Eight Go Tramping (Part 1)

Easter, April 2014

A well planned sojourn began where 8 friends headed to the South Island to embark on a five day walking hike through the Heaphy Track.

Much planning had been put into this event, with our Camp Leader, Katheryn Lester, beginning to put organisation into place some time around Easter last year.

There were people to get on board for the trip, flights, accommodation, taxis, meals, foods, couriers, tours, trains, rental cars and vans to organise.  It certainly was no easy role for whoever put their hand up and it has to be said we were fortunate it was Katheryn who did the job as no one else would have managed so well.

Katheryn (or Clipboard Katheryn, or Clippy Chick, names she has been known by) had spent many, many hours going over maps, schedules, computers, lists, research for the benefit of everyone.

She was/is an organised 'chick'.  So organised that two weeks before the actual trip began we had a beckoning one Monday evening to a home where pizza and red wine were served while Katheryn ran through her 90 minute Power Point presentations of just what this trip was all about. Every flight, bus, train, taxi plan was listed.  Every accommodation, walk, sight seeing opportunity, meal providers and wineries were listed.  Every cost, distance, height, weight and view was listed.  As was some of the history listed. Delightful.  We felt we had just had a journey to and from the Heaphy track whilst licking our fingers over pizza and wine.

Once the Power Point presentation was complete each person was given a handout to compliment the presentation.  They had all the information they needed to set out on this trip.  We thought.

It wasn't.  Barbara (aka Gadget Chick) had done her own research for the expedition. Two days later an 8 page Excel spreadsheet is emailed to all of the group, listing the 'minimal' list of necessary equipment we would need to pack for this five day sojourn.  

Barbara had also put in a lot of time and research and work for this list which she had compiled during midnight hours.  For not only was the list comprehensive for every possible piece of clothing, or food, or equipment we would need, but Barbara had weighed every single item then tallied up the weights so that she could work out how heavy her pack would eventually be. Why does that word punctilious come to mind?

Barb had thought of every scenario.  For instance, listed were: tissues, sweat cloth, hand sanitiser, Lip Dip (what is lip dip?), eye mask, Kindle, needle, cotton bud, Friar's Balsam, toothpicks, to list few.  And most important piece of equipment of all, for all on this trip - wine glass.

Did you know that a microfibre towel weights 0.115 grams?  Or that ear plugs in container weighs 0.005 grams?  I was horrified when discovering the map weighed a great 0.050 grams.  

Only Gadget Chick could ever have done such a comprehensive and expansive eight pager Excel spreadsheet so efficiently.

Nothing was going to go wrong on this five day trek - not with organisers such as Clipboard and Gadget Chicks amongst us!  What a lucky group the rest of us were.

So, let us travel.

     

Day 1 - Friday 18^th April – Good Friday

Happy as a pig in a peach orchard. That’s how I felt on this particular morning when surveying the surroundings I was in.  It was the first day of a new Kiwi adventure for a whole group of eight friends but on this morning three of us were about to fly to the South Island, the others to follow at a later stage.  We were waiting for our Auckland to Christchurch flight.

Perhaps the more ungenteel descriptive phrase that many would relate to is not, ‘happy as a pig in a peach orchard’, but, ‘happy as a pig in shit’.  In fact, those were the words that passed my lips when trying to relate to one of the others in our trio how content I was.  Happy as a pig in a peach orchard. 

And what was it that made me happy?  Oh, a simple thing.  I was in the Koru lounge at the domestic airport and was enjoying their gourmet offerings without restriction.  I had already devoured an enormous, self-made hamburger-like sandwich, a freshly baked blueberry muffin, a latte and two really sticky and scrumptious caramel slices.  I was happy as a pig in shit.  Oops, I mean peach orchard.

Ah, life was looking good, things were beginning well.

Eight Jaffas going on a tramp.

We had already had an interesting journey to the airport.  Our tour leader had organised a Corporate Cab to take us there and our cab was driven by a very Korean driver, a chatty fellow, unusual for some Asian cab drivers as language difficulties often preclude a good conversation.  However despite the fact this chap’s English was not particularly well developed he conversed well.

