Behind Closed Doors
by
Ngaire Thomas

You can contact me by

I live in Palmerston, North New Zealand where I have an International Student Homestay House.

I like experimenting with different types of cooking and often cook dishes from the students' home countries to help make them feel more at home in New Zealand.

Since graduating from Waikato University in 2000 I've been teaching English to speakers of other languages and enjoy working with people from many different cultures.   

I have five children, eleven grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. I'm currently working on a novel.
 

What's New with Groovy Gran?

‘Take only photos and leave only footprints’ was my guide as I dismantled sixty years of life in New Zealand.

‘Take only memories’ (plus a few useful things) was much harder, and more expensive, than I thought it would be. How do we put a value on articles that evoke poignant memories? The ever growing pile got larger and larger and needed to be drastically culled before the final day. I am still waiting for these things to arrive in Australia and have survived without them for a month already. I haven’t however felt deprived of my electronic gadgets because I paid dearly, in the form of excess luggage, for the indulgence of bringing them with me.

‘Leave only positive impressions (footprints)’ is a mission that cannot be undertaken at the last minute but is an ongoing reflection of relationships and interactions with people over a lifetime. It is hard to say goodbye to friends and relatives and there are so many people in New Zealand that I wanted to visit before I left, but couldn’t, and I hope they will understand. After publishing ‘Behind Closed Doors’, I was contacted by many relatives who recognized my early family stories, In some cases they were later generations of family with whom we had lost contact after Big Jim taught that eating and socializing with outsiders was a test of fellowship. I had the privilege of meeting some of these people and mending some past hurts and misunderstandings before I left New Zealand. Regrettably I left without contacting my brother who is still under bondage.

I hadn’t been here long before I started looking for a ‘Groovy Gran’s Van’, to provide me with a small but comfortable home and a means of transport between families. WOW, RVs are so popular here that no sooner had I found one I liked when someone else had the same idea and it vanished from right under my nose, and that happened several times. So, with a rather hefty cheque in my little hot hand, I rolled up to an RV dealer and said “I’ll take that one please.” Now I’m as happy as a pig in clover! Problem is I can only be in one place at a time and each one of my children is asking “When are you coming home mum?”

Life in Australia is very different for me. At long last I can revel in my position as the matriarch of my large family and I love every moment of it. The biggest change for me so far is the limited time I can spend on the Internet! Australia is known as the land of opportunities and the telephone companies here take every opportunity to charge, including every time I dial-up on the Internet which curtails my activities somewhat. This brings me to the main reason for this posting, my new e-mail address which is: ngairet@bigpond.com and my cell phone number 0405300552 for those of you who enjoy texting.