It’s all too much!

I like difficult stories – whether that is for reading, TV shows, radio listening, or movies. Ones that make me have to think, figure out who is the bad person, or even better, the dilemmas when morals aren’t absolute, are well worth spending time reading or watching or listening. I feel as if I’m not wasting time in front of a screen. But lately, I’m becoming overwhelmed. That’s because everything I’m watching or reading seems to be about people abusing power, whether it is the police, teachers, doctors, or Mr Bates’ damn British Post Office. Throw in the occasional billionaire or alien. Last year’s Booker Prize Winner, Prophet Song, has the whole Irish government turning power mad. People falsely accused abound, and I feel for them deeply. That is one of my worst nightmares. (I think it stems from seeing something when I was a child about a woman thrown into an asylum, when she was sane, but no-one believed her!) Even without all the specific power abuse, there’s everyday sexism or racism that drives me crazy. I go to entertainment to take me away from the horrors of world politics, and then my entertainment becomes too much for me!

So I take refuge in exercise, in nature, in cooking for friends, in music, in projects, in travel planning. Or I put the “worthy” book aside for a while, and deliberately read something short and light and frivolous. If I’m watching something tough, I want to read something lighter, and vice versa. But sometimes I just need some comfort reading/watching too – something that makes me feel good, or cry (in a good way), or makes me laugh, or is just mindless entertainment that takes me away from stressful things. My comfort watches include reruns of Friends, Bridgerton, The Good Place, the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice from the 1990s, and The Extraordinary Attorney Woo. That and UK medical soaps, and Midsomer Murders (which is on permanent repeat on our cable TV)! I need to find some new ones though. Comfort reads include Terry Pratchett, some sci-fi or fantasy series, Outlander, or just lighter or interesting reads that aren’t about power or horrible people. I’m currently listening to Hannah Gadsby read Ten Steps to Nanette on audiobook. She’s confronting at times, talking about the realities of life in small town Tasmania, but she’s wonderful too.

I still enjoy these difficult works of art/forms of entertainment. I like things that make me think. But right now I need a break. Do you find this too? And what are your escapes?

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Travel as a delicate flower

I heard on the news the other night that there were extreme heat travel warnings in Thailand, with a feels-like index of 54 degrees Celsius! Good grief. Then I remembered. April is mid-summer in the country that has only three seasons which are known as hot, hotter, and hottest. April is, for me anyway, miserable in Bangkok. It is hot, and very very humid. Steamy, but not in a good way. Dripping. I wilt. There’s a reason that a celebration at this time of year involves throwing water on each other. It’s the only way to cool down. Sure, when we lived there for three years we acclimatised. But that’s not possible on a short visit. The good thing is that I know I will never willingly go to Thailand in April again! Yes, part of the joy of visiting Thailand is the heat. But there are limits. Air-conditioning just doesn’t cut it in a great country you want to get out and explore and experience. Fortunately, the temperature abates once the rains start in May or June.

I usually plan the timing of our travel carefully. We don’t have kids, so are not tied to school or public holidays, otherwise known as the “high” seasons. We get to avoid the crowds, which is good, because New Zealand has a low population, and we’re not used to them, except after a rugby game or big concert! We usually have long enough to see our destination, or we plan accordingly and don’t try to do too much. We have always planned in advance, given employers plenty of notice, and therefore have never had leave declined. And we avoid extremes in temperature. We live in Wellington, with its very temperate climate, never too hot or never too cold. Extremes are too, well, extreme for us.

Due to unavoidable timing we were in the Middle East in June. 42 degrees C in Jordan climbing 1000 steps at Petra was a bit much for me. We then flew to Italy, to spend the whole month of July in Rome. So did the rest of the world, it seemed. Heat and crowds – not a great combination! That was when I drew up a spreadsheet about which countries to visit and when! More importantly, it covers when NOT to go. That doesn’t mean I don’t make mistakes. On our last overseas trip, we ended up in Vietnam in June, as a stopover after a great trip to Japan and Korea. There was a heatwave. Even the locals were struggling. Sitting under a palm tree was bearable only at the end of the day. Even the swimming pool and sea were too hot to be refreshing. Vietnam in June equals dumb idea! New rule established – avoid a lot of places in their peak summer months. On top of that list is Australia. Years ago a family event saw us in Melbourne one January, coping with a 40 degree plus day. (We learned from the locals – go to the mall where it is air-conditioned). We have a quandary this year. My older sister and her daughters (two of whom live in Australia) and their families are getting together for Christmas, and we are invited to join them. I would love to, but seriously the heat. I am still thinking about it. South Africa too, is to be avoided in mid-summer, though we have friends who visit there almost every Christmas. They cope with the heat better than we do.

