Christmas at Waitarere Beach

Miang and I spent our Christmas at Waitarere Beach, along with Catherine, boyfriend Mike, and the family of Chris and Hiva. There were many magical moments with my grandson James, braving the waves, blowing bubbles in the breeze sweeping across the sand, and shelling peas for Christmas dinner.

Chris, Hiva, James and Thomas

On Monday this week, son Chris and his family arrived in New Zealand. Based in Palmerston North, they have made day trips and a weekend visit to Wellington, and they will join Miang and me at Waitarere beach for Christmas and Boxing day.

On our first expedition we went to the local playground in Khandallah, where James met met Mark Hunter's son, Sam. Both boys were very courteous, and when Sam fell over, James asked "are you alright?"

James, who is 3 years and 3 months, hadn't seen me for over a year, and so it took a little while to get to know "Granddad Paul", but by the time of his second visit, I was in great demand for reading stories, assembling jigsaw puzzles, and playing the horn, the latter being a source of horrified fascination.

Thomas seemed to respond well to my theory that all infants, when held, like to grip grandparent fingers, or have their feet dance on grandparent legs. He is such a sweet fellow, blessed with an extremely kind big brother.

James's favourite read was a curious book of "Fables" which Miang had bought, including geese with golden eggs, little boys crying wolf, and goats failing to look before they leap. What terrible things we adults do to young minds!

By the way, James is clearly reading. Is this something that 3+ year olds are supposed to do? Oh and he can also sing very well. Is it OK to boast about the cleverness of grandchildren? Such difficult questions I have to wrestle with.

Samoa

Samoa. That's where we have been for the last week.

Arriving at Faleole airport at 2 am, we were greeted at the exit by a young Samoan policeman, clutching a picture of me given him by my friend Peter Rodger, an economic advisor to the Samoan government, who was at that point in the departure lounge waiting to catch the same plane home to New Zealand. The policeman handed me a Jason's Samoa guide, annotated by Pete. It was a nice way to enter a new country and imagine that you are important, and Pete's notes turned out to be a treasure trove of good advice.

Samoa was a German Colony from 1900 to 1914, occupied by New Zealand troops in 1914, and run, sometimes badly, by a New Zealand administration until independence in 1962. The population of Samoa is 186,000. Another 131,000 New Zealanders identify themselves as being of Samoan ethnicity.

We spent 6 days on Upolu, the most populated Island of Samoa, staying in Aggie Grey's resort at the western end facing the big Island of Savaii. Aggie founded her business during WWII, looking after US Marines stationed in Samoa.

The resort was certainly a great place to relax, but our greatest pleasure was in getting out and about around the island. The roads here are for walking on, and drivers amble along at 40 km/hr. And as you circumnavigate the 200 or so kilometers on the perimeter road that bounds the island shore, or cross over the volcanic mountains from north to south, what you see, you, the inhabitant of the "prosperous world", is simply breathtaking.

Everywhere there are people, moving at a relaxed pace, cheerful and gracious to a fault. Children range freely. Young and old sit cross-legged in the abundant fale, groups walk the road to church, every day, and on Sundays in brilliant white clothing, and churches line this road, one after the other, in competing grandeur. Wildly coloured buses with wooden, glassless window frames bump along the road. And in the evening, children organise their own games, teenagers carry toddlers, youngsters play netball, groups of young women bathe in the lagoon, young men compete in frenzied rugby matches on grass verges or fields of varying size.

This Island is totally electrified yet the kids don't seem to bother with television or computer games here. They make up outdoor games. They run wild and free.

I remember a world like that 60 years ago in New Zealand.

I never saw an angry person in Samoa, not in the quiet but populous, villages, not in the tsunami-ravaged south east, not in the bustling markets of Apia, and certainly not on the immaculately gardened roads, where ambling utes carry kids unrestrained in the back or standing on the railings, dogs and pigs run amok, and strolling pedestrians wave at vehicles, even those driven by astonished palagi.

100 years of Physics at VUW

On Thursday this week, we celebrated 100 years of Physics at VUW. The early professors were all appointed on the recommendation of Rutherford, first Laby, from 1910 to 1914, then Marsden, who dashed straight back to the war in 1914, and then Florance who stayed for nearly 3 decades.

In my VUW student days the Head of Department was Darcy Walker, wearing the bow tie in the photo above. Standing to his left on the right hand side of the photo is Noel Chapman, the professor of Nuclear Physics during the 1960s. Chapman and Walker were my brother Jim's PhD supervisors. Jim is the handsome fellow near the centre of the photo, to Darcy Walker's right. It was because of Jim's example that I ended up doing physics. Behind them all is the control console of the 500 keV Van de Graaf accelerator, their research tool for low energy nuclear physics.

I remember one particularly inspiring teacher at Vic, the late Professor Norman Barber. When I took quantum mechanics with Norman, I fell in love with the subject. Norman's grandchildren, Jacqui and Felix are both current VUW students in chemistry and physics. Felix is lab assistant in our NMR research team.

I spoke at the celebration, taking the opportunity to give a brief sample of a Barber lecture on atoms. Norman's son Peter and daughter Mary were present, along with Mary's young son, Louis. I think I saw Louis's eyes light up when I drew, on the blackboard, those Barber 2p orbitals with their quantum mechanical phase. In front of the 150 people present, I was able to tell him that he may not have known his grandad, but he could take it from me that he had been a great scientist and a fine teacher.

It was a most enjoyable evening, with visitors staying on late to tour labs and to chat. Many of the older cohort were present, including Noel Chapman and Darcy Walker. Remarkable survivors, both of them!