Matariki

 Hi there

This past Friday was a fairly new public holiday in New Zealand.  It's to celebrate Matariki, the Maori New Year when early Maori -  charting the stars - would plan the year ahead, eg, crop planting, exploration, etc.

Mataraki is for families and friends (whanau) to be together in our modern world....

Matariki is a star cluster, known by the ancient greeks as Pleiades.  On Friday morning I got up just before dawn and went out into the back garden, armed with my binoculars.  It was a black sky, but over toward the east, stood out this wonderful bright cluster of stars.  Matariki.  What a privilege to see it in all its splendour.

web photo

Mid-winter swim, Hataitai Beach, 23 June 2024, 2pm

 Hi there

Bottom photo:  It was drizzling a couple of minutes before the swimmers entered the water but the rain stopped as we stepped into the sea.  The water was as flat as a mill pond.

 Top photo: taken just after the swim.  A sunbeam pierced through the dark clouds to illuminate  an over-the-water shed at the end of the bay. Note the shed's reflection in the water.

 Probably about 40 people attended....

Short people

 Hi there.  

I hate being short in height.  Before last week, I had not had my height measured since I was at secondary school where I was (imperial measurement) five feet two and a half inches tall.

From that time I've always told people I was five feet two and a half inches.  In the 1960s when we had to put our height on a passport application, I wrote 'five feet two and a half inches'.  We also had to put our eye colour.  I remember asking the man behind the application counter to look into my eyes -

"What colour are they?" I asked him.

"Um ...  Green?"

"That'll do..."

If I was ever to be in a future fatal plane accident and if by that time I had gained or lost an inch or two of height, and my eyes were officially down as being green, rather than the hazel that my friends told me they truly were, then my body would never have been identified.  Hooray for DNA nowadays...

But I digress ... 

Just recently I was reading a piece about how people grew shorter as they grew older.  Apparently, by the time we reach the age of 80, women will have lost 3 inches and men have lost 2.

Well, I was at the eye clinic at Wellington hospital last week and I asked a nurse if she would measure my height.

I was a smidgin under five feet.

Whaaaat????

So.... its true then?  About getting shorter as you get older?  Who'd-a-thought?

This is why I get so anxious before I go to a live show.  I always-repeat-always end up with the tallest person in the theatre sitting in front of me.  His kids will sit either side of him and his tiny wife a couple of seats away is happily watching from behind another short person.

I was telling the ticket box lady about this dilemma once.  I don't think she believed me because she asked me to show her the following night when I found my seat in the theatre.

At interval, I scooted into the foyer to locate her -

"There!!"  I pointed in triumph to the guy in front of my seat.

"Oh, he is tall," said the ticket box lady.  And she beetled off to help sell the ice creams and no doubt forget about me....

above: Wellington Opera House where many live shows are staged.

*****

Shortest day, whoopee!  

Mid-Winter Swim Hataitai Beach 2024, now SUNDAY 23 June 2 PM... 2 PM... 2 PM...

 Hi there

(This is yet another change to mid-winter swim date and time, hopefully last.)

NOW:  2 pm Sunday 23 June

I'm devastated!  I'm old (is that a good enough excuse?  Can I play The Old Lady Card?)...

I have told the whole world that the Hataitai Beach Mid-winter Swim is Sunday 23 June 2024, 11 am...  And it can't be then.... 

...because a Wellington marathon is on the same day and the road alongside the beach will be closed till 1 pm.

So after Jay organised the most beautiful poster for that day, I am going to have to slam a sticker over the date with my terribly-scrawled amendment on it (not only did I fail Art for my School Certificate but I was the only girl in my class at Wellington East Girls' College to fail Chamber of Commerce Handwriting). 

 I feel so bad that I've probably ruined this for Jay, my ex-winter-swimming pal.  I'm so sorry, Jay.  And I'm sorry to those who have already read the poster and written down the information. 

Mid-winter Swim, Hataitai Beach is now Sunday 23  June, 2024 at 2 pm.   

Evans Bay Parade Opens at 1 pm.

Plane Turbulence

 Hi there

There has been a lot of talk lately about the results of  air turbulence on board planes.

Years ago in the mid-1960s I was on a plane and we went through turbulence.  There was a woman in a seat in front of me and when the plane suddenly dropped, she happened to be holding a full glass of wine.  The plane dropped, everything inside that plane dropped, but, goodness, the contents of that glass stayed a-hover in the air, in perfect glass shape, for a couple of seconds, whilst the glass itself dropped down with the woman who was now holding the stem of an empty wine glass.   Then - splat! - the wine splashed down onto her.

Talk about 'defying gravity' (as throatily sung by that naughty witch in the stage musical "Wicked"). 

It was a memory I'll never forget.

above:  you all know that I'm a magnificent artist, yeah?

above: a computer friend put the above together for me.  In truth, it was white wine, and the wine didn't look as ragged as in the picture.  It was a perfect wine glass shape. It would have been more than a couple of feet (imperial measurement) above the glass.

Taking a shower

 Hi there

I was reading a book the other day ("Demon on the Down-Low" by E J Russell) and I came upon the following paragraph -

He leaped out of bed and raced in and out of the shower so fast he actually dodged the water and failed to get wet, so he had to go back in and force himself to stand still, vibrating in place with the urge to hurry.

And I thought about that ...  Rushing in and out of the shower because we have far more important things to do is now sort of a normal thing?  A shower is an inconvenience, a hold-up, a thing to get over and done with as fast as possible.  No luxuriating in a shower.

I remember when I used to have leisurely baths.  I would pour a good quarter of a jar of Helena Rubenstein bubble bath into the water and luxuriate in that tub for at least forty minutes.  Nowadays, I  have time-managed my shower down to around the five minute mark.  I'm proud of my achievement. 

Still ... a part of me craves for a life that isn't one big hurry.  I mean, I am retired after all.  My life should not be in fast mode.  

I think I'll give that bubble bath another go.  Hey, where can I buy a rubber ducky....?