Monday Miscellany

We got home, and there were little green sprouts budding all over our oak tree just outside our kitchen window. (One of the advantages of living on a hill – we get to look straight into the tops of trees and enjoy their foliage). It seems that they’re turning into leaves as I watch them. Spring has supposedly arrived. Which means that today is cloudy, with gale force winds. The winds are what I hate about spring.

Sadly, being away at the wrong time meant that I missed the annual tulip display at the Botannical Gardens (that is surely being destroyed by the wind as I type), and the kowhai flowers – though I’m still hopeful of catching some of them if the winds drop.

I’ve been under the weather. Caught a cold/cough when I was away. (Two negative covid tests). Seemed to be the only one who was so inflicted, but it has knocked me about. Aching chest and stomach muscles after coughing so much. Almost three weeks on, I’m starting to feel better. I’m one of the few people I know who haven’t had covid, but this is a reminder why I don’t want to.

Some minor weight loss is encouraging. Minor because there is so much more to go. But encouraging because it has been continuing for the last four months.

Post-travel updates are almost always boring. Apologies!

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Looking back on Septembers

Ten years ago in September we spent a month in gorgeous Puglia. The light in Puglia in September, as all the Italians had been telling us since we arrived in Rome in July, is gorgeous. The afternoon sun turns everything golden, the light flickers through the silvery olive trees that carpet the landscape, and it is just blissful. The food – seafood, orecchiette, the piadina (flatbread) sandwiches for lunch, the wine (oh, the wine!) – is wonderful. We loved it wherever we were, enjoying a pasta lunch near a marina in Trevi, or a seafood entrée (enough for the whole meal) for dinner in the town square in Monopoli. The atmosphere made everything taste better of course! I miss it. We need to go back.

September brings us the Rugby World Cup again. Last time it was in September, I think, was in 2011, when we were touring Europe. We missed all the hype when the games were being played here in Wellington, and I regret that a tiny bit. But at the same time, we were discovering Turkey, Santorini and Corfu, and we had a fantastic time. I’d rather relive the trip than the Rugby! (Though for the record, we got home in time for the semi-finals and finals, and NZ won.) I wish I was travelling for the next two months. We probably won’t win the World Cup this year either, there will be an election campaign in full swing here in NZ in September, and this is my least favourite month weather-wise, as it brings spring winds, which I hate. Instead, I will wish I was somewhere exotic staying in cave hotels, or sailing the Aegean. Maybe next year?

This month marks three years as a fully natural grey-haired person. I’m used to it now. Every so often I feel old, but as I’ve grown my hair, I’ve loved the look. The longer my hair is, the less grey you can see – well, except for the white streak down one side. It’s such bliss not to have to bother about grey roots growing through! I’m completely happy with my choice to go natural in the first lockdown.

Four years ago, I was proud of myself for sticking to my intermittent fasting programme (2 days per week low calorie) for a whole year. I can now report that we have been doing this successfully for five years. Sure, we’ve had breaks, which we have agreed in advance. We don’t fast when we have visitors, when we travel (domestically or internationally), when we’re sick, etc. But otherwise, we have been quite good. I lost quite a lot of weight initially, and since then it has gone up and down a little. But never back to the original weight. I’m currently on a downward trajectory. And I am still proud to say I’ve never cheated on an agreed “fasting day.”

September is also a time when it is nice to explore wine regions closer to home. We’re going to do this later this month, to a region we’ve never visited, but has been on our list for ages. Though we have, of course, sampled their wines, hence the trip. I’ll report then.

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Wet wet wet

I like the rain. I’ve always liked the feeling of being inside warm and dry when it rains. I loved the rain in Rome in July, when the temperature drops and afterwards the city felt clean and refreshed. I love tropical downpours, the thunder and the lightning, that are over in an hour or two. I like a misty rain, gently enveloping the land and the forests in luscious, nurturing, moisture. I like hail and sleet for the drama, though not the fact that it destroys crops, or breaks windows or dents cars. I like continuous rain for a day or two – gentle but steady – and the aftermath that is often clear and crisp and sparkling.

But this winter and spring it has been excessive. The wettest that I can remember, the rain has just come again and again and again. Sure, we’ve had lovely bright clear days in between, but we’ve had a lot of gloomy, misty days too, and then the rain has returned. The usually spectacular light of August was dimmed by downpours. It has rained so much the hills of Wellington are sodden, and with each new downpour more and more are slipping down onto houses and roads. It has rained so much I’ve worn my raincoat more than any other winter in the last ten or twenty years. It has rained so much we’ve discovered new leaks. It has rained so much that one of our pine trees has a moisture-induced rust (if my research is correct). But on the bright side, it has rained so much that our water reservoirs are full to the brim, that our ferns are thriving, and that I am now, finally ready for spring and summer. And yesterday and today, it feels like it might just be ready to stay.

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Notes from a walk

We’ve had a very windy spring, and on calm days it has either been raining, or there have been reasons why I haven’t had time to walk. So I have spent a lot of time exercising inside, as my ears hurt and my eyes stream if I walk in the wind. I use a selection of videos, and have recently found one that steps and dances to Latin music, which has been fun (but made me feel very uncoordinated). So today, when I had the morning free, and there was absolutely no wind, I took a longer walk outside for the first time in ages. I didn’t puff up the hills, and my legs weren’t sore, so my inside dance and high-intensity-low-impact workouts have been paying off.

I didn’t walk over the hill to look down into the harbour, but instead wound my way around the back streets, avoiding the village shops (and café, so I wasn’t tempted by a coffee), and renewing my acquaintance with the gardens that have moved from their colourful spring flourishes into the lush green of early summer. The morning light was soft, but lit the branches of cabbage trees and pohutukawa highlighting their wiggly patterns and making me smile.

I smiled too as I passed the local kindergarten, to see the gate closed, and four little boys standing peering through the iron bars, looking just like mini-prisoners. Their freedom will come soon, as we move into the summer holidays next week.

The first blooms are appearing on the pohutukawa too, though most are still a few weeks away from “full pohutukawa.” After days of gloomy mist, the vibrancy of the red was a happy reminder that this year is ending, and a new year is about to begin. I’m not sure how we got here so soon. But after the gloom of the last two years, I’m ready to be hopeful about next year.

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The simple things

My brother-in-law stayed again on Sunday night, after a week fishing and yachting in the Marlborough Sounds and Cook Strait, to pick up his car and drive home the next day. It had been a nice day, and was a beautiful evening, so for the first time this spring we ventured out onto our deck with a pre-dinner drink. It was warm with no wind and clear blue skies, the sun low in the sky, its light catching the oak leaves in the tree just behind us and turning them a vibrant green.

Above us, in the pine trees which are laden with pine cones and not too many leaves, the tui were chirping and clacking, and flying around wildly. It’s “that” season so the males were competitively chasing each other, in and out of the trees, weaving through the branches and out into the open air, then straight back into the trees again. One landed in a branch just a metre behind me, which was a real treat, and another dive-bombed BIL and I (or so it felt), making us duck in shock. Luckily, we didn’t spill our drinks, so the pleasure of the evening continued.

When are you going to join me on my deck?

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