It’s that time of year when I have to cast my mind back to what’s happened since last year. I seem to remember being beaten around the brows and taken to watch Gill win another women’s sailing title early in the year.
Great venue, best hotel suite, a great hangi (Maori braai), more preservatives, and a visit to Matakohe on the way back home to see the
Then it started to rain. It didn’t let up after washing away the railway line to Gisborne and until our lawn had reached a thread count in the gazillions. At that point we called for professional help to de-thatch a property with a tin roof.
Meanwhile David had moved country to be nearer Natalie doing her post doctorate research in paleoclimatology at Yale. Good to experience hurricanes first hand.
Back here his sister Roisin studied for further post graduate midwifery qualifications besides being mother to three growing wolves. I’m not so sure this morning’s 5.8 quake is completely unrelated to their displays of brotherly tenderness.
Continuing in her quest to be the world’s oldest sailing
grandmother, Gill added a significant number to her birthday count. She then
received a prize for being second woman in the North Island Laser championships
(beaten by an 18 year old amazon).
Having failed to instil a love of sailing in her daughter,
Gill focused her attention on 10 year old Rhyva and presented him with an
Optimist dinghy. Poor kid tries to
appreciate being at the mercy of waves and gales, but I suspect may harbour a
wish to be left to play with his action figures (dolls in my day).
Those following this blog will be aware of our recent trip
to get away from the big smoke (as I work in a firm that puts the strings on
yo-yo’s, I may have an insider’s view on one who grows a unique variety of combustible
vegetable).
It’s now been six years since we moved from Randburg and
settled half way around the world in Clive, a coastal village with a population
of 1600, 10km south of Napier and 400 km south east of Auckland.
Was the move worthwhile?
We have had no trouble fitting in with the laid back lifestyle of this
area – “no worries, it’ll be ‘right” echoes the familiar “môre’s nog ’n dag”. The thieves here seem less switched on, be
they banks or insurance companies or home invaders. We have never stayed anywhere that is quieter, and even with the chaotic weekly visits of the three
Ironically it seems that moving away brought us closer to
our family, and to an alignment of our values and mind-sets with those of the
peoples of New Zealand. We can only hope
this Christmas message spreads the peace and happiness we have found in this
part of the world with all our friends.
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