Southern excursion

I got back from the South Island on Saturday. Only eight passengers were on the flight from Timaru to Wellington - I hope under-half-full planes don't become a trend; we know what will happen to the Timaru service then.

I arrived on Wednesday. Dad had lost a fair bit of weight. He bit his tongue in the night and couldn't eat properly for the next week. Not much happened on Wednesday although I did get my hair cut in Temuka for just $14. On Thursday we visited my aunt and uncle (who has survived with cancer longer than anybody expected, and isn't getting any worse) in Hampden. On the way we stopped off at Riverstone Kitchen near Oamaru, a really weird place with a castle and moat. Attached to the restaurant, there were a few barns piled high with more gifty junky stuff for sale than you could imagine. They also grew their own fruit and vegetables - that was pretty cool. We then drove down the coast and stopped off for lunch to see a school of dolphins and several seals. We went as far as Moeraki and had a drink there before having fish and chips (which came from the "world famous" shop in Hampden) with my aunt and uncle.

Mum took me out for golf on Friday. I don't know why she bothered - I'm completely hopeless. On some holes I lost count, and I'm normally OK with counting. On the ninth hole - the last we did - I got a par three that came out of nowhere. In fact I wasn't far off a two. Some family came over for dinner.

On Saturday morning we saw my cousin's eight-year-old son play rugby - it was his first time playing with proper tackling. He played for a team called Celtics, against teams from Geraldine and Temuka. There were four mini-games going on at once, and they must have been doing that up and down the country. Both my dad and I felt a bit out of place there, but really everything happened with the right level of seriousness given the age of the kids. It's not good when you see parents get too emotionally involved, living vicariously through their kids. Grass-roots sport, both for adults and children, still seems to thrive in South Canterbury. The sport section of the Timaru Herald is full of things like Maureen McClutchie winning some golf trophy with a score of 92-23-69 (I just made that name up, but it's usually McSomething or O'Something), and presumably all those scores are important to somebody.

With the mystery of MH370 (my dad thinks the pilot committed suicide), an early candidate for word of the year is "ping". When I got back home, it was more of a case of "pong" emanating from downstairs. That aside, things are working out OK with Kevin. I do nearly all the cooking, but at least that way I control what I eat (I'm not sure I'd trust him). I met up with Tom yesterday; I still find him hard work at times, and I'm glad I didn't take him on as a flatmate.

Guess what - my parents are coming to Wellington for three days on Wednesday (they'd forgotten about my trip when they booked their flights; they could easily have booked to come up here at the same time as I was going down there). After that I doubt I'll see them for a while - they're going on a big overseas trip in early June.

Eight more days at work.

I need hope

My new flatmate just called me to say he's running late, so that's given me the chance to write something here.

Yesterday I didn't want to get back to Wellington and this never-ending cycle of impossibility. I was hoping some massive storm would brew up and we'd circle for a while before being diverted somewhere, anywhere, I wouldn't have cared.

I felt pretty terrible a lot of the time I was away. Sometimes I was visibly upset, and that made Mum upset and both my parents very worried. I was still able to do things, but most of the time I felt sick to the stomach and like I was running through treacle. Mum took me out for tennis three times - we just hit the ball; no scoring. I was hopeless the first time, much better the second time, and dreadful again the third time. Mum was rusty to begin with but steadily improved - if she played competitive age-group tennis I'm sure she'd do really well. The last time we played, a bloke perhaps a shade older than me turned up with his two small daughters on bikes with stabilisers. He was cleaning up the area around the courts. His girls were clearly giving him a lot of pleasure and this made me upset because in all likelihood it's a pleasure I'll never experience.

Mum even took me to the golf course - we did nine holes but I didn't even finish some of them. I hit trees, mounds, boundary fence posts, even the trolley once. Sometimes I hit nothing at all, not even the ball. I would have racked up scores well into double figures on a few occasions if I'd been counting. And amongst all of that I managed a par three.

On Friday we saw Captain Phillips at the cinema in Geraldine. It was a gripping, if rather scary film about Somali pirates. It starred Tom Hanks and was based on a true story. My brother has been on armed patrol ships in the Gulf of Aden - most of the time he didn't have a lot to do.
Before going to the cinema we had fish and chips. I think I could have eaten my plateful all over again.

We talked about the few months I spent down in South Canterbury before moving to Auckland. I was very organised and motivated in my job search. One afternoon I drove into Timaru and knocked on doors of banks and finance companies (both South Canterbury Finance and Mascot Finance were in existence then). I had a chat with a very pleasant woman at BNZ. She eventually offered me a job, but by that stage I'd already taken the actuarial job in Auckland. Things could have turned out very differently. (Nearly all the jobs I applied for were in Christchurch or Canterbury. Maybe a couple were Wellington-based. Only one was in Auckland.)

