Murray MacGibbon

I think my latest interests are going to be fun to explore. I don't quite know what those latest interests are quite yet!

I golf a bit and I invite fellow golfers to check the West Coast Golf Challenge!

I came to the West Coast from the North Island after I sort of retired. Prior to this big step I had been an educator for over 40 years. This means that apart from the first few years of my childhood I have been at school! Not surprising but just a wee bit ironic that I then took a part-time yeaching job! Oh well, we do what we know, I suppose. The novel thing about the 'new' job was it was in IT! Oh well, we do what we learn, I suppose!

2013 is going to be fun! I used to do bone-carving- in fact I could say bonecarving was what brought me to The Coast. This, of course depends on whether you subscribe to cultural mysteries and beliefs. Maori believe that pounamu (greenstone/New Zealand jade) will find its way home.) I once gave a piece of bone carving I'd made to an old Maori lady who admired it and the next day she gave me an exquisite old Maori pounamu tiki!! Extraordinarily I was the first pakeha she had ever given pounamu to. Long story short- she was from Arahura, one of the foremost pounamu rivers in Aotearoa, New Zealand. The tiki was from that river, and that river is just 30kms down The Coast from where I now live- the stone came home and I simply came along for the ride!!

And 2013? Well I went back to 'school' - Tai Poutini Polytechnic to be precise to do the 'Jade and Hard Stone Carving' course. Excited! Check http://kutarer0.wix.com/kiwistone to see how I've done!!

And 2015? Another 'career' path- I learned the art of picture-framing. Having done so I am now the framer at the Left Bank Art Gallery in Greymouth.

Never too late to start, huh?