24 March

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It’s Anne’s second son Patrick’s birth-date today. He would have been 41. Patrick was killed in Sydney when he was 18 years old. Certain lights went out in Anne that day that have never come back again. We have tried every year on this day to visit the pohutakawa tree planted over his ashes in the Botanic Gardens. My ill-health means that niece Jenny will deputise for me today

I had an unusual dream last night. Yesterday I’d talked about two of my ex-bosses, David Lange and Bill Renwick (ex-Director-General of Education). Neither man appeared in the dream. But a group of ex-staff members were tidying up Lange’s overgrown garden in Wadestown.

I luxuriated in the use of an axe and then a slasher attacking rampant honeysuckle and jasmine. And then a pick on wild ginger roots. The garden morphed into Bill’s place. Finding an bed of very mature leeks I went inside to ask Marjorie if she wanted them harvested. She did. So I went to pull them out. But reality intruded. I did not have the strength.

Awake, I savoured the sensation I’d briefly enjoyed of being strong and physical again. Ichabod! As it was I lay there, two machines thumping away – helping keep me alive -before I dozed off again. The vibrancy of that dream was so vivid.

I’ve been looking back to see we’ve done on this day in other years. I stumbled across the fact that I wrote the poem Goya Rules on the morning of 12 March 2004. (See 1 October 2009 blog). It was hardly changed from that original draft. It is the title poem of my latest collection being launched this week. (The cover is on my blog of 26th February).