Today is ANZAC day, a day to remember those New Zealand and Australia men and women who served in our armed forces and were wounded or killed in war. To my mind ANZAC day is a day of solemn reflection and a chance to pay tribute to the sacrifices made by those who went before us and to remember the terrible impact war has had on families and communities all across the country, and indeed the world. Both my grandfathers fought in World War One. One an engineer on a minesweeper in the Royal Navy, seeking out and patrolling against German U boats in the North Sea, the other served in the trenches in the Western Front. Both survived the war and both were still alive when I was young so to me World War One is still not a distant, black and white war seen in grainy footage on tv but a real conflict that had a real impact on my own family. It is for them that I attend Dawn Services, to thank them for their service to ensure that they, and the countless other young New Zealand and Aust

(Still struggling a bit out here at present but getting back into my weekly routine. Yesterday I decided to head down to Friendship Bridge at the far end of South Tarawa for a swim. I had biked there a week before heading back to NZ and was pretty knackered by the time I biked home. It is probably a 46-50km round trip which with the heat and my general lack of bike fitness meant it was going to be a bit of a challenge, at least it was first time I did it. Still it was another beautiful sunny day and I needed to get out and get active.   Friendship bridge is a metal bailey bridge built by the Americans that spans the causeway/lagoon that links North and South Tarawa. It is at the far eastern end of the island, two or three kilometres north of the airport. The channel is about 100 metres wide and the water is quite deep here. It is a natural passage for the tides that rise and fall each day, draining and filling the lagoon in an endless cycle that has been conducted for millennia. D

One thing I really didn’t consider fully before I came was that I might lose one of my parents while I was volunteering. Mum and dad have been married for 57 years and although mum’s health has been declining in recent years, I really didn’t think when I popped round to see her and dad and said “bye, I’ll see you in June”, that that would be the last thing I’d ever say to her. On Tuesday March 20 th I had a typical day here, work and then on the way home checking out the surf on the reef to see if it was worth popping out for a surf- and it didn’t look too bad.   I was about to head out when I noticed that 5 What’s App messages had arrived between when I got on the minibus from work and home.   I quickly checked them, only to find that Julie had messaged me to say that my mum had had a heart attack and was on the way to hospital and that it didn’t look good. I kind of went blank, tried to figure out how to get off Tarawa and what to do. Eventually I figured it out, managed to