My favorite fruits of all time seem to be native to the tropics: pineapples and mangoes. A good peach, however, is hard to beat, and a large, fully tree ripened apricot is as close to heaven as food is likely to get.

Certain varieties of passion fruit are also wonderfully devine.

I'll eat half a 10-lb watermelon in one sitting, if no one stops me, and if its one of those old-fashioned supersweet alligator-striped with thick red meat.

But put it all on a buffet table and the large, tree-ripened yellow-green mango with the dark orange flesh will attract me first everytime.

There have been some cold days this month
But yesterday I really felt a chilly nip at my neck
that for me signified the coming
of winter

Instinctively I put an abnormal amount of butter on my bread at dinner and didn't sip the tea but let it cool a bit and gulped it down like a glass of water and rose from the table without pausing to digest my food I'm ready for some work

I looked in the mirror and said goodbye to my clean-shaven face "I'll see you again in the spring" I went downstairs to unpack some longjohns, scarves, gloves and a touque from a box in the laundry room doublechecked the booster cables were in the trunk of the car I'm ready for some suffering

Lastly I looked fondly and knowingly at the fireplace and patted the brick a few times as if to ask it if it were ready to keep me and whomever else warm I'm ready..."

This is interesting writing, half way between a diary and creative writing. I liked the way you talked to your face and so on. But there are some weaknesses if this is "creative writing" I could point out if you want. But there is nothing wrong with it if it is just "by the way" writing.

Here it has been a very cold winter* - although we don't have snow - and it is still quite cold (although in theory it is Spring) especially where I walk with my son - near the estuary and up a small mountain nearby here and so on. Some of the photos I take on my walks, or travels around Auckland are on FaceBook under my name. Some are even of chess events or venues. I intend to get a lot more up.

I once submitted some poems to a small Journal and the editor sent back - "These would be great Richard - but you have lines of genius and lines that are really bad. Why don't you rewrite extensively and re submit? Then we could reject your lines of genius and publish the crap!" !!

I knew the editor, as might be surmised, who is a well known local poet, journalist, and general literati (and a wit) and works in a big library (Collections - that is rare books - his other field). Actually I took notice of his criticism and re worked reworked what I was doing and so on...

"You're always blutt,"
said Yull to Yutt,
"for reason you
ain't got no futt."

i watched twilight...
the new moon...