Kiwis plan a year of
From epic sea voyages to spiritual adventures or simply mastering the ukulele: here's what some well-known New Zealanders will be taking a chance on in 2017. This year I’m going to learn the piano. Oh, wait. I’m getting on a bit now, and I may have left it too late. Dammit. OK. Instead I will just get a little bit better on the ukulele. It’s a cheering-up instrument, and in 2017 we are going to need all the cheer-ups we can get. I’m going to Trump’s America in April. Except not Trump’s America, really – the New Orleans Jazz Festival, which may well be an oasis of out-and-proud diversity, protest, solidarity and hope. Hoping not to see too many ‘‘Make America Great Again’’ trucker hats in my favourite bar in my favourite town. My aim is to build a dinghy and row to Stewart Island. It would show the local community that just because I am 70 it doesn’t mean I’m not strong and fit. The present record for rowing across Foveaux Strait is 10 hours. I would like to break that record. Nice try disguising the ‘‘What’s your new year’s resolution?’’ question we answer every year. My answer is the same as always: Get my ‘‘no regrets’’ tattoo removed and replace Nadia Lim as the official New Zealand Avocado Ambassador. Plus I’m hoping the Auckland housing market will slow and I’ll be able to save up enough money to rent a house. Travelling to Samoa and Malaysia with a teething, overstimulated/ excited eight-month-old! It could go either way: a fantastic family holiday, or a disaster where we end up needing a holiday after the ‘‘holiday’’. I’ll be releasing nationally my pullalong wooden toy, ‘‘Kiwi-Kiwi’’, intending to challenge the hegemony of the Buzzy Bee (a bee? How Kiwi is a bee?!). I made the wonky Uncle-Albert original for my grandchildren in 2001, and it’s finally made the tortuous journey to China and back. I’m irrationally proud of this little fella. My personal risk is, possibly, entering the half-marathon for the World Masters in Auckland. Watch this space. Ignoring age, I’m starting a twoyear course that combines Ignatian and Maori spirituality. While this may be new, it is part of lifelong awareness of the ‘‘knowing’’ beyond our five senses. In my early 30s I spent my winters in Europe, mostly visiting garden shows as a journalist. Having kids has put the kibosh on passportstamp collecting, but in 2017 I’m looking forward to my first intrepid journey in five years – to India. Hopefully I’ll also get Delhi belly and ditch a few kilograms, otherwise 2017 also looks set to be the year I – sigh – rejoin the gym. To try life in reverse: go slower, do less, simplify, consume less, do more of my bucket list, put nothing off that really matters. If not now, then when? In September I travelled to Lake Waikaremoana on the day demolition was due to commence on John Scott’s architectural masterpiece, the Aniwaniwa Visitors’ Centre. After a fascinating few hours exploring this remarkable, profound building inside and out, and a tense few hours protesting on the road in front, I swore to myself I would never set foot in the region again if the building was demolished. I felt certain that good sense would prevail and it would be saved. With Scott’s irreplaceable bicultural metaphor now sacked, pulverised, partially recycled and the rest trashed, I have lately decided that I will, after all, return to the site in 2017 – maybe to write and paint some suitable response, or just to wonder how it was that such a rich, complex, challenging and unique statement could have a government-sanctioned bulldozer put through it. As a professional baseball player, I took a risk every time I faced a pitch. When I left baseball due to injury and entered banking, I took a risk changing careers. By deciding early to work with a