He asked us to explain to him what he called the “Kiwi terminology” of the phrase ‘by-the-by’.  Interesting question.  Not hard phrase to define.  Until you think about it.  The driver continued his conversation by telling us how he finds learning English as “very, very hard.” This I found surprising as when I asked how long he had been in New Zealand he responded, “Twenty years.” After twenty years he was still having difficulty understanding English, mind you, Kiwi colloquialisms are even very confusing for the English. 

We learnt much about this gentleman, including the fact his son is to marry shortly and as father of the groom he is expected to give a speech.  Again, the three of us were not short in offering some tips and suggestions as to how he should prepare for what he clearly was anticipating as being a challenging task.  By the time we disembarked from the cab we had earned our fare by one-on-one tutoring in Kiwi slang and speechmaking skills.  But he still charged us the standard fare.

Thus, all was well on this beginning of our epic Heaphy journey.  That was, until we heard the weather forecast for our destination, Christchurch.  Cold, windy, torrential rain and bleak.  Oh well, it’s only wind and water.  Neither are harmful.  Or so we thought.

To be continued .......

I've been leaking

Phew, another busy day at the office.

The office being No 8, my house, my street.  This house.  The communal gathering point.

My days are never boring.  Today being a good example.  There have been comings and goings.  Tonight a pleasant night of comings and goings.  Eight of us will be walking the Heaphy Track in two weeks time, tonight there was a pre-Heaphy meeting of the eight to figure out logistics of the almost two weeks we will be away.  Such a lot to logisticalise about too.  

Being outdoor adventurers of the Kiwi kind we really do have to cross our t's and dot our i's to make sure every eventuality is covered for our hard and arduous few days of walking in the South Island West Coast wilderness. Therefore logistics relating to every angle are a must.

Logistics such as:  Who is bringing the wine?  How many of us can carry the wine?  When do we purchase the wine?  Which person has the biggest plastic carryall to carry the wine?  Where do we find really lightweight, yet compact-able glasses from which to drink the wine?  Which night is it that we will most need the wine?  

Clearly there is going to be some form of division among this group of eight.  Division over which wine will be carried, and by who, and who gets to imbibe the most.  The sticking point being that one in the group is a white wine only consumer while the rest of us are more than happy to know the most obvious choice of colour to take will be the crimson coloured, which will be nicely warmed and ready for supping at the end of a hard, hiking day.

If only there were some way to get wifi service in the Heaphy Track, am sure there could, or would, be some most interesting articles scribed after a few glasses of whatever wine we have.

That was this evenings busy-ness.  The earlier part of the day passed relatively quickly as I was ticking off many of the items on my ever growing list of 'To dos'.  I did do many today.  Not without leaking moments.

The weekend just gone had reason to unconsciously have me reflecting on a period only eighteen months ago when my dear one was still with me.  This weekend past I had committed myself to giving some of my time to the sport of triathlon, paying back as opposed to paying forward.  

Auckland was hosting an international triathlon event and many weeks ago I responded to the call out from Triathlon NZ for qualified triathlon technical officials to put their hands up and volunteer to give up some time to assist with the smooth management of the numerous events being held over a two day period.  As is often the case the good inner being within myself immediately responded to the affirmative and ticked the 'Yes' box to help out in any role of technical official.  Little did I realise at the time how burdensome that genuine desire to help out would take it's toll, both physically and mentally.

Shan't go into definitive detail as to what I mean by that except to say that the weekend aroused a continual flow of memory bank unfolding.  Of being reminded how only eighteen months ago I was at a replica event with my sweet, dear man.  

It is funny how the subconscious mind works.  There is little conscious control of how and when and in what form that the subconscious will sneak it's way through to the consciousness.  And when it does, Wham, it hits hard, it hits deep and it sits and lingers, no matter what tools one brings out to move it along or away.

For two days the damned subconscious interfered with the practicality of living in the now, of living in the future and moving forward to the future.  It kept dragging me back to the past, to the mode and presence of eighteen months ago.  It dug it's toes in and would not budge, no matter how I tried to move it away, dissolve it or ignore it.  It hung over me like a foreboding black cloud of condemnation for daring to try to disperse it.  

