Monday morning in Parnell. The new house (No. 2) is fine, one of four townhouses owned by Mary who is a very kindly, pernickety landlady who has a penchant for ornaments and knick-knacks that must be very precious to her. They have to stand in such a way on such a table. I too have things that are of significance to me in our house in Edinburgh, and it struck me how annoying ‘things’ can be to someone else who has no involvement in their purchase. As the great philosopher David Hume said, ‘Objects have absolutely no worth or value in themselves. They derive their worth merely from the passion with which the purchaser pursued them.’ I have taken some clay mushrooms and some strange candlesticks and hidden them in a cupboard.

 The other tenants are very highbrow… the organ master for St Mary’s Cathedral lives at number 4 and a museum curator lives at number 1.

 John has gone off to work, dragging his feet and muttering about ‘the snake pit’. The morning began badly when he discovered the severed legs of a spider all on his side of the bed! He did ask me if I felt anything run over me in the night???? Apparently he woke up with the sensation, and had visions of being the star of his own version of Dr No! I did shake out the sheets, but there was no sign of the rest of the beast!

 We went driving on Saturday, north of Auckland, meandering along the Hibiscus coastal  route

and came face to face with a pakeko bird in the Shakespeare Reserve. It was blue with a red head and large cartoon-like feet!

We had hoped to try some fishing, but the winds were wrong and the tides were wrong and it was not to be.

 Instead we found Warkworth and I have fallen in love with a tree. I don’t remember hearing about the KAURI tree, and then suddenly I found myself face to face with an amazing specimen, 800 years old.

I spread myself against it, as you do,

and then walked in the bush lands behind it, seeing tree ferns known as ponga, or silver fern. This fern is the emblem of New Zealand and made famous by the All Blacks.

When we went into the museum nearby, we saw all the products made from the kauri, and I was amazed to learn that the kauri gum or resin was more valuable at one time than timber or gold (it was used for high quality varnishes apparently). When they realised how lucrative it was, men used to search for it in swamps and dig it out, and it was like amber with preserved dead things inside it. All very fascinating.

This museum reflected a different quality of life than the museum we visited in the one time gold fields of Arrow Town in the South Island. Here there was evidence of a more genteel way of life. There was a replica of a milliner’s shop, a school dentist’s clinic (from Hell… with its antiquated drills), and underwear showing off old Pa Broon’s ‘combinations’ that men lived in all year round, and ladies’ trapdoor knickers with, and without, buttons! All hanging side by side on a ‘washing line’!

 I felt pin pricks in my eyes when I read a letter from a 23 year old boy writing from the trenches in 1917:

Dear Mum,

Long before this reaches you I will have left this world forever. I have known for some time that I can never regain my former health and I cannot bear to think of the future in my present condition of health.

Life is one long ache, with nights of sleeplessness and I will be happier where I am going.

I do not want you to grieve for me for it will not be long before we are all reunited in the land where there is no sickness or pain and where there is no parting.

I have no fear for the future, for I am merely giving back the life I owe.

Goodbye,

Your loving son,

Lawrence.

 So the kauri tree in all its magnificence lives on, witness to the families that settled and made their lives and hats and histories along the north coast not so far from Auckland. John thought it highly amusing to see me thus…and walked off and left me to reflect on my sins! huh.

 Sunday we ventured out again, but this time we drove west across the Waitakere Ranges on killer winding roads, reminiscent of a curling rattlesnake.  I was nearly sick and had horrid memories of roller coasters. From the dense forests of more fern trees and lianas and unidentifiable trees we finally came down into a perfect surfer’s paradise: Piha Bay.

We ate green tipped mussels whilst I ogled some very attractive young surfer gods, and the sea whipped up the surf as they battled to stay on board. It was all very nice. I do like spectator sports! I remember years ago Gerry took an odd interest in football. I was quite intrigued until I realised she was following the Italian team who had some very attractive, sultry players. Oh we are so shallow!

 We somehow retraced our path over the mountain chicanes again, and came down at Titirangi and drove to the tip of the peninsula at Whatipu, where we decided to climb to the summit of Mt Donald McLean. (!) There were just the two of us in the bush, and it was all so thick and unfamiliar and somehow ancient and foreign.

The ferns made me think of Jurassic Park, and I was half expecting some of those weird prehistoric birds with the long legs and fierce looking helmets to come screaming along the path. I think the Moa was the largest bird of its kind, but is now extinct (Phew).

Between Piha beach and Whatipu is Karekare beach, the scene where Jane Campion sited her film, The Piano. It was so isolated and beautiful and atmospheric.

 I was more afraid yesterday in a country that has no poisonous creatures or scary reptiles than I was in South Australia with their brown snakes and red back spiders. It is all in the atmosphere and imagination.

 The drive back was beautiful, and I am intrigued by the nasturtiums that grow willynilly, threading themselves along the banks and sides of the road. Has someone gone along and strewn the seeds to make a colourful show?  

It is also disconcerting to see bougainvillea, banana trees and bamboo growing alongside montbretia, holly hocks, marguerites and buttercups, all growing regardless of the season. Summer has only begun here, on 1^st December, yet there seems to be no rhyme or reason for the appearance of such an array of flowers all at the same time. Colours are exquisite, and the greens are so dense, yet so soft, your fingers just itch to touch them.

 I am about to start another jigsaw. I so enjoyed the one I did in Adelaide before we left. Funny thing, jigsaws, they were introduced as dissected maps, as an educational tool for royalty and aristocrats, but have since been seen as a way for people to stave off boredom and death! Some see them as a way of killing time, and Daniel Defoe once said that perhaps that ‘was the worst of murders’! I just know that sometimes I can be worried about things, and have a lot on my mind, but when I do a jigsaw it’s not the everyday things that torment me when I walk or drop off to sleep, instead it’s pieces of sky edged with a blob of green or a shiny pit of metal – could it be the vase or a piece of the chandelier? I had to laugh when I read how Queen Victoria described her evening with Lord Melbourne. Together they worked on a puzzle, and she wrote, ‘The pleasantest gayest evening I have passed for some time. I sat up until half past 11!’

I see in the papers that snow has arrived in the UK, shutting down airports and causing all the headaches of winter. Christmas is nearly upon us, and I feel very removed from it all. Perhaps we should go to the Cathedral and listen to our new neighbour play the carols. This time last year I was in a delightful frenzy cooking and baking and making ready for the family feast. Now I am off to find another ‘straight piece’ for the edge! I am doing Manet’s The Bar at the Folies Bergere, 1882. You learn so much about a painter’s brush strokes and little tiny details when doing a jig saw or am I just justifying my new hobby! This is the one I did earlier!