Beyond COVID-19 NZ

Egad (I love what this word conveys!) ... it's the last day of September. It seems like the month only just began.  "Egad" - a 17th Century rendition of Oh God. A mild exclamation expressing surprise, affirmation, outrage, contempt, anger. I think in my sentence above I'm expressing affirmation! As in, how can that sentence stating it's the end of Sept be true? But it most certainly is. Egad.  I use the word now and then as it says quite a lot in just four letters. I use Oh God in speech. And usually OMG when writing/texting. So to come out and start with Egad today was interesting. It just felt right to use that rather than OMG. Helen Reddy has died - Australian-born singer of I Am Woman and the enduring Delta Dawn . I grew up with her songs being played endlessly and I especially loved Delta Dawn, released by her in 1973. I remember our ski crew from the early 1990s singing it at the top of our lungs as we stood in the lift queue. We'd have the whole queue...

I really didn't feel like getting up today so I had a good lie-in. It was windy and rainy and miserable outside early on and, even though it's Tuesday, it felt like a weekend and I didn't have an early meeting or deadline, so I turned over and went back to sleep for a bit! Bliss. (at Omaha). For me, weekend can be work, weekday may not involve it so much. Name of day - irrelevant. Requirement of work - pertinent. The thing is, as most people make comment on, who the hell knows what day or date or even hour it is any more!? Especially with daylight savings having begun ... which coincided with the arrival of heavy snow and weather mayhem, airport closures and road chaos. The South Island is blanketed in white and in the north the weather is wintery and horrid - just in time for our fabulous new Summertime hours!!!!! When I did get myself up and into action, I got pretty productive, including hanging some photos that I've been meaning to do for a while and putting others ...

Well, you'll be pleased to know I got to my meeting at 8am! We met at the Community Centre/Golf Club (about 2 minutes drive away). I would have walked but it might have rained! And I would have been late as it's about 8 minutes walk - and I wasn't organised until 2 minutes before start time! We all moaned a bit as it was really 7am and we all agreed we hadn't adjusted yet. Or, more to the point, didn't want to. Daylight savings starts too early, whichever way you look at it! What's more, the cafe in the centre wasn't due to open until 8.30am. 😕The centre itself was open as it's also the golf club, and there were obviously plenty of early birds out swinging their clubs. But the coffee machine and staff hadn't warmed up yet. To be fair, neither had I!  We had to wait 30 minutes to get a wake-up tonic! Our meeting was about the Summer/Xmas newsletter for Omaha Beach Community - which I've been editing since 2012. OMG it's impossible to believe ...

The clocks went forward overnight. This messes with things and I really do think we go into summertime several weeks too early. The weather is still pretty shitty and unreliable. It is definitely not "sit outside and enjoy a bbq" weather quite yet! Spring is never consistently warm and calm. So we have to endure dark mornings and make do with longer evenings that we can't really make the most of for a wee while ... until we actually do get to summer. I love the nighttime and never like to lose out on hours of darkness, so this last-Sunday-in-September night of going forward into daylight savings is never a good thing for me. It happens at 2am so it is technically snatching an hour of night from us nightowls. And I'm often still up then, so have to grapple with going to bed at 3am! Daytime people see it as being gifted an extra hour of day! It's all perspective!  Farmers have a hard job with cows getting all out of kilter with milking etc - even though that's m...

Off to the races at Ellerslie today to watch our Saintly Way run. Six of us owners were there and it was all a rather strange experience thanks to Covid restrictions. We were in the large room where the general public usually go (we usually go in the members stand). There were probably only about a maximum of 50 people throughout the day, all owners.  It was actually really pleasant - there was a carvery and bar and we could wander outside to watch the horses up close. No queues to put a bet on. It was a rather quiet and subdued atmosphere with so few people - but the racing itself was excellent. As was the weather. Saintly Way (aka Ziggy) was in Race 4. We were all really nervous, as he had everything going for him today and there wasn't really room for any sort of excuse. He had a decent draw, a track to suit, a good apprentice rider on with a 2kg claim, and ideal weather. He was paying very well too.  There were 10 horses in the field - including a few good horses, one bein...

I've been working on an article about local regional parks for the Herald Travel Magazine - referencing five different parks. They want 850 words. Very tricky to fit so much info into that word count without it becoming bland. I've managed to get it to 980 and simply can't edit it down any more so will submit. With photos. There's a big difference between editing and culling.  Editing is about using grammatical rules to make sure language and writing is consistent, flows well and is in line with the grammar rule-book and preferred style.  Culling is about losing words but not the essence. There are various techniques to reduce a paragraph from 50 words to 20 whilst retaining the story or word pictures - but it's never simple. And it often takes several attempts. Cull, read, re-read, re-arrange, cull. Repeat.  Today has been all about this culling challenge. It's rather exhausting! But also exhilerating when you manage to condense word count without losing that ...

Auckland is back down into Level 2 proper. Two weeks and then reassessment to hopefully go to Level 1.  Meanwhile UK is going back into lockdown mode. Son Sam is back at work for The Guardian after being furloughed for virtually six months. Had a chat with him tonight. He's off to Scotland this weekend for a golfing weekend. Way up north of Inverness. Go Sam! I never went that far north - but this will be Sam's second or even third time up there. He loves it. Must be our Scottish family heritage calling him! Ancestry on my dad's side is Scottish - from Glasgow.  Reverend meets young girl (Elizabeth) from affluent mining family, they head to NZ, set up in the South Island, have kids, most of whom return to Scotland to study medicine (including two daughters, unchaperoned, unheard of at the time). They return to NZ to set up GP practices here. Medical pioneers. Irony is that my dad was a GP - but all this history came to light after he died too young aged 56 in 1993. Some aun...

A bitsy day, and a reasonably productive one. I did make a start on my WOW garment - some prep work, cutting and shaping (tough going on tough material), a couple of coats of primer to the two main pieces. It was quite windy today, even at our place which doesn't usually get much wind, and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do the primer stage as it involved spray painting undercoat. But down by my studio, in my spray painting section, barely a breath of wind. I used to do heaps of spray painting when working with masks and this area under the deck is perfect and sheltered. Primer coats complete. So, after many months of creative thought and planning in my mind, today, Wednesday 23rd September is when I made a proper practical start on the thing. I'm under way ... no turning back!  I won't give too much away at this point until it takes a bit more shape (could still be a dud, but I don't think so!) Followers of this blog will get to see sneak peek progress photos a...

A work-oriented morning, ticking off a lot of things.  But, having said that, plenty more "to-do's" came along! Went out mid-afternoon to get a few supplies including a few arty things that I need before I can make a start on my WOW 2021 garment. Will get going on it tomorrow I hope, just to make sure the idea has merit. I think it does but you never quite know until you fiddle about in the early stages. I tend to do loads of visualising first before starting work (and for this one I've had longer than most as the WOW show 2020 would/should have been opening tomorrow night under normal circumstances!) Effectively, I have a full extra year to cogitate and get this one right! But then so does everyone else and I suspect the competition will be more fierce than ever and the general quality of an even higher standard than ever before, given everyone has had lockdown to focus on their garment/s! I have till June 2021 to complete the garment. Plenty of time is great but I r...