Saturday, the most glorious April Saturday in Auckland, this invisible yet morbidly heavy weight black cloud moved over to follow me around.  No matter what, or who, or where I was during the day it sat right over me - choosing to interfere with conversations, thought patterns and any form of obvious frivolity I compelled myself to have in an attempt to disperse the blackness above.  Damned thing.  It just would not go, or disperse and stay away. Indeed, it floated above me all Saturday and then throughout Sunday.  As the hours passed on Sunday I found it totally oppressive to the point where I ended up escaping the environs and heading home to close the door and feel a sense of relief in not having to be churning on the inside and bright and bubbly on the outside.  It was a good decision.  A little bit of leaking love on the way home and things lightened a little.  

       

A new day today found it was still floating above to a lesser degree, but still there.I found myself, once again, leaking love as I descended the escalators in a Newmarket shopping mall.  The car park attendant must have thought I'd made a terribly bad purchase as he glanced at me when handing me back my car park ticket.  I had donned the sunglasses but the leaks were too fluid.  

The afternoon was a busy one involving buoying up someone else whose life has taken a far greater turn toward glumness than mine and fortunately my efforts to help this frail and elderly one meant that the cloud, whilst still there, was not bearing down on me with such great weight.  The temporary lift was replaced with sadness for my friend.  That was not a negative, for the positivity of at least giving time to try and help made for a greater resilience to black clouds of my own.  As I left her place of residence with a heavy heart over her situation it steered me in the direction of determining to make a mutual alliance with this cloud that was sitting above, to acknowledge it was allowed to creep in and out of my life at undetermined times, but I was not to be surprised at the indeterminate times it fronted up.  For I think that was the problem, I did not expect it whereas at other occasions there were obvious reasons for it occurring, this one had not crossed my mind.

But never mind.  It's gone now.  No doubt helped by the knowledge that seven other Heaphy-trackites were heading this way this evening, armed with good thoughts, positive energy, and a couple of bottles of red wine.  Or three. Ah, the panacea of many things, fine people and crimson wine. Or deep red. Or white, or pink and bubbly.  Whichever colour - they are the perfect metaphoric antidote to have helped blow the cloud away.

                     
   

Cold pursuit

Life is full of coincidences.  Yesterday I found myself reflecting back on the early days when Tony and I first became more involved than being just mere best mates.  Reflecting on the time period when we were between being best mates and then becoming intense sweethearts.

Then later in the day when on my PC checking emails and Facebook I noted this post in Facebook that Tony’s niece has put up. 

                             

The two occurrences, my reflections earlier in the day, and the posting had close, uncanny links.

It was yesterday morning when I was driving along Auckland’s waterfront that I passed a cyclist who for one nano-second looked very much like Tony.  Thank goodness it was only a nano-second as when I took a second look realised this person was nothing like Tony at all, it was actually the cycling gear he was wearing that made me think it was Tony.

In those long ago days Tony’s wardrobe was less that attractive with his cycling and sporting wardrobe looking more like leftovers from Steptoe’s throw outs and yesterday’s cyclist must have delved into Tony’s  box of Steptoe’s leftover clothes as the cycle attire he was in so reminded me of Tony in the pre-Verna days.    

                                   

I chuckled to myself over the comparison between this cyclist and Tony as it did take me back some twenty plus years ago and reminded me of a cycle ride Tony took in those early days of our ‘romantic’ courtship when, to his mind, love would conquer everything, even hypothermia.

Tony and I had been friends, enemies, then best friends over a ten year period prior to our becoming romantically involved.  Once romance entered into our relationship it seemed to put a whole new drive and incentive for Tony to ensure that he never let any opportunity for us to be together be determined by outside influences.

I was to spend a weekend in Thames with friends one cold and wet September weekend, a weekend that Tony felt he could not let pass without being in my company.  At that point in time he was a solo father to his two sons but that particular weekend both his boys were staying over at their mother’s home thus leaving Tony totally solo at their home.  For some reason Tony’s car was out of order and between his being on his own, with his near new sweetheart in Thames and his sons away for two nights, he could not bear the idea of not making the most of this free and available solo time and not being able to spend it with moi.

