Today is my youngest son’s twenty fourth birthday; hard to believe however he has been living a grownup life for some years now; father of two gorgeous boys, and with a successful career path and a lovely partner. And yet I am forever surprised. I guess this is the lot of a mother no matter how old her children get.
Yesterday we spent the day on the river, bussing into the city fairly
late in the morning and hopping on the CityCat traveling down river. After
nearly an hour we hopped off at the Northshore Hamilton wharf, a fairly recent
addition to the ferry service and the extent of the down river route. Many of
the wharves were severely damaged in the floods of January 2011 and priority
was given to their repair. This latest and most downstream wharf was
constructed soon after, no doubt while the men were on a roll of working on
wharves. This wharf services or rather, will service, a whole new development
on the river’s edge, all within sight of the Gateway motorway bridge and
earshot of the airport. Chris and I called into the sales office to see the
large models of the proposed development and displays of the lovely apartments
that will be built within the next few years. It will be quite lovely; we were
certainly impressed with everything we saw.
Right next door on a large open piece of land, perhaps to be absorbed
into the development in the future, stand a collection of yellow marquees; home
to Cirque de Soleil’s latest
production Ovo. Chris and I are
currently debating the shows by this remarkable troupe we have seen; I agree we
both saw Allegria but dispute I have
ever seen any others. If he is right, I am indeed losing my mind.
We caught another catamaran ferry back upriver as far as the Riverside
Wharf. Here is the forty floor skyscraper, the Riverside Centre, and for those
on foot, arriving by ferry, it is the restaurants and cafes along the river
frontage that attract. There is a charming water feature cascading through the
network of pathways, and from here one can continue upriver along the walkway,
past the Botanic Gardens and returning to the centre of the city. This is
exactly what we did, detouring on to the mangrove walkway near the Botanic
Gardens and marvelling how like home, Whangarei, this made us feel.
It was just as well we made the effort to walk back to the central bus
station; we spent over two and a half hours sitting on public transport
yesterday and the weight stacked on in June while back in New Zealand is
reluctant to fall off.
It was not the birds that woke us this morning but the alarm clock, set
to rouse us in time to watch the entire Olympic Games closing ceremony. In rare
slovenly fashion we lay late in bed to watch the televised festivities then
spent the rest of the morning attending to domestic chores. After lunch we
headed to the bright shiny Westfield shopping centre at Carindale just over
eight kilometres from our camp. Here I subjected myself to a hairdresser and
came away quite shorn. Chris has been too polite to say much apart from “It’s short!” It will grow as it always does,
and this time take a bit longer before we repeat the exercise.
I had telephoned Olly this morning at his work and managed only to leave
a message on his voice mail. This evening I caught up with him on Skype and
learned that he had left work early and gone home sick to join Jess and the
boys who had beaten him to their sick beds. Not a good way to spend one’s
birthday.
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