I have given up on Brexit, though I was amused by one of the Guardian’s semi-regular vox populi features on the weirdos who voted leave: The 73-year-old former builder and engineer said he had been lied to by the leave campaign. “They didn’t tell us the true facts. They kept us in the dark like […]
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Cool winds
The heatwave has broken, or rather, moderated. The wind has changed and it is far cooler. I learned today of the horse latitudes and the roaring forties. Winds are very romantic. Far less romantic is fucking Brexit. Damn them.
Heat wave
I have woken this morning with a terrible cramp and restless dreams about my mother’s china, unused for fifty years and perhaps now unusuable. There has been a heatwave in New Zealand for the past few days and Nelson is bearing the brunt of it. The landscape is parched yellow, very beautiful with the sea […]
Down south
Yesterday we finally checked out of the tomb-like hut. I was not sorry to leave it; aside from the tomb-like bedroom and the remnant distaste from illness, it was very grimy feeling. We left Waihiki – for the first time I saw many places in daylight – and took the ferry back to Auckland, and […]
Global suburbia
The GF’s mother put it like this, and it seems accurate. So safe, so clean, so faraway. Today was the first day I felt well, afer the first full night’s sleep. But I was very tired with work. In the evening I strolled down to Onetangi beach where I was to meet the Gentleman Friend […]
Sick week
Over a week of illness, first me and then the Gentleman Friend, has made Waiheke a place I am eager now to escape. My flu is now gone, but a cough remains thanks to congested lungs, and my voice sounds strange. He has had a less terrible time to begin with, but had a relapse […]
Road to Ostend
A sleepless night but a less ill one. I felt strong enough in the morning that I accommpanied the Gentleman Friend on a 5km walk to Ostend, the nearest town, there to buy some groceries. It was a plesaant walk past fields and vieyards and hills and bays and marshes. Along the way we saw, […]
Day two
The flu continues. I slept better than before but woke with a truly terrible headache which persisted for most of the day. Finally I gave up on working and emailed asking if I could send the work back later than proposed. With the worry of not having done the edit lifted, I dozed for a […]
All is explained
I no longer feel foolish about not leaving the airport, clearly my body knew what was what. Towards the end of the longer flight, from Beijing to Auckland, I was coughing and feeling a little raw of skin and by the time I arrived on Waiheke I was ready to collapse. Then, around 3 in […]
Cold feet
I am in Beijing airport. I stupidly lost the will to leave the airport at the last minute, having had a terrible flight from Karachi, feeling nauseous and uncomfortable, and assigned to an emergency row seat. I know most people prefer these, and certainly it is nice to have space rather than a close row, […]