But with no car and me being a long way away it would seem very much in the too hard basket to fathom how he could make the distance between us closer.  Well, Tony, being Tony, and resourceful as any tom cat on heat, he decided he would cycle his way down to the Thames coast to be with the lady who had been absorbed into his love struck heart. 

He telephoned me the night before to let me know of his intention to cycle to where I was  – it must be recalled that cell phones were not the norm in those days – and despite my misgivings about the weather forecast being foreboding, he insisted that weather was not an obstacle in his pursuance of me, where ever I may be, so I was not to fret and he would leave in the early hours and should arrive at my door around lunch time.

I recall being somewhat bemused and somewhat flattered that someone would even contemplate going to such lengths to seek my company.  After all, I was staying with elderly friends and any concept of weekend consummation would certainly not be in order that weekend, which he clearly knew as well.  Hence the feeling of flattery on my part as he was going to all that trouble for only my company, and not any fringe benefits.  How could one not be flattered!

It turned out that the following morning was a horrid, wet morning.  A cold Septembers day with a high level of wind chill factor.  And it would be a morning that Tony’s tom cat drive would almost be his undoing as his usual good planning and preparation for such a major undertaking on a bicycle had gone out the door as quickly as he did that morning.

 

Tony set off on his bicycle in the morning dark and in the morning rain and headed south along the Great South Road, through the southern suburbs of Manukau, through Drury, Ramarama and over the Bombay Hills.  In the wet, in the cold.  With very little on:  cycling shorts, a cycle shirt, a thin rain parker and little else. 

There is a truckers café along State Highway 27, The Pink Pig.  At some time during mid morning the two ladies who owned and ran The Pink Pig looked up from their food counter as the café door opened and saw one small, very wet, very shivering, very numbed, very blue cyclist clod, clod across their café floor in his cycle shoes, wet thin clothes and little else.  This wet, sodden man, lips gone blue with cold, dropping pools of water onto the floor at each step, stopped and stood shivering at the counter front and attempted to stammer out some incoherent words.  After several attempts at being understood this man eventually had the two ladies realise this sad and wet little man in front of them was imploring them for a cup of hot tea.  But he then followed that request up by telling them he had no money.

Tony had left his home in Mt Eden, with a back pack on his back with spare clothes which had become totally sodden as the back pack was not waterproof, thus meaning they were impotent items of clothing that could help warm his body up; and he had packed or taken no spare food and more importantly, no money. 

Fortunately the cold, wet and hypothermic cyclist happened to arrive at the only café along the many miles of Highway 27 that had two compassionate, middle aged women who took the poor soul to one side, gave him a towel to dry himself, hot cups of tea and even a hot meat pie on his promise that he would return another day to repay them for their financial loss.

With no way of being able to contact me where ever I was in Thames – he had not taken my phone number with him either – his only real thought was to get his body out of its hypothermic state before he could actually remount his trusty, purple Vitas bicycle and continue on his way to seek out his sweetheart.  Problem was that two hours later he was still shivering and in no fit state to rely on his bicycle to get him to his destination, and it was still raining.

In the meantime, back down in Thames, the lunch time hour eventually passed and there was no sign of any cyclist heading down the road towards her temporary place of residence, and she was becoming worried.

Some three hours after he first clod, clod, clod through the café door, the rain had stopped, his body had returned to normal temperature, he had downed many more cups of free tea, one more meat pie, a sausage roll and a big, sticky bun, all of which had turned this half dead zombie back to a real, warm blooded man and he was ready to head out into the world and continue on with his crusade to sit beside his future wife.

She, in the meantime, decided it was time to go, seek and find for fear of something dreadful having happened to this suitor who had shown no hesitancy in this opportunity of his to spend time with her.

He mounted his bike and headed south.  She got in her car and headed north to seek him out.

Forty-five minutes later she arrived at the bottom of the Bombay Hills, fretting greatly and totally unaware of where her male pursuer was;  and he was heading merrily in the other direction toward the Thames coast, happily filled to the brim with tea, pie, sausage rolls and sticky buns.  They had clearly missed one another in their quest to find one another.