Likewise, the US and Canada in the middle of winter. I’ve been in eastern Europe and the UK around Christmas, and it was very manageable. But I’ve also been in Ohio in February, when it was minus 12C/10F, which is a ridiculous temperature if you ask me! Plus, we’ve never driven in snow, and wouldn’t know how. Washington DC was steamy in July. So if I’m going to the mid-west or east coast, I’m going to be going in a small window of reasonable temperatures, if I can manage it. Spring and autumn! Same goes for much of Europe.

For that reason, we seem to do a lot of travel in May/June, or September/October. My husband’s birthday is in May, so that’s a good reason to visit northern hemisphere places in May rather than the northern autumn. The temperatures were perfect in France and Spain in May. Iceland, on the other hand, was frigid most of the time we were outside, but it’s supposed to be, isn’t it? It’s in the name. That’s why we went in May. Norway on the same trip was cool, but not as windy and cold. Pretty perfect, with appropriate clothes, and we fell in love with cool climate travelling there. It’s going to be our new norm, I think. I hope.

How about you? What is your favourite climate to travel in?

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Recent Likes and Dislikes

I really like seeing the profusion of companies doing swimwear that covers up, or is “anxiety free” and has SPF 50 etc. And seeing a photo of Nicole Kidman on the beach in Australia at Christmas, wearing a full cover top – to protect her delicate pale skin from a fierce southern sun. If it’s good enough for her, it’s good enough for me!

I didn’t like having three significant earthquakes in a two week period – 4.9, 4.8, 6.0 (recorded as 6.3 at one stage) – and then, a few weeks later, there was a swarm of over 200 earthquakes in a day or two, though fortunately that has occurred further north. It all makes me nervous!

The New Zealand parliament now has equal numbers of men and women in it. After an entire history of parliamentary dominance by men, this is worth celebrating. (Despite the disingenuous reaction of a letter-to-the-editor writing claiming gender shouldn’t be important. He was male, of course! Sigh.)

I really don’t like feeling angry. I could have a rant about something that is in the news today that is infuriating me. I wrote about it, but have removed it because it doesn’t fit with this post. I might post it another time, when I feel like a rant. I don’t today.

So instead, I’m going to focus on positive things. I’ve booked my next covid vaccine. I had a good workout this morning. I’m planning a pumpkin, broccoli, feta and bacon pasta for dinner. These things, I like!

I have loved my Daily Delights blog, when I feature delights during my days, however outwardly boring they may have seemed. But equally, I don’t like feeling beholden to this blog that that started out joyous. It means I lose the joy of writing or blogging or even focusing on the joys of the day. For that reason, after 200 posts, I’ve put it on hold. I may come back to it later in the year. 200 “delighted” posts is still a pretty good record. In the meantime, I’ll continue doing regular “Things I Like” blogs here.

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Men bungling women’s events: what’s new?

After the controversies of the men’s Football World Cup in Qatar, there is a Women’s Football World Cup in 2023 to try to restore their reputation, and promote their sport. So what did FIFA do? They bungled it.

1     It was reported they were about to make Visit Saudi a major sponsor for this tournament, which is to be held jointly in Australia and New Zealand later this year. What a tone deaf decision to make. Let’s promote Saudi Arabia in two progressive democracies, both of which question the state of human rights in Saudi Arabia, and in particular, women’s human rights. Not to mention that they chose to use a tournament celebrating women’s sports to promote a country which severely restricts their women’s human rights. Instead of using a Women’s World Cup to feature and empower women, they want to promote visiting a country where women have to cover their heads and bodies and faces in public, where adult women have to be chaperoned by minor brothers, where women’s very lives and movement are legally, compulsorily restricted and controlled by the men in their families, and by their government. Sounds like an ideal tourist destination for women interested in football, doesn’t it? And the crazy thing about this is that FIFA thought it was a good idea to do this here in NZ, the first country in the world to extend the vote to women 130 years ago! They chose to promote a repressive, non-democractic country in Australia and New Zealand, both countries which have had women prime ministers and heads of state. I could go on, but it seems so obvious, I’m amazed that this decision went through multiple people, through decisions, contract negotiations with Visit Saudi, and through public relations people, without any of them objecting, or pointing out how blatantly insulting this is to:

a) the countries hosting,
b) the spectators who will attend the games,
c) the sport itself, and in particular, to
d) ALL the players, both those at the tournament, and all those playing their sport around the world.

