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Auntie Effie's Gift She'd done the painting - I had to thank her, and take it with me home to Australia. But truly, it was a botch - which was all I'd expected. What was my favourite Auckland view? I'd told her - Judges Bay, the tide in, St Stephen's white Chapel on the sloping turf with its settlers' graves. There they are, the lot. And a skyline of trees vague, indeterminate, though doubtless pioneer. But her art! her skills! conspicuous by their total absence! She wrapped it - Uncle Albert had already framed it - away we went. Decades it sat in the darkest corner of several successive Melbourne addresses, this latest surely its last. Downsizing requires we part, her daub and me. Yet - bin it? too cruel. Leave at a charity shop? Most likely they'd bin it. Is there a shredder might take it? Burning would be the thing, if bonfires were still permitted. Effie herself I last saw in a hospital bed near death from cancer. I held her painting hand, said I'd speak at her funeral - a promise I broke. Albert went soon after. Her paintings? gone. That view is still a favourite - Judges Bay, the tide in, St Stephen's wooden Chapel, sloping turf, old graves.