Summer Season #1

Happy New Year! Now the busyness of 2015 is well behind and summer holidays stretch ahead Petone Ponderings is commencing its new 'summer season' of postings for the disappointed visitors who have so missed regular postings last year.

Fact of the Day: 1/1/16
Mount Kaukau, with a summit of 445 metres above sea level, is the most visible high point in the Wellington landscape.

Useful Tip of the Day:
No matter how much your walking companion insists that following the track marked 'alternate route to Mt Kaukau' will make no difference to the difficulty or length of the walk, ignore them at all costs.

And so we set off on what can only be described as a spectacular Wellington morning. Not a breath of wind, no matter how high or long we toiled on our way to the top.

Are we there yet? Later revealed to be nowhere near despite the already stunning views.

I have to admit, that even taking into account that we probably walked three times the distance we needed to had we taken the other fork in the track, it was well worth the effort and afforded spectacular views at the summit - the South Island with the sounds and Kaikouras in splendid view and the full 360 degree aspect of the greater Wellington region.

Some time later ...

This holiday I am planning to make better use of my CD collection, and so we come to our new feature for the summer season ....

Album of the Day:

Video/Track of the Day:

God Save the Queen

I saw a documentary recently about life in North Korea. It all revolves around following the directions of The Glorious Leader, who really takes the whole dictatorship thing very seriously. He'll tell you what to think, what to say and even how to do your hair.

Though it's probably wiser to copy his own style if you really want the high brownie points.

North Korea has a six day working week, so life it pretty busy and full for the average worker. On the seventh day they are so filled with national pride that every one of them volunteers that day to completing worthy civic duties.

By all accounts, the population are falling over themselves in enthusiastic street cleaning, tending to civic gardens and parks, and painting and polishing monuments.

I imagine a whole lot of them might be busy practising for the annual Mass Games, where precision really is appreciated by The Glorious Leader. Which really made me wonder how they do it. Not the cleaning and synchronised displays of national supremacy. How do they fit in the rest of their lives? Not anything exciting, just the running the house, cooking, shopping stuff. Today I cleaned my house from end to end, did the washing and ironing, went to the supermarket, tended to some school work and cooked a nice paleo dinner. Most weekends at least half the time is spent on chores of some sort or other, setting me up for another week's busyness. I don't mind it, I like playing house, but it takes time. And it's also nice to have time for lazy alarm-free mornings, seeing friends and generally pottering. I can hardly fit it all into a two day weekend. I'd never make it in North Korea. 

I fear I would disappoint The Glorious Leader when I couldn't find the time to break out the Brasso to demonstrate my fervent love. Which is why I'm feeling so smug tonight. All the 'must do's are done and I still have the equivalent of a whole weekend up my sleeve.

God save the Queen, and all her heirs and successors.

Body Image

I'm pretty happy with my body, though it is showing the signs of dating from the chic 'mid-century retro' era that is so on trend in home decorating. Given ridiculous amounts of money I might be tempted to sample the delights of minor tweaking through botox, tummy tucks and face lifts, but there are other things I would splurge on way ahead of these if I had a less satisfactory lower division lotto win. I don't hanker at all for one of these ...

What the ...?

... or find this look in any way attractive ...

Shudder ...

... nor aspire to making even the smallest section of skin into a canvas.

Hate this twee crap even on walls ... at least it's not a skull ...

No, I'm pretty happy and there is one part of my body of which I have always been particularly proud. They have featured in an earlier blog post in all their gloriously seriated beauty, nature having blessed me with the built in satisfaction of tidy toes.

Like correctly ordered Cuisenaire rods, the staircases are complete. I'm not vain enough to suppose I have the world's most perfect toes, just fairly close. I have never seen a set I aspire to more than my own. While having them pampered recently I looked up to see a large poster of a set of toes which are apparently the industry standard. Has anyone, ever seen toes that look like these?

Do you suppose they photoshop toes?

I'm refering to the little toes. Does anyone really have little toes that are not snarled, twisted little specimens with barely a nail to paint? I think not! Luckily, I've got to where I am today without being burdened by extremes of body image dictated by the fashion industry and I won't be hiding my toes in shame or shelling out for 'phalange five enhancement' surgery. 

Good Looking

I know it's hard to believe, given my youthful good looks, energetic personality and upbeat outlook on life, but I am getting older. One of the side effects of growing a little middle aged is that people start to look like other people. I see the faces of friends in the faces of strangers and often have to pause to decide whether someone approaching is indeed someone I actually know or a mere doppelgänger. I tend to err on the side of caution and so I apologise to those who may think I have snubbed them. Recently this quirky feature of marvellous me ramped itself up to a whole new level. I have a wide and eclectic taste in television viewing and one of my favourites is Family Guy.

My favourite character is, of course, Stewie. 

