Gum trees

from w
Just a couple of sketches of gum trees and then charcoal and chalk versions.

Feeling a lazybones today. It's Father's Day but Peceli isn't home yet from Fiji. We've already eaten half of the chocolate cake! We go to Tullamarime airport tonight to pick him up.

More on Father's Day on the Babasiga blog anyway.

Yesterday my friends Ema and David had a small fundraising afternoon tea party for a donation to the Fiji Methodist Church which has had a serious run-in with the military government. It was a lovely afternoon because it was an opportunity to yarn with a friend who was my neighbour in the 60s, a very senior gentleman these days, Rev. Cyril Germon, and we reminisced about old times when Ema was a schoolgirl in the hostel, I was a teacher at Lelean Memorial School, and Cyril headed the Vulitalatala - the Theological Training Centre. Davuilevu was an outstanding place, lively with a thousand young people with a Secondary School, Bible School and Theological College. Peceli trained there, but in the year, 1963,when I was there, he was already out in the circuits, in fact up in Navosa, in the middle of the mountains. Those were the days my friend, I thought they'd never end... and so goes the old song. I asked Cyril what was Peceli like as a teenager student and he said they used to call him 'Prof' because he always had something to say about everything!

More rooms with a view

from w
From memory so there are inaccuracies, here are three more views from a window.
I. in the Davuilevu compound 1963 four single women in their 20s lived in a house on a hill called Veitalacagi - three teachers and a secretary and we kind of looked after the girl's dormitory behind us. The place was hilly and always green and we could see Baker Hall, a few houses and the high school.
2. Shantiniwas - 1971 - was below the Dilkusha Orphanage and it seemed to be always green and jungly with creepers, banyan trees, bamboo and gullies.
3. In Hopetoun (Victoria) - about 1977 - our very plain house was on a corner diagonally opposite the local hospital. We had a pet turtle then - or was it a tortoise?
(added later)