Over two hours later, fraught with stress over what could possibly have happened to him, and planning to call out all emergency services, she returned to her temporary accommodation in Thames.  As she pulled into the driveway she looks up at the home of her friends to see the said suitor sitting on the front terrace of the house, sipping tea and eating chocolate biscuits.  He had arrived some thirty minutes earlier, met her host and hostess,  been given warm towels, a hot shower and the loan of clean, dry clothes,  and now imbibing on yet another cup of hot tea with chocolate biscuits.

Needless to say, the relief at seeing him overcame any previous questions she had in her mind as to whether this man’s intentions towards her were frivolous, ambivalent or doubtful.  There was no doubt she had before her one special person who would go to great lengths to be in her company.  This was certainly going to be one very special relationship.

It was Tony’s niece in England who coincidentally posted the saying above.  I have no idea why Helen would have posted the piece but am sure she would like to know the coincidental timing of her posting and how it relates to her uncle. 

I know - The right man will pursue you.  Actively.  He won’t leave you wondering whether he’s into you or not.  

Back To The Past While In The Future, With Friends

Who says that one should never look back to the past? 

Whoever that was must have had much to be regretful, sorry and ashamed about as well as being a plunderer of the future with no respect to learning from the past.

The Maori have a proverb that says one cannot plan for the future without looking back to the past and learning from it. 

As I am on this journey of going back to the future I am finding reflections of the past are a large part of making the future.  Indeed, I have spent the past twelve months dwelling on the past that was and reflecting on the great loss I now have in my future that made so much of my past blissfully happy.

As a result of the many months of soulful reflection on what once was, reflecting on the past, I now feel that moving forward is happening with a little more optimism of looking further to the future.  At least, I am telling myself that all the time, as rather like the paragraphs above, repetition can consolidate the thoughts.

Anyway, looking back to the past has meant it has been a corker few days these past days. A corker few days of reflecting on the past but on this occasion not reflecting back over the past twenty years but reflecting way, way back to the past, to the long ago nostalgia of childhood memories. 

Coincidence created and recreated some wonderful moments to actually ponder on the past, on nostalgia and on reflecting this week.

Coincidence had it that I was invited to stay at night at friends’ home this week, a very old friend and her warm and gorgeous husband.  She could, and would, be considered old in both terms of age and friendship;  she is one year older than me (hah, how I love mentioning that), and old in terms of our friendship.  I first met her when our family moved from a country town into the big smoke of Auckland city, sometime in the late 1950’s; our family moved into the house next door to her family, therefore that makes us really good old friends.

She and her husband now live in Mangawhai, living the lifestyle many dream of – at a beachside village where life can be as busy or as quiet as one wishes it to be.

This invitation to stay with them has been a long standing invitation which we made into a firm plan last week.  Coincidence then had it that our tutor (or lecturer, never quite know what she is or what to call her) at the writing course I am now attending had informed us that we would be given a task of writing about our childhood this past Wednesday evening.

Whenever I think childhood nowadays I instantly think of the friend mentioned above and another one of the then neighbourhood kids with whom we had all reignited our friendship some ten or twelve years ago.  It so happened that the street we lived in had a number of families with many children yet as far as I can recall the real central figures in the street in those times were centred around the three of us. 

Knowing I had to write something about my childhood I messaged these two friends earlier this week and asked them for their own prompts of what childhood meant to them.  I received back a couple of enjoyable paragraphs from each which instantly threw me all the more back to those times as if emerging from a time machine and was once again on Netherton Street where we played, and played and played.

I had some horrid incidences happen to me in my childhood, yet when I reflect back to those years between being a five year old to a fourteen year old, the instant emotion within is one of happiness, and play.  Play was all that matter.  There was no other major feature or factor of importance in my life growing up except who I was going to play with, when I was going to play with them and what was it we were going to play.  And it was all outside.  We were never allowed to play inside our homes.  That just was not done, not to be contemplated; children were to be seen playing outside and thereby give the parents some peaceful hours. 

