Well my old Mate,
The sands of time have slipped between our fingers, you and I are not the spry young things we used to be. Gone are the expansive days of limitless horizons, gone are the great aspirations.
We live now in a time of quiet satisfaction. We have lived our lives as best we can. We have our achievements and our failures, our moments of despair and delight, the highs and the lows of a lifetime well spent.
What magnificent moments we have had... both of us! Moments of love and triumph, moments of roaring laughter, occasions where we have both felt... that our cup does indeed.. overfloweth.
We have watched our children grow from helpless little bubbles to striving creative people with urgencies and points of view and imperitives.
We have both found partners who have shared the pain and the hardship, the joys and the agonies. We are the lucky ones friend.. these women are the rock of our lives without them we would be substantially less.
Despite the fact that we have rarely seen each other since the ****** days, I want you to know that I have always regarded you as a brother. Something quite indefinable there, but special.. you will always be my brother.
Speaking of brothers.. ****** old Johnson has married himself a young Chinese lady, they are living quite happily in southern China, used to be Changsha but I think now elsewhere..
He is coming back to New Zealand next year.. about March.. which is very timely because then we will be able to accommodate them in our new rural retreat in Taranaki.
Janet and I have built a lovely little donga atop a high hill overlooking the magnificent green, South Taranaki foothills and the wide blue Tasman sea.
The place is about 50% built right now. In a few days Janet & I will travel down with a truckload of stuff and spend the summer break and Christmas working our bums off on the property.
We camp out under a sky full of the most brilliant stars.. more than I have ever seen before. Every morning we awake to the glorious dawn chorus of the native birds in the forest around us.
We have two particularly curious, enormous wood pigeons who follow us around all day from job to job and a chorus of beautiful, irridescent tuis who entertain us with their song and antics flitting between the flowering tree fuschias.
This place is paradise.
We will have two guest bedrooms... so sometime, in the not too distant future, I want you and Suze to take a little break.
Boaz is returning from New Mexico for Christmas, Solomon is driving him down country on Christmas eve so we will all be together with Grandpa Bell, Janet’s dad, for the festivities. I can’t wait!
Have bought Janet a beautiful oil painting by a local artist.. Of geraniums in a rust red ***.. and a glorious light emanates from it. Will be just the thing for the wall in the new kitchen.
That’s it!
Love to you and Suzie and all the tribe.
Have one hellava good Christmas mate
Luv M
Hold your hand aloft in light
Feel the blood run through your veins,
Know that you have lived a life
Loved a love and held the reigns
Of something..so worthwhile and good
That friends will well have understood,
When you have long passed from this land,
...Your Cup hath Overfloweth.
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
18 December 2010
