Auckland ATTRACTIONS
COLIN GETS REACQUAINTED WITH THE CITY OF SAILS
Apartment living isn’t for wimps I’ve decided, after just a few weeks living in one. Living in Auckland isn’t for wimps either and that’s where the apartment is, so it’s tough all round. Though not really that tough at all.
Given the opportunity to live in an absent friend’s luxury apartment in an upmarket part of Auckland for a few months, the wife and I seized the moment and moved up from Wellington, where winter was about to arrive.
Auckland, after all, is where my executive wife spends a good deal of her time working. Also, it’s where we used to live and it’s the place two daughters, three grandchildren and several dozen other relatives and old pals call home. Another family is living in our house in Wellington while we’re away – they’re even looking after our cat, who I miss more than I can say.
I also miss our big, wild garden and the birds – the piwakawaka (fantails), especially. I don’t miss the wind at all, but I do miss Wellington’s downtown car parking opportunities.
There’s nothing much about having a car in Auckland that is particularly good. There’s a time, in the evening, looking out from our balcony across the city’s northwestern motorway, when it grows strangely quiet. But it’s not an absence of cars, it’s just a traffic jam.
Otherwise, I’m easing into Auckland, not letting myself like it too much too quickly, knowing we’ll be gone south again in five months. Mainly, I worry that the cat might not remember me after so long, that she might have grown fond of the new people and want to move on with them when we come home.
Though it might be the apartment that’s causing such gloomy thoughts.
There’s not as much to do, living in an apartment as there is in a sprawling house. And to make life even less of a chore, we’ve inherited a housekeeper.
Our friend is a single bloke and Shirley the housekeeper comes in once a week to do everything, she even changes the bed. She’s marvellous. She went so far last week as to iron a couple of shirts I’d left lying about. As a result, I’ve become a stranger to the vacuum cleaner and the bathroom spray.
There are no lawns to cut, decks and steps to sweep or trees blown down in gales, nothing in the way of natural crises to keep me distracted. So time seems to pass more slowly. Though not if I go out because the suburb we’re in is full of retail temptation and familiar faces. I ran into David Hartnell at the supermarket, Lee Tamahori in a neighbourhood bar, Rose Matafeo on the footpath and Jesse Mulligan in the park.
Grey Lynn is a celebrity theme park and it feels like a treat to be allowed in for a while. But only for a while.
Having sold in Auckland and bought in Wellington, we couldn’t afford to buy back here – and the longer we stay here, the more we might just want to. Even in an apartment, though I’m not sure what the cat would say.