Play was either in any one of our front or back yards, or more often on the street where bikes were ridden, trolleys were made and tennis was played.  Then there was all that skipping, and hop-scotch, and French skipping.  Cowboys and Indians featured a lot, with real pop-guns and those guns with the suction darts.  Those lead knuckle bones, the marbles. Blind man's bluff, and of course, bull rush.

                                 

The greatest childhood punishment for me was not the hidings I used to get, but it was any occasion when I was forbidden to be allowed outside to play.  I was a most miserable child if I could not play with the neighbourhood kids.  As an adult I often reflected that perhaps my focus on childhood playing was unusual, that others must have been more serious children that I, that surely no one else grew up with little else to focus on than playing.

Well, it seems I was probably incorrect when thinking I was unique.  This has been borne out by the paragraphs the other two forwarded on.  Their recollection about summed up my own, so will paste them here.

The first is from Dene, the skinny boy from across the road.  Dene was one year young than me, thus two years younger than Linda.  This put me in the primo position of having more play time with each of them at different times as with Linda being two years older than Dene, childhood sophistication meant he was just that too much of a little kid for her to play with all the time, but perfect for me – with the bonus I could boss him because I was one year older.  Besides, Linda had two other brothers and two other sisters to fill her playtime up with whenever I was not around to intervene.

Dene recalls:

Very much a working class group of families. No pretentions. Families fed from the railways, waterfront, New Zealand Post Office, The Herald etc.  While most kids got on well there was still the 'favoured group' or cliché at any particular time, that also constantly changed.

Kids having fun without the expensive items, maybe a bike that was put together from parts or a tennis racket, or even two pegs jammed together to make a gun. Wimbledon in the street, Eden Park on the front lawn and an Olympic running track around the block.

Food at all the other houses was always better than home. Boys were boys and girls were girls and there was not thought of the other 'sex' at that stage. Fathers worked from daylight to dark and mothers brought up the kids. Veges were delivered from the back of a truck and the butcher delivered the meat on Friday wrapped in brown paper. Milk came in glass bottles with tinfoil tops and was put in the letter box at night. The lawns were cut on Saturdays and everyone looked after and was proud of their little plot. Hells bells talk about the rambling of an old man!

He thought he was rambling, I consider it charming reflections.

Then Linda sent through her piece of her reflections.  Just as charming:

 

We were free and happy children, allowed to walk to school, shock horror. Verna - remember our bike trips up to Mt Albert and Mt Roskill? - a few swings and then bike back home. Such freedom.  Brown as berries, hair flowing in the wind.

Remember the time we gave cheek to some lads and they chased us on their bikes and we took refuge with some people working in their front yard till the boys lost interest, and we carried on biking home. Remember the floods with the heavy rain, and we all went down to Valonia Street to paddle or make rafts. You said on one occasion that you weren't allowed to go down there that day and you did it anyway, went home to get your smack, had the requisite time in your room then went straight back to play at the Hunt's next door. All worth it!!

Running and rolling down our steep front yards. One time when doing that you broke your arm! And there was the make believe play acting of 'Clint Kincaid' with hideouts up the old wattle tree, and cowboys and Indians with complicated story lines supplied by little bossy friend. Xx

                                        

These ramblings, as Dene called them, ignited such a full memory recollection of life between five and fourteen.  It certainly was a most wonderful childhood and has confirmed we were lucky enough to grow up during one of the best eras in this country.  We played from dawn to dusk and only went back home at meal times.  We would walk or ride for miles and explore whatever looked exciting at the time, including the flooded Oakley Creek and building sites with bulldozers. 

Ah, looking back to the past and reigniting that joy of living when you were a child is good and positive time spent .  We can learn from looking back.  We can learn to from our childhood.  Learn not take things so seriously.  Learn that the more you play the happier you are.  It’s a simple recipe for happiness.  Play. 

This reflecting back and philosophising on childhood and the past has now given me the great grown up dilemma of the now, the present. I am in great quandary.  I don't want to take myself seriously.  My dilemma is ....  who am I going to play with tomorrow?  And will their mother let them come out and play?  What shall we play?  Oh, decisions, decisions …..

                                         

I ain't no Eleanor Catton

I like this going back to the future.  