In the spirit of one of my earliest television memories called "My Mother, the Car", there before me was Stewie ... spooky ...

Time to Say Goodbye

I'm not the sort who is afraid of too much. I can't bear those who shriek and cause a commotion at seeing a spider or any kind of bug. It's not as though we live in a country where any wee bug poses any real threat.

I have similar distain for those who fuss over a mouse or rat. I have disposed of many over the years. Humanely collecting the live ones carried into my house by feline companions, gathering them up gently to deposit in the nearby garden of a least liked neighbour. Extracting the dead from nooks and crannies - by necessity, one acquires a nose for decaying rodent - and, at my last address, disposing of the bodies with a practised flick of the spade to launch them well into the bush.

But what I do have a heightened fear of is identity theft. No scrap of paper ever enters my recycling bin bearing my name or address. I angst over the wisdom of putting sender details on envelopes or parcels I send, consumed with worry that my friends and associates will not take similar care with the disposal of my personal information at the other end. Soon after arriving at the beach four years ago - I know, where did the time go? - my beloved paper shredder gave its last determined whirr before it locked tight and sent up smoke signals to indicate that its days of productivity had come to an end. Such a loyal and true friend could not be disposed of completely and it continues to serve as the kindling repository.

Since it took on its new role I have tried vainly to keep up with manual ripping up of paper, but with bills and bank statements flowing in at an alarming rate - and no, I don't want electronic billing, thank you - drawers and desks are overflowing. Today is the day to say goodbye to 2014, and more importantly its paperwork and that of the three years before. A new model has arrived - Dick Smith's finest, $29.99 - and at last it is time to say goodbye to the accumulation.

Barely scratching the surface, but a start nonetheless!

And on it will go.

My New Year resolution will be 'pay, and throw away'. Other than that, a year as happy as this one has been will be just fine. Happy New Year everyone - may it be a great one for you, too!

I Have Seen the Future

Way back in the 1970s and early 80s there was a television programme, possibly called 'Tomorrow, Today', that projected how the next century would unfold as all the wonderful new discoveries and inventions would change the way we lived. It all seemed more science fiction than science as we viewed it on our black and white television, on the one available channel. Much of it also seemed preposterous, unnecessary even- why would anyone want to see the person they were talking to on the telephone? How safe would those jet backpacks really be?

Of course it was all conjecture as to how these fancy new-fangled 'electronics' and the like would actually look in practice, but there was one thing was very clear. Workplaces would change radically as automation replaced workers in industry and farming. Luckily, we were well prepared for the coming fall in demands on us as a workforce, and what governments all over the world would do was introduce much shorter working weeks to ensure work for all. We would all have to learn how to fill our much longer leisure hours as we all enjoyed the prosperity of our bright, new future. 

This sounded just splendid to me, and I set about preparing to embrace that future. I honed my skills of lethargy and sloth. It was a least I could do as a socially responsible, forward thinking citizen. I have been badly let down. Not only do I not have a hover car, I have a four day weekend mindset stuck in a two day weekend reality. 

What's That You Say?

I was a bright and precocious toddler, and apparently had a smattering of endearing french phrases to drop into conversation that my older brother had taught me. He was learning French at High School because it was an important world language and would be very useful in later life.

I have no recall of this, but at the age of nine was placed into some strange educational experiment of an extension class where the teacher taught us Spanish because it was an important world language and would be very useful in later life.

When I got to Intermediate there was lovely old lady (the mad sort with a bun, flowing clothes and level of eccentricity that I aspire to myself one day) who passionately advocated the learning of Esperanto. This was a made up language that would cross international and cultural boundaries and become a world language that would be very useful in later life.

I progressed on to High School where I too began to learn French. Sadly none of the promise I had shown as a toddler was any longer present and after two years, and a dismal 14% in the final exam, I thankfully dropped it. My father lamented that I had not had the opportunity to learn Latin as my siblings before me had, because this had been a very important world language and would have been very handy in later life.

Not all my friends joined me in those dismal French classes. They had taken the newly introduced option of Japanese, because this was a very important world language and would be very useful in later life.

In my early teaching days, one of the children's mothers was setting up the German classes at the local college. This was because it was a very important world language and would be very useful in later life. I actually am quite strong in many phrases in German, thanks to childhood spent with ongoing repeats of Hogan's Heroes.

Now, I sit with my class for our weekly Mandarin lesson, because it is a very important world language and will be very useful in later life. It is certainly a good mental exercise and lots of fun, but it is a weekly reminder of my total inability to learn languages. The children hear the subtleties that are quite lost on me, and no matter how hard I try I'm always the first one out in Simon Says, Mandarin style. I get so excited when I actually recognise the word that my hand is on my nose, ear or head before I have processed the fact the Simon didn't explicitly say to put it there.

Luckily, I'm still going strong in English, and I'm pretty sure it's an important world language and will be useful in later life.