Thursday, February 23, 2012

The man in the lake and other Hamilton mysteries

I had the pleasure of being a panelist in a criminal line up at the Waikato Times Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival on Sunday. Fellow suspects were crime fiction writers Paul Cleave and Ben Sanders, and representing the true crime element was Scott Bainbridge. We were very ably chaired by Crime Watch's Craig Sisterson. It was a good turn out for a very hot and sunny evening, and the audience provided some great questions - in fact we went on for an extra half hour, because the questions kept a coming.

If you ever get to Hamilton, visit the gardens - they are fabulous. Some people embraced the whole experience the gardens thing a little too much, or more specifically, experiencing turtle lake...

...before the event we crime writers were doing what crime writers do...
...playing frisbee...
...Mr Sisterson threw too hard...
...uh oh, splash down...
...Mr Cleave's special 'I've played frisbee in 8 countries with that' frisbee was swimming with the ducks...
...Mr Sisterson's conscience got the better of him...


...A Mr Darcy moment...
...priceless...

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Age is a state of mind

I have been absent from the ether courtesy of lots of writing work - proof reading, and more proof reading. Also large on my agenda was the New Zealand Masters Games in Dunedin. We had the pleasure of a three day fencing tournament, which drew fencers in from far and wide and turned out to be a fun and vary competitive event. I was delighted to gain a bronze medal in the women's electric foil and came 4th in the mixed visual foil, and was one of many people walking around Dunedin with  a big grin and a Masters Games body ache!

One very special thing about the Masters Games, is it celebrates sporting competition at any age, and I wanted to share a couple of photos of a very special bout at the fencing. The fencers' combined age is 171 years! These octogenarians are an inspiration.

Doug Williamson (Auckland) vs Ted Nye (Dunedin)

Elder statesmen of fencing.