2     Even more unbelievably, FIFA followed that fiasco with another one. They announced that they had appointed a “fan ambassador” for the women’s world cup tournament. No, it wasn’t someone who had made strides in the women’s football game, or in promoting football, or even women’s sport. There are great examples of popular female athletes in New Zealand and Australia who could have stepped in. But no, they made a former Victoria Secrets model, Brazilian “supermodel” Adriana Lima, their “ambassador.” (You can search for an image showing how she has promoted football in the past.) So, FIFA are saying, loudly and it seems even proudly, that although women are playing sport at the highest level, let’s forget that and promote the event by focusing on how a woman looks. Because that must surely be more important than the players, their talent and skills, the supporters of each country, and why they love the game. By ignoring all that, what are FIFA actually saying about football?  Good grief! This is an enormous insult to the players, the spectators, the women in the hosting countries, and those who support women’s sport around the world. It is particularly ignorant given the evidence of last year, when NZ hosted the Women’s Rugby World Cup, receiving great attention and positive critiques of the exciting games and players, excellent viewership figures of the games, with record crowds of people wanting to see women actually play sport. These crowds were noticeably different from the crowds for men’s games – they were better behaved (surprise surprise!) and included a lot more women, whole families, and a lot of young people, which will only help with the sport’s growth. We (and our sisters and brothers in Australia) have high levels of participation in women’s sport, and are the last people who would be impressed by a supermodel promoting a women’s sports tournament.

So FIFA missed an opportunity – AGAIN. And alienated a lot of people at the same time. At the request of the Australian and New Zealand associations, FIFA are reportedly revisiting the issue of sponsorship for Visit Saudi (but no doubt it will be complicated by all the bribes incentives (?) that (may) have already been offered to the decision-makers). I hope so. But it is staggering that they have to do this at all. I hope they are also revisiting the “fan ambassador” position, and that Adriana Lima doesn’t dare set foot in NZ or Australia.

Reportedly, in the news last week, FIFA were “surprised” at the reactions to the appointment of their “ambassador.” That alone says it all.

Note: The use of lower case, and quotation marks, for the so-called “ambassador” are both deliberate.

Update: It was recently reported that FIFA are not going to give Visit Saudi a sponsorship for the women’s tournament, following the outcry at their original (reported) decision. It still flabbergasts me that they thought it was reasonable in the first place.

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Disasters

When the earthquakes in Christchurch hit over a decade ago now, I felt a lot of survivor’s guilt. Living in Wellington, on a known major faultline, I was prepared for the disaster to hit here. Well, I wasn’t prepared, exactly, but I (and the rest of the country) would have been less surprised. Around the same time we saw the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and we have now just watched the horrors of the earthquake in Syria and Turkey.

Then last week, cyclone Gabrielle hit New Zealand. Part of our country has been inundated, homes washed away in floods, farmland, fruit crops, and grapevines destroyed. People have lost everything, some even their partners, their parents, their children, their lives. On a day when summer’s sun and warmth has returned, when the cicadas are calling for mates, when life feels good, I know my fellow residents and citizens just a few hours northeast are grieving losses, they are waiting for electricity to come back on, and for communication to be re-established for family and friends to get in touch and let them know they are safe, for roads to open to get out or get home, for gumboots and materials to begin the horrible jobs of cleaning out the silt from their houses, for housing to be found for them in a country that had a housing crisis prior to this disaster. I know they are going through an enormously stressful time.

I am both a) thankful for the fact it didn’t affect us, or in particular my family further north and campervanning friends who were all in the cyclone’s path, and b) increasingly aware of the horrors of these disasters, what it must be like to live through them, and the risks of living where I live, which of course makes me more aware that maybe I can’t continue being so lucky.

We’ve learned some lessons. Whilst we have an emergency kit here, in case of earthquakes, it has been a good reminder that the first thing to go is often electricity and communications. When you can’t rely on cell-phone reception, can’t charge your devices, can’t access the internet, you are out of touch. Several newspapers were given huge print runs, and distributed as widely as possible to keep people informed. Radio has played a huge part in communicating important information to those who are stranded, homeless, or cut off. But who has a battery-operated radio these days? We have a wind-up radio in an emergency kit. But I will be looking out for a transistor radio too. If they are still made, or sold. And power packs. I need those too.

This all reminds me of the advice given by a friend who lived through the Christchurch earthquake. She told me to always have cash at hand. (Since then, I keep some in an easily accessible but secret spot.) In a disaster, power goes out, ATMs can’t operate, neither can any machines that take credit cards, etc. As a result, and as we’ve seen in this disaster, petrol stations and food outlets have been operating as cash only in the disaster areas. She also commented on the benefits of a landline telephone. Over ten years later, I think the horse has bolted on that one. We no longer have one, though I kept it for longer than we might have based on her advice. When we told family we were stopping our landline, they mocked us. “Is that still a thing?” They’d never thought of the disaster angle. Preparation won’t prevent an earthquake or any other disaster hitting. But it might make things a tiny bit easier. For us, for my neighbours, for those who might try to help us. Right now, when there are so many emotions and issues around these disasters, this is the only, or perhaps the first, lesson I can take.

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