It is having some up sides.

Today I am feeling like a lucky girl.

Somethings are going my way.  

Instead of winning $23 on Lotto, it was $30.  That was a nice surprise when I went to claim my winnings this morning.  But that is not what I am really feeling ‘lucky’ about.

And lucky is not the appropriate word either.  It is more that I can think that maybe, just maybe, I am good at some things.  Writing being one.

Not writing in terms of the literary Booker Prize award winning Luminaries – good heavens – I can certainly write that many words on any topic I am interested in, that is real or historical, but I do not have a strong right brain function that can create fiction, in any form.  Nor do I enjoy anything fictional.  My book shelves here are full of history books, biographies, autobiographies and pictorials.  To attempt to write 700 pages of fiction has to be admired but not envied, from my point of view.  

This person is a boring, factual, logical, reasoning left brained person.  Take me to a fictional sci-fi movie and I will fall asleep within minutes of the opening scene.  Actually, all sci-fi is fictional Verna.  So, take me to Noddy in Wonderland and I will fall asleep within minutes of that opening scene.  Take me to Into Thin Air, Black Hawk Down, My Left Foot, A Beautiful Mind or any other movie based on fact and the attention span will keep me wide eyed through any overlong, overly stretched movie.  Which explains why I never got past the first Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings books and movies.

To me it is easy to sit here at this PC and fluidly bang out something within minutes, at any time, under most circumstances on a topic that is real, true; or maybe really stretched truth. 

This brings me to why I felt lucky, or rewarded. 

In January I received an email about an 8 week Wednesday evening work shop memoir writing course to be held at the Michael King Writers’ Centre. The Michael King Writers’ Centre is one of a kind in New Zealand: there are no other writers’ centres like this anywhere else in the country.  The centre is a lovely old historic house, sited high on the slopes of Mt Victoria in Devonport and is there to support New Zealand writers and to promote the development of high quality New Zealand writing.  Some very austere writers have been in residence there.

                    

Reading about this series of workshops created some interest in my right brain, but mentally noted it looked a bit high-brow and for real writers, so deleted the email.  Plus, there was a cost to the course so precluded any concept of looking further into it.  

Two weeks later the email arrived in my box again so I read it for interest sake and then pondered for several days whether or not to apply.  It was being run by a reasonably well known (in writers’circles) University of Auckland English lecturer and renown writer in her own right.  Pondered for a few more days before enquiring if the applications had closed, told no, so sent an application in.  Was emailed back to be told there were only nine places on the course, they had already received a number of applications but they would forward on my application if I could submit something I had already written that was no more than 500 words.

Well, for some the task of writing 500 words would be difficult.  For me, writing only 500 words is difficult.

As son Danny often reminds me, “I’d read your stuff Mum, if it wasn’t always so long.”  With the emphasis on the word ‘long’.  It is fair to say that Danny is not my Number One fan.

I did not have time to sit and write something new or innovative so scoured my blog files until I found the one and only blog article that was close to 600 words.  It was one of the more boring blogs, which is why they all end up longer, to make them non-boring.  Deleted a few words off it until I got it down to 507, and then sent it off.

In the midst of my East Coast/Poverty Bay meanderings I received a text to tell me I had been one of the nine accepted on the course.  And to send the money through.

Was bemused, yet flattered.  Then my left brain told me there were probably only nine applications but it also told my right brain that I would go to the workshops anyway. 

Last night was the first of the 8 workshops.

I am now more bemused, more flattered.  The other people on the course are real writers.  Some have had works published.  Some are writer-poets.  Most appear very academic. 

In her opening half hour spiel the tutor let us know how “privileged” she felt to be working with people with such writing skill and talent.  How there were many applications and we were the best of those submitted. We were informed this is the first “Master class” in memoir writing she or anyone had ever taken.  We are apparently most fortunate to be working in this austere writers retreat centre and would be taken on a journey of writing development to help us evolve and expand our writing techniques and mastery.

I was all the more bemused and all the more flattered.

We were given writing exercises.  We wrote.  When one writes one then has to read it back to the rest in the workshop.  They were all very good.