We met my uncle; he's done much better with his lung cancer than anyone predicted. But his cough was back and he was extremely negative about, well, pretty much everything. Regarding the situation in Christchurch, he said they should take dynamite to the cathedral with Gerry Brownlee inside it.

I started this blog five years ago. Things are a lot, lot worse than they were then, and I've now got five fewer years to remedy the situation. The good news is that my counsellor is back on the scene and I'll be seeing her on Tuesday. And the flatmate is, on balance, good news too. Having someone to talk to should make a big difference.

Time to get back

I spent New Year's Eve in Timaru with Mum, Dad, my aunt and uncle and their two friends. Seven of us in all; I was the only one under sixty. In some ways I find it easier to socialise with people much older or younger than me, or for that matter people who don't speak good English, because I'm not expected to have much in common with them. We turned up at the stupidly early time of half-five, so by the time the last fireworks had been launched we'd been there seven hours. I got very bored, but I've endured a few 31st Decembers in the past that were far worse than merely very boring. I lucked out on the various games but didn't mind donating $8 - if it wasn't for our donations the show wouldn't survive. To his amazement Dad won a kilo box of liquorice allsorts on the chocolate wheel. The best act was probably a bloke who managed to escape from a straitjacket while riding a tall unicycle. The fireworks were, for a city of Timaru's size, rather impressive.

The next morning I was alone in the house as Mum was at church and Dad, despite his headache, had gone to Pleasant Point to fly his model plane. The phone rang; it was my aunt. She wanted us to come over for a meal. My god. You've had people staying with you for a week, you spent seven hours last night with people, and now you want more time with people?! I said I'd wait till Mum got back. I told Mum, who didn't want to go out for a meal any more than I did. Dad sure as hell wouldn't want to. To my surprise, Mum (who finds it very hard to say no) spared us all by picking up the phone and uttering that really big two-letter word.

I've come to realise that Mum isn't as sociable as I thought. As for Dad, he's never been particularly sociable. He needs human contact but a little goes a long way. He's worked by himself for over thirty years and that's never really bothered him. I'm a more extreme version of Dad. Several weeks in a row without significant time to myself and I go mad. The implications that has for any possible relationships in the future aren't worth thinking about.

Mum took me out for a hit of golf again last night. I did nine holes in 66. On the eighth I ran up a twelve, twice hitting a tree and twice hitting absolutely nothing, but on the last hole I made a shock par three after hitting the pin with my second shot and sinking the shortish putt that followed. Mum and I have also played tennis a few times. She's noticeably got quicker around the court and it's probably just as well that we haven't been scoring.

Today has been a dull, inside kind of day. We hang around for ages waiting for more relatives to arrive. I wish I'd pushed off in the car. Tomorrow I'm going back to Wellington. It's been good to see my family, and get on the tennis court and even the golf course, but it's time to get back.

A level-par Christmas

I survived Christmas. About a dozen of us turned up at Mum's sister's place. I had a sore tummy before we even started eating, so was glad when we eventually got away. Christmas Day is always stress-inducing for me even though I'm never involved in the cooking. Heaven knows how you're supposed to talk to all those relatives and concentrate on not overcooking the Brussels sprouts.

Mum and Dad bought me Stephen Fry's autobiography. He really is an amazing bloke. I watched a documentary a few years back about his bipolar disorder; he said he wouldn't be "normal" for all the tea in China. That wasn't the only present my parents bought me - I'll talk about the other one in my next post.

I played six holes of golf with Mum tonight. I did them in level par. That's my par which is twice the figure shown on the card. On the first hole I sunk a 20-footer for a bogey eleven. I did the rest in 7, 7, 10, 5 and 8, hitting just about every tree imaginable.

Tomorrow I'll be meeting Phil in Timaru, just like last year and the year before. We've been hopelessly out of touch in recent months so I'm looking forward to it.

Views from the South

I'm back in Auckland now; I flew up on Tuesday. My flight was hassle-free, as was the bus to the ferry terminal which got me there just in time for the 10:30 ferry. Except there was no 10:30 ferry, or any ferry at all for that matter. It never occurred to me that it was a public holiday, and anyway I thought the 10:30 ferry ran every day, public holiday or not. At least that's what my timetable says, but since when could you trust those? I was lucky enough to find a bus to Takapuna, but then I had no choice but to blow $20 on a taxi.

Nothing happened on New Year's Eve - I thought we'd go to the Caroline Bay carnival but we did that on Sunday instead. We watched the concert - the star attraction was Suzanne Prentice, supposedly some world-famous-in-New Zealand country and western singer. She didn't do it for me. The concert was hardly Gorillaz material, but hey it was free. From the concert we had a few goes on the chocolate wheel, paying for the dream of winning a box of chocolate, for we never looked like actually doing so. For some reason, out of all the games and side shows, people tend to gravitate to the chocolate wheel - it's the Texas hold 'em of the carnival. I also tried my hand at the darts game - I did hit one of the potential money-spinning black stars, only to reveal a "sorry mate, you haven't won" ticket. I like the carnival though. This was the 100th edition of it; they continue to make good use of the money people lose chasing chocolate-coated dreams.

