Promise Boat, by Louise Purvis, 2005

T Rex thanks all who wished him well for their kind and thoughtful comments. He was less impressed that our daughter thinks he needs to go on a diet.

Went for another early morning run, and once again the sky was overcast. When I reached Auckland Domain (where they were setting up for tomorrow night's concert) much of the inner harbour was covered by low cloud and sheets o rain.

I chose this course in order to go past, and photograph, this sculpture, which is one of the newer sculptures in the Domain, featuring in a programmed walk. The programme notes for this sculpture read thus:

Louise Purvis has carved her sculpture in pale grey Bardiglio marble from Italy, fine grained and long lasting. Promise Boat is an archetypal vessel, tipped on its side to creates visual interest, perhaps also implying the beached craft of immigrants who arrived on the shores of Aotearoa New Zealand. The form is intriguingly bound in? a continuous organic ribbon. This wrapping makes the image mysterious, suggesting?that it is a fragile form that has to be protected and bandaged, or that something is being hidden - perhaps evoking the personal stories of voyagers.

Fragments of a diary kept by the brother of my great great grandfather during the trip from Nova Scotia to Waipu in 1856 are kept in the House of Memories in Waipu. It was a hard trip endured by hardy people. They did not sound like persons who needed protection through bandaging, and nor did their boat give the impression of fragility.

This angle shows part of modern Auckland in the distance, while in the foreground is one of the oldest lawn bowling clubs in New Zealand. Perhaps the symbolism of the bonds, is the binding together of past, present and future.