It would seem I held it up there with the rest.  My style is certainly not ‘academic’ but clearly there must be something in it that is worthwhile, otherwise I would never have been accepted on the course.  And nothing I wrote appeared any more or less fitting than anyone else’s. We were all very different, all very absorbing.

At the end of the evening I walked to the ferry with one of the others on the course.  She has had two poetry books and two children’s books published and about to publish her third poetry book.  I delighted in the fact that I was not in awe of her.  She is interesting, as are the other 7 on the course, I shall learn a lot from each one.  And will enjoy the ‘journey of writing development’. 

The journey home had me feel less bemused and flattered and more self-congratulatory on the fact I had actually forwarded the application in the first place and ended up in this prodigious situation.  

Almost skipped home in the dark from the train station, in good stead.  Was looking forward to a nice slice of beautiful cake and a cup of tea.  Cake I had left at home for my running friends to share and enjoy.  It was a very large cake.  I knew they would leave me a large slice to enjoy over my cuppa, particularly after the love and caring I had taken over it.

Walked into the kitchen and saw the minutest slither of what could have once been part of a giant cake on the plate.  The width of the cake fork was wider than the slice.  

When I am a resident writer in the Michael King Writers’ Centre I shall write about that lot.  

        

I am looking for a flatmate

I am looking for a flatmate.  

Well, flatmate doesn’t quite seem the right word to use here.  This place isn’t a flat.  So perhaps ‘house mate’ would be more appropriate.  But then that sounds as though I am seeking someone to become an ‘in house’ mate, ie: something other than a flatmate.  And I don’t want that.

Someone said call it a ‘Boarder’, but don’t like that either.  A ‘boarder’ sounds more like someone who moves in and expects me to play the role of Mum, or Aunt.  I don’t want that either.

Someone else said to go seek out foreign language students as there are numerous study institutes looking for places for them.  But that means I would have to provide breakfast and dinner.  I don’t want that either. I am too busy.  And hardly here at those regular times.

I want a flatmate.  It’s all part of living in the future.

I have a spare room, a bedroom filled with bed and furniture and I want to fill it.  With someone.  Someone who has a job, isn’t a student, isn’t under the age of 35, isn’t a smoker, and is in a profession of full time employment.

I placed an ad in Trade Me four days ago and so far have had 4 responses.  Even though I stated was looking for someone 35 plus, the first two applicants were 28 and 33.  Even though the advertisement stated I was seeking a ‘professional’ person (ie: employed), both those first ones were students.  And the next two didn’t thrill me with their short two or three sentences in relation to their spelling, grammar or terminologies. 

Is it too hard to expect there to be people out there who are ‘mature’ and in employment to be seeking a ‘flat mate’ position of residence?

And why do I want them over 35?  Cause I am old.  Well not really old, but too old to call a ‘flatmate’.  And Mariska who lives down stairs is … well …. she’s not  … not exactly young either.

So the person has to feel comfortable having this aging, recreational ‘professional’ living under the same roof, with her ‘aging, amateur recreational friends’ popping in and out.

And clearly the ‘flatmate’ has to be working as I’m charging reasonable dollars for this person to live here.  A student can’t afford that. I am not over charging as checked out all the other Mt Albert houses seeking flatmates, some, with super duper houses, but with 3, 4 or 5 other flatmates, were charging $260 per week.  I am seeking $195.00.  Plus a third share of expenses.

So.  If you know of anyone, male or female, who wants to live close to town.  Close to bus and trains.  Close to St Lukes.  Close to supermarkets.  Close to restaurants, cafes, parks.  Close to three gyms.  Close to city.  Close to motorways.  Close to local movie theatres.  Close to zoo and Eden Park (the two are closely aligned, aren’t they?).  And doesn’t mind 1.5 cats.  

And doesn't mind living with a person who likes to swim, bike, run, gym (ie: they'd probably high tail it if they were dormant, pizza eating TV addicts. Well, I hope they would.  Don't want them either).

But someone who would like a really superb and amazing ‘flatmate’-come–ladylady/person.  Get them to contact me will you.

And tell them I look like,

                           

Not: