Hi there
Sunday 22, shortest day swim. Hataitai Beach
Been there, done that ... I'm happy!
Beautiful day. Water flat-ish.
There might be more pictures to come. You know me, I'm terrible taking photos. I couldn't get my camera to work... But others stepped in and took photos for me..... Thanks guys.
There were up to 40 swimmers there today. Different estimates as to how many.. Swimmers came and left over a 30 minute period.
Hi there
Today in NZ it is Friday, Matariki Day. Maori New Year.
above... : Matariki star cluster. can be seen close to dawn.
***
After lots of emails and phone calls with departments who have all been saying "taking down the Hataitai Beach pollution notice is not our responsibility", we finally got the notices taken down. The notices should have been taken down on 29 May, a few days after the storm we had at that time.
Unfortunately, the seawall works and roadworks are still there. Fo!low the gravel maze to the beach deck.
We discovered today that when it's a high tide the actual beach disappears. Tough luck beach-goers come next summer. Did anyone check on the outcome of building this seawall?
The shortest day swim is Sunday 22nd. 11 30 am. Hataitai Beach
Hi there
I've never been able to remember jokes. I do so admire people who can tell jokes, especially Shaggy Dog jokes that go on... and on... and on...
I only have one joke. It's short and I learned it from a comedian on stage at the Victoria Palace Theare in London, way back in 1967.
"Did you hear the one about the two cows in the paddock? :--
One anxious cow said to the other, "Goodness, Look at that bull over there! Do you think he's going to charge us-?"
The other cow said, "I hope not. I've only got 50 cents...."
Hi there
The beach should-maybe-hopefully be cleared of the roadworks (and the wrongfully-put-up pollution notice) by Sunday 22 June. Warning: the roadworks are in maze form but you really can get to the changing sheds, deck, and toilets. Parking further away than normal.
So, don't forget: Mid-Winter Swim, Hataitai Beach, Sunday 22 June, 2025 11 30 a.m
Oh, and it's Matariki Weekend, and because of it being a public holiday, it's understood if many regulars cannot make it.
As things stand, it's a wet or fine weather swim, but if the weather is absolutely terrible, look on this blog a couple of hours before swim. Hey, remember a couple of years back when it was pouring and the weather freezing and still the beach regulars showed up? Brrrrhhh.
......
me - 2015 Our mid-winter swim : Jay and I took turns wearing the polar bear snuggle for photos. By this time, we'd been mid-winter swimming for quite a few years. Only us. Until The Young One and Tee-Oh joined us. It was about another 3 or so years before The Little Mermaid hooked up for winter swimming. After Covid, lots more joined in and now it's winter whoopee ...
***
Thank you, Jay, for first of all coming up with certificates for the pair of us all those years ago, and then later the magnets - that you happily paid for - as more and more mid-winter swimmers joined us. We've handed magnets out for many years.
This year will be the last of the magnets as Jay is now indisposed and her son got this year's magnets done for her (under instructions!) Thinking of you, Jay. I still have fun remembering all those past swims. Jay remembers when I rang her up one winter morning, and she proclaimed, "But I've just looked out the window; there's icicles hanging from the eaves...." Well, we still went swimming that morning...
Hi there
Last weekend, here in New Zealand, was King's Birthday Weekend. We got a holiday to officially celebrate the monarch's birthday (2 June). Of course, it's not his real birthday, just as it wasn't the Queen's real birthday. I must admit that after Queen's Birthday Weekend was a holiday for something like 70 years, it was difficult for most New Zealand citizens to talk about King's Birthday Weekend -
"Oi, Maisie, what are you doin' this Queen's Birthday Weekend?"
"Oh for goodness sake, Mum,, it's King's Birthday Weekend. "King's, King's, King's...."
All of those sales tv adverts had to be changed for the first King's Birthday weekend. In the past, stores would regurgitate tired commercials of corgis and queenly stick figures to sell their wares. But then those ads were dumped without ceremony, and kingly animation ads appeared..
