Spring day inspires the inner poet
OPINION
Despite the wet weather, it’s difficult not to be impressed by spring with the ‘metallic’ tui in the golden kowhai and runner beans, lettuce, basil and ‘tommies’ popping up in the garden.
We are still in a great place, Taranaki that is, so earlier this week I agreed to write a conference paper. The idea is to encourage people to stay on for a few days after the conference finishes. Easy, eh, so I went on a walk to town for fresh air and inspiration.
I took a different route just to see what would happen wandering not ‘lonely as a cloud that floats on high o’er vales and hills’ although I did my fair share of hills. I managed to get my words worth in a small but interesting walkway on the Carrington/Vivien St car park.
It tumbles down the hillside poking a ubiquitous finger into Victor Davies Park, a mute testament to the man who shaped a thousand gardens. Here the magnolias seem to cling on to the Huatoki Stream with all their might before that too disappears under the hustle and bustle of the glassed city before offering a home to the tuna in its estuarine waters before joining the Tasman.
I found some park benches on my newfound walkway but best of all, a stone wall under a copiously leafy tree. One of the large stones has a sort of a shallow dent in the top, which fits perfectly the human posterior. Serendipity I suspect but nevertheless, very comfy.
I took out my ‘industrial strength’ cheese and onion sandwiches (I have no shame) made with Eltham’s finest stinky blue vein, and my flask of coffee. Then I ’people watched’ because I could see a flow of humanity passing by and they couldn’t see me so I could observe their naked thoughts.
In such a place it’s easy to sit in silence and let your mind wander. I considered how lucky we are. New Zealand is the best of all the other parts of the world squashed into one amazing country. What’s even better is that Taranaki is all the best of New Zealand squashed into one province; The mountain and the sea, the city and the towns, the coast and the culture.
We all know it, but it doesn’t do any harm to sit down and count your blessing now and again does it?
Conference paper sorted.
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