Spooky is a
too funky, childlike word for it.
Eerie,
maybe. Uncanny, perhaps? Ghostly,
if into ghosts. Supernatural, more likely.
Coincidence, logical.
I was in
the South Island this time last week.
Was a lovely few days. Sunshine
and even one very warm day. Catching up with old friends, neighbours and acquaintances.
There is
something soulful about relinking with people.
I try to do it as much as possible but know I lack the ability to keep a
constant finger on the pulse with some of my older and closer friends who live
far away and have done for some time. That
is due to our life of time shortage, sometimes money shortage, and this silly
ever-so-busy world we have managed to manipulate ourselves into. Despite that, there is much in the fact that
real friends do not fade, no matter how long it is since you have seen them: when you do you feel you have never been
apart. I have some really special ones
in that category.
Mind you,
at the age I am now, the thirty-seven-plus years that I am, it can be said that
the most valuable antiques I have are old friends.
I was only
in the South Island for four full days.
The initial purpose of travel south was to enjoy celebrating a fortieth
birthday of a not-so-old neighbour and friend who now lives in Christchurch. The celebratory party was a splendid and
enjoyable night, helped by the fact that I knew more people on the invitation list
that I had anticipated.
The young Ange & I - it was a 007/James Bond theme party
For me it
is still an odd feel to attend any party, or dinner, or social occasion without
being on the arm of my dear Mr J. The
more times I do the more I am accepting that being an individual as opposed to
an almost conjoined pair does have some advantages. It costs less for a start. Don’t have to argue about who is the
designated driver. It’s unarguable
now. Can arrive and depart without
waiting for the other half whilst he talks, and talks, and talks. It’s about now I begin to scratch around
for advantages.
However it
would have been helpful to have had him along because I confess to being
geographically challenged when trying to find the venue and then again when
trying to find where to go at the end of the evening in the dark and on unfamiliar
roads. I did eventually find my YMCA
lodgings with enough time to have three hours sleep before rising to watch the
4 a.m. rugby match at a local pub.
Whilst the
party was the sole reason for my travelling to Christchurch, I had decided that
due to being so far south I would maximise the trip and enjoy a couple of days
revisiting places I had been before whilst catching up with other folk I had
not seen for some time.
It wasn’t
planned but Saturday found me sitting in a pub on the top of the hill heading
from Christchurch to Akaroa, the Hilltop Pub.
I had been driving on the Christchurch to Akaroa road when I turned a
bend and saw the pub with its magnificent view out over the Akaroa
Harbour. Until then I had not given a thought
to the pub, indeed it had never entered my mind until its unexpected presence
in front of the car. There was a truly
hearty thump in my chest the moment I saw it.
A flashback
to 2007 has Tony and I inside that pub after a day of running in the National
Road Relay Championships which had finished in the Akaroa township. On the way back to Christchurch the team van
had pulled into the car park of the Hilltop Pub and we had all gone in for our
well deserved cold beers and baskets of hot chips whilst squashed up and among
other athletic teams who had the same thoughts.
I remember
the day specifically and I clearly remember standing in the pub alongside Tony;
we were literally squashed in among all the other athletes and barely able to
hear each other speak due to the overall noise of the many patrons. Tony began talking to someone else, I was tired;
not feeling a hundred percent, squished up against his side so wearily rested
my head into his shoulder. Whilst he continued to talk his arm came up
behind me with his hand rubbing my head and mid sentence he turned his head to
my ear and quietly whispered, “I love you.”
It was
those moments that remain vivid in my mind – those moments of his spontaneous
affection that meant so much to me; there were so many of those moments in our
twenty years. Treasures.
So when I
looked ahead and saw the hotel in front of me that moment flashed instantly
into my thoughts. I could feel him, hear
him, and smell him.
I could not
drive by and let that memory pass. I
stopped and went into the now very quiet hotel, ordered a cold beer and sat at
a table closest to where I recall we were standing that day. The pub was quiet, the view stunning and the
beer nostalgically agreeable, for the moment.
I didn’t stay long. I
couldn’t. Being the hopeless,
sentimental and emotional person I am, the tears welled and it was clear that
if I stayed the patrons or staff would become concerned about this lone women
in a state of mournful sadness.
I can say that it was not mournful, as I am seemingly moving
on from mournful but the tears still naturally fall at odd moments when reflecting
on what I have lost; a self-centred loss that brings on the involuntary
leakage. Accepting as I am of my life
now there still feels some rightful justification in allowing unexpected
moments of leakage. In many ways they
are exquisite moments.
So I left and moved on.
To Akaroa where the coffee was good, as werehe chocolate caramels that
went with it. A whole bag of them. Gone.
That made me feel all the better after having the unexpected teary nostalgia
stoppage.
So the weekend moved on too.
To the fortieth party that night, a quarter-final rugby match at 4 a.m.
in a pub in Christchurch the next morning, then the other quarter-final
slightly later in the morning at my celebratory friend’s home with her, her
husband, her children and friends. We
all watched the All Blacks beat France at Cardiff Arms Park in the much talked
about quarter-final rematch of the disastrous quarter-final match in 2007 also
at Cardiff Arms Park.
And wasn’t it a great match!
It was fun to watch this with warm friends.
An hour or so after the game I bade farewell, jumped into my
dinky RentaDent and steered to the road south.
I had arranged to travel two hours south of Christchurch to visit an old
running friend in her new home town of Timaru.
Along the way we texted one another and she arranged to drive north of
Timaru where we would meet at a café, have a coffee and catch up chat, and then
I would shadow her back to Timaru. She
said the café had only recently opened and whilst she had never been there
before she thought it sounded like the ideal meeting place for us.
Any place that brews a good coffee is a good place to
me. It would be a welcome respite to the
journey.
As I drove the road I figured that in my lifetime I would
have driven over the same stretch three or four times, all bar one of them
would have been over 25 years ago but never gave it any further thought.
The day was sunny, pleasant, warm and the traffic very
thin. I was in a happy space listening
to the radio; windows down and breathing in the odours of silage, cow dung and
exhaust fumes. A feeling of carefree
expectation of the reunion and caffeine fix.
Initially I drove straight past the venue and had to phone
my friend to ask for directions. One
quick U-turn and there it was and she was, with her lovely little lad by her
side.
I thought my eyes deceived me. But my heart didn’t. That thud I felt in the heart at the Hilltop
Pub the day before came back but this time it was three-fold. Quadruple.
Shivers literally went throughout my body.
I had been here before.
This ‘new’ café was not a new café at all. I had been here only a few years ago. With Tony.
Not only was this a coincidence that she should bring me to
a café that Tony and I had visited only a few years ago, but it was on this
very same day in 2007 we came and had breakfast in this café, only an hour
after watching the international coverage of the 2007 Rugby World Cup quarter-final
game with the All Blacks playing France at Cardiff Arms Park.
My mouth dropped. I
pulled into the car park and literally asked the shivers to pass, to go
away. This felt like an out of the body
experience. Spooky is a too funky, childlike word for it. Eerie,
maybe. Uncanny, perhaps? Ghostly,
if into ghosts. Supernatural, more likely.
Coincidence, logical.
Superstitious
people would tell me there was a purpose.
A reason why this coincidence happened.
But there were so many coincidences within the one coincidence.
A spooky,
eerie, uncanny, ghostly, supernatural coincidence.
Damn weird.
PS: I didn’t leak.
PPS: I couldn’t leak, there was a cute 4 year old
that I needed to catch up with.
Tony, in 2007 running the relay the day before we visited this cafe.
