Hellos and Goodbyes

This  year on the 1st May, I began my blog.   Walter Drake was an inspiration in my life, the reason behind the title “ All Points of The Compass’ as a reference to his days in HMS in WW2,  a dear friend, a man who loved words, poetry, writing, and always had  word perfect recollection of quotations from Tennyson,Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Matthew  Arnold,William Yeats, Percy Bysshe Shelley( to name a few).  One of the joys of receiving his letters, was to look at the last page first and read the words from whichever author he had chosen that day.
The quotation was carefully chosen to suit the occasion, be it a wedding, a  funeral, a birthday,  or a summer’s day. Unlike you,Walter, I have to resort to a well worn book , “ Oxford CONCISE DICTIONARY  of QUOTATIONS” ,  Revised Edition.
Our “Hello” would have been before 1997, and “Goodbye” with many tears in April 2010.
This photo was taken by his daughter  Kristine, in the Springtime of 2009, in Cornwall Park.

Our friend called in for a stopover on the way to Wellington.
  Hugh’s Dad’s Memorial tree seemed to reach out, sending a message that the morning was awake, sun shining, blossom falling, and all was well in the garden.










The trip to Wellington Airport was in the pitch black shade of a very early morning,
One last photo of Pat and me before we  did a final weigh in of their luggage,  have a well earned coffee and wave “Farewell”
The 3 weeks went by way too fast.


Shades of Purple to suit the words below.

Quotation of  the day, an excerpt  from Ars Poetica  ,   Horace, 65-8 BC.

“Works of serious purpose and grand promises often have a purple patch or two stitched on, to shine far and wide.”

Cheers from Jean.