On Monday I played nine holes of golf with Mum - this was her first hit-out since her back started giving her trouble. The pain had subsided so she risked a half-round and thankfully the pain didn't come back. Golf differs from most other sports in that (as far as I can see) tactics don't play a huge part. That's not to say I don't think mental strength is important (in fact I think it's vitally important), but it's rare that you say, hmmm, which way should I aim it this time? It seems that all players are trying to do the same thing with the ball, just that some execute it much better than others. I'd also say that natural talent plays a bigger part in golf than it does in, say, tennis. I've had a lot of wins over more naturally gifted opponents in tennis just by chasing down balls and staying in points. Such a concept doesn't exist in golf. Talking of natural talent in that game, I don't think I've got the necessary amount of it. I hit some nice drives and made five semi-respectable double bogeys, but I also ran up a nine on a par-four, not to mention one hole where I got mired in a bunker and gave up.

On the way to the airport on Tuesday we popped in to see one of my cousins (probably my favourite cousin) who lives in Christchurch with her husband and 11-month-old daughter (whom I'd only previously seen in photos). Then I hopped on the plane and it was back up here again to begin the Long Job Search. It was good to see Mum and Dad, and I was sad to leave them behind at the airport. It was also good to see some of my extended family again, even if conversation became hard (or impossible) at times. Much of the conversation was simply gossip about people in the local area, and Dad and I, who haven't lived there since childhood, were automatically excluded. At least I don't live there all the time. Dad, who does, feels understandably left out. In fact he feels totally marooned in Geraldine - he's too far away from everything and has little in common with the people there. I would say in 2005 and '06 this put him on the verge of depression; more recently he's come to (dare I say) accept his fate. With the current economy he's struggling to sell paintings, and although my parents are comfortably off I feel sorry for Dad.

I don't know when I'll be down there next. Hopefully it won't be too long until I am. My brother plans to come over at Easter, so if and when he gets his A into G and books a ticket (you never know with him) I'll grab a seat to Christchurch.

No more noughties

It’s been a tricky year and I’m glad it will soon be over. It’ll also be the end of a decade – the “noughties”. I wonder what they’ll call the next one. The teenies? The tweenies? And there’s still little consensus on whether next year will be “twenty-ten” or “two thousand and ten”. With the future still very much up in the air for me, it seems fitting that we’re about to enter a decade that nobody knows the name of and a year that nobody knows how to pronounce.

I can't believe it's been ten years since the millennium, and all that hype about why-two-kay and planes falling out of the sky. It's made me think about what I've achieved in that time, or rather what I haven't.

Mum took me out this morning for nine holes of golf. Some surprisingly good shots were interspersed with totally expected duffers. I had two par threes and a bogey five, but on other holes I struggled to stay in single figures.

Tonight I expect we’ll be seeing in the New Year at Caroline Bay. They put on a fireworks display at midnight. Historically New Year’s Eve has been one of the most painful days on the calendar for me so I’ll be hoping for an uneventful evening.

The Burner

I'm writing this post from Mum and Dad's house in Geraldine. It's great to get out of Auckland for a week. I flew down on Saturday; Air New Zealand have just implemented comedy safety announcements: "When an oxygen mask appears above your head, don't ask why, and don't ask if you can have it in a different colour." Mum and Dad picked me up from Christchurch airport and we stopped briefly at Uncle Dan's. It was the first time I'd seen Dan since his diagnosis with throat cancer 18 months ago; he seemed in remarkably good spirits, albeit a couple of stone lighter than I remember him.

On Sunday I went to Pleasant Point to watch Dad fly his plane at the Model Aero Club. For a while he had me fooled with what I thought were some rather nifty aerobatics, but in fact all those impressive-looking vertical loops weren't in the script at all. The electrics were dead, and the plane - which Dad had spent many evenings making - came down in a local farmer's back garden. Dad wasn't a happy bunny; he went home with his tail between his legs while the plane's tail was no longer attached. He still thinks he can salvage the situation. I realise now he just enjoys gluing bits of balsa together; actually flying the finished product is secondary.

The engine room of Mum's life, on the other hand, would seem to be the golf course. I had a hit with her yesterday - quite a lot of hits in my case. It was the first time Mum had used her new club - the Burner. By spending a few hundred dollars on this club, whose head is the size and shape of a large spud cut in half, she's become one of the "haves", rather than the "have nots", of the golfing community. We played nine holes; I consistently scored double par. Mum is out playing a tournament right now, with the Burner of course, which is why I'm able to write this post.

I still don't feel quite right. I'm not sure if it's the depression, the drugs, or something else. Tomorrow we're planning on going to Hanmer Springs which is uncharted territory for me. I wanted to talk about the strange thing that happened to me last week - it was strange precisely because it happened to me - but I'm fast running out of computer time.