The loneliest pub

Well probably not the very loneliest, but I wanted quite a lonely one.

I didn't want to organise a babysitter and go out for New Year's Eve. I wanted some peace and quiet and an opportunity to read. I didn't want to stand on lego, or answer the phone or change nappies or referee disputes or collect washing or make food. So on the afternoon of 31 January, I set out for town with an eye to a pub which would serve wine and not be so grotty that drunken pensioners would leer at me and also not at all in the public eye. Small talk was not part of my plans.

I settled on Revvies, an Irish theme pub which I've never been to before. Merciful choice. It was populated scarcely and by tourists. Inside, I found a table where I could face away from the television and could not be seen from the street or the bar.

So I got to have two glasses of wine and read New Zealand Books and no one interrupted me at all. It was bliss. I also fitted in a quick look at the latest Guardian Weekly. I used to subscribe to New Zealand Books as a student, back when I used to read lots and believed in supporting New Zealand literature-based initiatives. It's time for a return. There was much to enjoy in NZBooks and what grabbed my attention first was a review of a book on the history of male homosexuality in New Zealand (Chris Brickell, Mates and Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand) and an article on the facing page of Peter Wells' response to the book in relation to his own experiences of being a gay man and gay activist in New Zealand, particularly in the 1970s. Wells found it fascinating to read of a history of gay activity in New Zealand before his time, as he hadn't been able to sense it as a young man.

This prompted me to recall a piece I read in Steven Eldred-Griggs new book, Diggers, Hatters and Whores about the goldfields of New Zealand. I've only read bits standing in the bookshop so far but Mum tells me she has it for my birthday next month. Eldred-Grigg is not one to make evidence a requirement for his historical claims and I expect I'll have more to say once I've read the book. But anyway, he suggests that homosexual intercourse was common on the goldfields. Rose Tremain had this as part of her novel set on the goldfields of the West Coast of NZ, The Colour and I just hadn't thought of it before. So I suppose it is perfectly likely and indeed probable but as for evidence, well I spent a loooooong time looking through records of life on the Central Otago goldfields as a postgraduate student and I never once found anything. Perhaps my eyes were closed to the signs.

This talk of the homosexual 'ancestors', as Wells terms, it also brings me to my disappintment in the Pope. I know this is no surprise to discover that the new Pope is extremely conservative but I still find it disappointing. In his recent speeches he has condemned homosexual intercourse and condemned the use of IVF treatments and of many contraceptives. It makes me angry. It makes me angry to think of the way in which Church leaders of many Christian persuasions use God as their excuse for defending and indeed encouraging homophobic behaviour and discrimination against homosexual people. Because I hold no truck whatsoever with any idea that God requires us all to procreate in heterosexual monogamous marital units. As for the idea that it takes a band of supposedly celibate single men to guide us in this practice... I hold my Catholic heritage close to me in many ways, the rituals, the social justice teachings, the memories of a suburban childhood otherwise terribly tame but for a bit of incense on Sunday mornings. But I feel so alienated from it by these terrible statements of Papal nastiness.

As I write, the morning of the New Year has dawned. I woke early and began writing in the dark but now I can see outside, outside to the stormy weather though the lightning has stopped. The poultry palace is still where it should be, which is what I check first after a stormy night.

I am going to give up book group this year and to concentrate my energies on writing more and on growing our little local writers' group. I have designated 2009 the year of my sewing machine simply because I have one and I also have a large pile of things to be mended or altered on it. I am considerably more interested in reading and writing at the moment than sewing though.

I'm still knitting away on the last piece of Fionn's sleeveless hoodie, even though it might not fit him. After that, tempting though a new piece of knitting might be, it is time to make the curtain out of a blanket for the front door which I planned last winter and which I want to be ready for this winter.

I have more plans for the garden than I can write down...! The development of the area near the chook run out of grass and into a tree and bush dense area with mulch underneath is progressing nicely, with the aid of my three Brown Shavers who peck and scratch for their suppers very well. That is my biggest garden project for the moment.

Happy New Year!