A birthday

Well, folks, this little editor hit forty a couple of days ago.

I will not lie, I worked myself up into a fair state of denial, loathing and grief over this birthday. Fortunately I started doing this about a year ago and have been getting steadily more reconciled until I made it to the birthday itself and it didn’t hurt a bit. I liked it, even.

The turning point was a conversation with a new friend who raised her wine glass, looked me in the eye and said, “Mary, you just have to do something to take the edge off. I went to Paris with my mother.” You have no idea how tempted I was, but neither aspect of that particular solution seemed feasible, so I went to Pūrākaunui with my family instead.

Pūrākaunui is an estuary about 30 minutes drive from Dunedin, over the hill to the north of Port Chalmers. The tides come and go, the birds and seals too, people stoop and reach after cockles on the mudflats, time runs at half speed.

We stayed in a small house beside the water. It was perfect. When I looked out the window, all I could see was water. A heron flew past while I was sitting on the loo. A seal chased a penguin onto the sandbar about 20 metres from our front door. They threatened each other; we covered the boys’ eyes, fearing bloody mayhem. The penguin prevailed, and the seal flounced back into the water. Shags sat on rocks, dove, surfaced, dove again. The Cat walked around saying, “It’s a bird lovers’ paradise. Well, all of New Zealand is a bird lovers’ paradise, but this is REALLY a bird lovers’ paradise.” He’s been reading Steve Braunias lately, as should everyone. We passed a penguin on the track at dusk, and I found myself saying excuse me as I edged slowly by. It just looked at me, noting my idiocy.

We had a night by ourselves while the boys stayed with family friends. It was our third night alone since the Cat was born nine years ago — the quiet was startling. We walked along the water for a few hours, watched kingfishers dart, made sidecars, watched a crazy film about Russians who find a window to Paris, ate lamb and grilled tomatoes and salad. By eight thirty, we were in bed.

The next morning we ate croissants and drank coffee. We walked to the sea, lit the fire, put lasagne in the oven and read. The boys came at lunchtime and we ate with our friends.

The house seemed a little smaller in the afternoon and I collected cockles with the boys. The cold deepened outside, but we were snug. We ate the cockles and cobbled together a simple dinner. The boys slept on mattresses on the floor, one in the living room, one at the foot of the bed. The snow started to fall.

The night brought wind, rain, thunder, lightning, hail, snow. The boys slept through it all. I woke up, and I was forty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snow days, part II

Well folks, for all my talk of spring, of bulbs emerging and the fuzz of green on the trees, we all knew there was going to be another one of these. Although, I have to say, it’s better when there’s a bit of blossom about, some sunshine, some sparkle, some pizazz.

Also, and perhaps I shouldn’t say this bit, it’s really quite satisfying throwing a snowball at your child when he’s been narking you up for a few days. I think he felt much the same about chucking one at me.

And once we’d got that  out of our systems, we were good for a day of soccer and reading and food by the fire.

 

Snow days

The ground was white yesterday, thick with hail and treacherous. School was cancelled, because we don’t cope well with adverse weather here — winters are cold, but it only snows a couple of times a year, so we’re not set up for it as those in more consistently wintry climates are.

Every time, there’s a scramble to find gloves, hats, boots and scarves, a mild panic as we realise that some vital cold-weather gear has been outgrown or lost since last year, a dreadful slowness as we try to remember how to put all those layers on and walk on icy ground and throw a snowball. Obviously, the children are more intuitive about all this, the snowball throwing at least. It takes a great deal of effort to stay warm and fed. No-one knows which radio station plays the cancellation notices, and we all text each other frantically, trying to organise the day.

Then, after a while, we’re in the zone. The fire is on, maybe some soup cooking on it, we’re drinking hot chocolate, we’ve tromped and slid and stomped and slipped. We’re snug in our little bunker, watching the sky and the gradual shift of the roads on the hill opposite from white to grey. We do puzzles, play cards, get a little ratty with each other, then burst outside for fresh air. We return, take off the layers, settle by the fire again. We accept, as we didn’t last week, that we’re in winter now, and that each day the sun shines is a blessing.