You can’t see anything for the goosebumps

Since our bask atop Mt Eden last weekend, Auckland has enjoyed a week of near perfect weather. Yesterday was so warm, I was moved to strip down to a camisole top while lunching on the deck with the family in Mt Wellington.

This morning, we awoke to another perfect blue sky, sunshine winking in the bedroom window. We decided to go to Karekare Beach.

“Let’s take the MR2,” suggested Husband.

Last summer, Husband and I drove everywhere in his sports car, posing in sunglasses with the roof panels off. It is a two-seater, apparently designed for anorexic models and athletic teenage car-jockeys. In other words, not much spare room for anything more than a spare bikini and a credit card.

So I travelled to Karekare with 36kg of canine sitting on top of me. Jed occasionally managed to kick Husband in the face with his hind leg, before he discovered the optimal position sitting on the floor on my feet, with his front paws on my lap. Sadly, it was far from the optimal position for my bladder.

Unhindered by cloud, the glittering sun cast deep shadows beneath the trees. Our drive was accompanied by the sticky sound of melting tarmac and the acrid stench of lightly broiled bitumen. Just before Karekare, we turned onto Lone Kauri Road, where the warm, buttery smell of gorse wafted us down to the beach. Ah, the scents of spring.

I’ll tell you how hot it was: I went for a swim in the sea.

Perhaps that only tells you how insane I was.

Husband would have come in too, but he has a rare condition which makes him react violently to salt water and he could die. What’s it called again? Oh yes: Being a Total Wuss.

Husband took a video, but you can’t make out anything for all the goosebumps. So here’s a clip of another swimmer:-

In memory of my left boot

Last Saturday week, Husband lost my walking boot.

There was room for doubt as to who was guilty of gross negligence, but I tricked Husband into a full confession.  No need for electrodes or a waterboard; I am a cunning and resourceful woman crammed full of my mother’s mother’s genes. Oh, he denies it now. But it is futile.

Now, you might ask, how do you lose a single boot? Indeed, that’s a good question and have you ever considered a career in politics or the diplomatic corps?

The last time anyone saw my left boot was in the back of the MR2 the morning we set out for Karekare. Sometime between the hours of 10am and 2pm between the days of Saturday and Wednesday, my boot exited the boot (the arse-end of the car).

Now, I seriously doubt my walking boot FELL out of the car, because that would have involved ignoring gravity to topple 3ft up and over the lip of the boot. Similarly, I doubt it leapt out in an explosive discharge of surplus kinetic energy.

More likely, the fury of Husband’s rummaging fired it out of the car like a deadly projectile. However, there are no witnesses or corpses bearing the imprint of a size 38 footprint on the forehead to corroborate this.

What makes it Husband’s fault is that, upon returning home, he removed the one, single boot from the car and placed it on the shoe shelf. Who removes a single boot without wondering where its companion is? Who?

Ok, we all know the answer to that.

When I discovered the missing boot later in the week, I asked Husband why he hadn’t remarked upon it. And he said, “I thought you had the other one.”

As if he thought I might have just wanted to take my right leg out for a walk.

We drove back to Karekare in the vain hope that we could track down my boot, or that someone had handed it in to the surf club.

Husband volunteered to conduct a scatter pattern search while I enquired at the surf club. Husband has a remarkable ability for search and rescue – if the man had a better sense of smell, he could probably find Elvis – while I have a talent for shallow charm that is highly effective on a superficial level. I felt this was a fair division of duty, until I accosted one of the lifeguards taming a wave.

He himself had not sighted my boot, and offered to radio the surf club to see whether someone had handed it in. It took him five goes before he could say ‘Lady here wants to know if someone handed in a boot last Saturday’ without sniggering.

The woman on the other end of the radio said, ‘A BOOT?’ Then indulged in a minute or two of muted snorting.

“What sort of boot?” she said.

“Er, a left boot.”

Then they rolled around the place laughing. They’re probably sleeping together. I really feel they should keep their sexual tension out of the workplace.

Nobody had handed in my boot – or, for that matter, anyone else’s – and Husband’s search was fruitless, which means the boot has probably left the country

Damn that memory card to hell, damn it

On the way to Karekare yesterday, Husband’s own driving made him nauseous. Thankfully, he revived sufficiently to walk Coman’s Track along the cliff edge, then north to Log Race Road via Mercer Bay Loop.

In a bodaciously muppetacious move, I forgot to replace the memory card in my Canon. The photos below were taken with my Sony Cybershot.

Now, I love my 450D; I do. The shutter makes a gratifying noise that is halfway between a click and a whirr, and I can do lots of stuff that I can’t describe (and half the time can’t do either). And the image quality nearly always defies my best efforts to under- or over-expose it, or focus my finger instead of the subject etc.

However, using the Sony again reminded me how handy it is. It takes three seconds to whip it out of the case and slide the lens cap, just in time to capture the dragonfly alighting on the one daisy within three kilometres.

In contrast, preparing the Canon for photography is a full-scale production: taking off the camera bag, laying it flat, unzipping it, taking out the camera, choosing and affixing the lens, removing the lens cap and storing it (turns out throwing it on the ground is only a time-saving strategy in the short term), turning the camera on, tweaking the settings. Then one must spend a reasonable amount of time maintaining artistic integrity and fermenting the inspiration. By which stage the dragonfly has gone through three life-cycles and night has fallen.

But I kinda missed it.

Karekare Beach from Farley Point

Mercer Bay Loop path

Mercer Bay

Husband dodges charging tree

Self portrait

Husband keeps up to date with current events