There's always rumblings about New Zealand sacking the monarchy and going republic. Obviously the holiday will disappear...
But hang on,... maybe the powers-that-be are thinking ahead ...
A few years' back, New Zealand brought in Matariki Weekend. Matariki is a cluster of stars that signifiy a start of the Maori New Year. It's always in June , on a Friday, and this year the holiday is on Friday 20th. Matariki is probably more relevant to kiwis than King's Birthday.
But could Matariki be read as a substitute for a future deletion of King's Birthday Weekend, so as not to anger the NZ public who don't give a fig whose day it is as long as they get a holiday in June?
And while we're at it, what other public holidays could be dumped as their true meaning disappears? Christmas might evolve into some day in December called 'Santa Claus Day'?. And Easter? - Ooooh, how about 'Bunny Day'?*
*Sarcastic much?
Hi there
Occasionally, when I'm reading a novel, I reach a passage that is so mind-blowing with a plot revelation, action, or clue that I immediately drop this hot potato of a book, gaze at the ceiling as if anticipating the second coming, and pray that my heart-racing palpitations will slow down before I have a full-blown attack.
My breathing is shallow, my mind is skittering around with all kinds of scenarios that could fit in with the page I was just reading. Has she truly betrayed him? Is there going to be another murder? Is the next door neighbour involved (no, no, he's too nice for murder; he owns a cat!).
Is she really her husband's long-lost sister (oh, my...). Was it actually the postie who put that bomb in her letterbox?. - I mean, he's serving a life sentence for the deed, but what if he's innocent.....?
After a few minutes, when my mind is not so befuddled with the enormity of the book's revelation and my heart is not racing, I go back to reading.
I often wonder if other readers and reviewers have the same intense reactions to books, as I do?
Lots of reviewers declare that a book is too exciting to put down. I differ; it's the other way around. Sometimes a book is so exciting, it just has to be put down (but not in a derogatory way!)...
Hi there
You all know, of course, that I am a Diet Coke addict. Have been for years. Yes, yes, I've tried to get off it many times. Alas.... It always takes me about three weeks to give up the drink, and during that time I am grumpy, horrible, and everyone around me cowers behind furniture.
It's bad enough silently revealing to seated strangers surrounding me in cafes that I'm a Diet Coke addict whilst everyone else is demurely drinking flat whites or fancy teas with exotic names ... but to have a public coke incident, like the incident I had last week in front of a couple of dozen people is the pits (of all pits).
"Here's your Coke, dear." The cafe assistant plonked the bottle down at my table.
(side question: why do retired women always get called 'dear' by shop and cafe workers?)
"Thanks," I said. I reached over for my glass.
Whoops .... My fingers accidentally flicked the side of the bottle.
The Diet Coke bottle flew up through the air. It did the most beautiful one-and-a-half somersault that would most definitely have gained first place in any Cola Olympics. Coke spurted out from that bottle. Over the floor. The walls, the table.... Me.
I couldn't apologise enough. A woman bustled over , mop and cloth in hand. I apologised all the way through the clean-up.
"I'm happy," she said. "I'm retiring next week."
But this embarrassing incident wasn't my only Diet Coke spillage, even though I admit that it was my most spectacular. The month before, I'd spilt it over my bedroom carpet. Thank goodness I was getting rid of that carpet over the next few months.
But a week after my cafe spillage, I did it again... I was watching tv in the lounge, then leaned over to the side table for my Diet Coke.
The Coke flew straight out from the glass, in an absolutely straight line, for about four metres.
Over my brand new carpet.
"How did you clean it up?" asked one of my friends at my senior improv group. "You didn't use hot water, did you?"
"Well, yes, I did. Why? Shouldn't I have?"
Everyone shook their heads and tsk-tsked. I'd done the unthinkable.
"Cold water works," said one friend.
"So does soda water," said May. "Drink Soda Water instead. You can kill two birds with one stone. Not only can you drink soda water, but it's self-cleaning if you have an accident. Win-win..."
.
