a weekends wanderings

Well it was nice to have a weekend at home at last, even Meeting was at ours so the only place I had to go was to bike into town to do some shopping, finally catch up with Phyllis again for the first time since Boxing Day and, as it turned out, have a cuppa with Marie-Claire too and the guy she's WWOOFing for.

A welcome contrast to the previous weekend, much as that too was very enjoyable. On Saturday evening we'd gone out to Honeymoon Valley for Peter's birthday get-together (he works at the kindy where I did some relieving etc last year). It's an amazing place although my stomach wasn't overly excited about the Peria Road - or maybe it was a bit too excited and wanted to go back and see the bit we'd just past? In any case I managed to hang on to my insides and we found their place hidden away in the bush. They've cut a clearing for a caravan which now sits under a very impressive roof - the support beams made out of the felled gum trees, gradually they are creating a home and garden there out in the wilds. Definitely simple living out there but you'd be stuffed without your own transport.

With a campfire (the rain having lifted the fire ban!), live music, a good spread of food and convivial company it was a very pleasant evening - and the mozzies stayed away!!! However we didn't stay all that late as Elizabeth and I had to head for Kerikeri in the morning.

Kaitaia and Kerikeri Worship Groups (Quakers) have started working through the BYM Testimonies Toolkit and this was our second meeting, with the focus this time on 'truth and integrity'. In the way that things sometimes take on a life of their own we found ourselves considering our position in the Monthly Meeting which theoretically covers everything north of the Waitemata Harbour (Auckland) but from which we have felt somewhat separate from geographically and spiritually in recent times. From time to time the two Worship Group have sent Minutes to our Friends further south who hold the regular business meeting but there hasn't been any sense of real connection with the affairs of the Monthly or Yearly Meeting. Well Dad doesn't call Quakers a DIY religion for nothing, chances are if you want something done you need to do it! So there and then we had our own 'Northern Friends' business meeting and decided to do so regularly in conjunction with our study days.

Well we've possibly rocked a few boats and stood on some toes already but it feels like a really positive step for us as individual and joint worshipping communities up here. We'll see where it all goes from here.

Along with the Quakery aspect of the day I also managed to squeeze in seeing Natalie (one of my classmates from last year) and her 2yr old Matthew at lunchtime and collect Marie-Claire who a mutual friend had put in touch with me as she was coming over to NZ for a few months. So the day involved a fair bit of mental gymnastics with catching up on completely different aspects of my life! I don't like pigeon-holing people and quite like it when my various worlds meet. I had nothing like long enough with either Natalie or Marie-Claire so it was good to realise I'd see them both again before long.