar
Saturday afternoon is my favourite time of the week. My ukulele group meets at 4pm. We drink a glass of wine, play ukulele and have fun. For two hours, nothing else matters. Our nine members have a wide range of musical experience – some have been playing for six...