Lindy Kato (Writer)

Of course it isn’t the King’s birthday. King Charles III , head of the Commonwealth, was born 14^th November 1948. The problem with a November birthday in the UK is that the weather can be seriously shit. Much better the Yeomen of the Guard (Beefeaters) with their uniform of felted wool and a bearskin busby on the head (they are still made of bearskin though there is a push for a synthetic version). My point is that at Kew Gardens last week the temperature was 35.1°C (95.2°F). There are well over a thousand soldiers involved and some 200 horses in the trooping of the colours. They will really have enjoyed that had they been required to perform last week! NOT

Kings birthday in Canada is at the end of May, Australia is the second Monday in June, the UK the third Saturday in June so the participants have time for it to cool down. They have been known to pass out.

The really important birthday is today, 1^st June and that is of my dear Dad who will be 95. That is cause for celebration. Dad will have seen a lot in his lifetime and he grabbed it by the balls.

He left school at ten. He said it was because all his teachers were useless! The real teachers had all gone to war and they were left with retired teachers which he claimed were senile. Dad isn’t book smart but he has loads of other skills. He was sent to Malaya for National Service at seventeen, and he was a ‘point-to-point’ jockey. Those are fox hunting horses that race over jumps to keep fit when there are no foxes to hunt. It used to be cross-country but by the time Dad was riding, they raced on a track. He also did motocross.

Dad had a BSA 500 cc – I think it was a Goldstar which got left behind one time when we moved and now they’re worth a fortune. He had a Royal Enfield as well, at one time.

His other love was dancing, known as Fred Twinkletoes. Mum and Dad won medals and when Dad and I danced the Gay Gorden’s on holidays, we knocked everyone off the dance floor. Peas in a pod.

We emigrated to Australia as ten pound poms, and on return to the UK the whole family was involved in fixing a condemned house. Then he had a pig farm and a sweet shop. Not a run of the mill guy. Deserving of a peaceful retirement.

Usually this time of year I’m a bit glum. S.A.D. The days in the Southern hemisphere are short and it does get cold in New Zealand as the wind has no impediment between Antarctica and Southland. You can even see the Southern lights or Aurora Australis. In fact, we saw it even here in the north one time. I can’t ever forget the day because it was the day we went to collect the in-laws from the airport in 1988 and it was nothing short of a disaster. We were up at 2 a.m., enough of an event with three young children, but additionally the fog was so thick that we couldn’t see the road. I had the passenger window on our ancient Holden Kingswood wound down and was shouting the rough distance from the edge of the road as my Sweetheart drove slowly through the whiteout. The car broke down in the Dome Valley.

Fortuitously we had our campervan for sale in a yard in Albany. The thing is at 5 am in thick fog, how often does a random stranger pick up five people? Waiting with the car would be a dodgy gig, although we had pushed it as far to the side of the road as we could, it wasn’t fully off the road and in danger of being hit. So – as the fog cleared giving rise to the weirdest green then red light show just before dawn – we were picked up! The random stranger took us to Albany, and with nothing to do but wait for the car yard to open, we could watch in awe – by now we realised we were witnessing the Southern lights – rarely visible this far north, a spectacular show.

Getting our campervan back was a blessing, even though we were trying to sell it (we could really have done with the money). How we had intended to fit seven people (two in car seats) plus luggage in our admittedly larger than average car, hadn’t been properly thought through. It cost a packet to get the car towed home though!

I can’t complain about the cold where we are either. Its currently 21 °C (70 °F) at 6 o’clock at night, and dark, it’s the dark I’m less keen on. It shouldn’t be dark , I’m writing this on the last day of May and there’s a blue moon, the second full moon in the same month. It’s been cloudy all day, we’ve barely generated enough power to run ourselves and we just got a boost for the batteries from the grid.

One problem with New Zealand is the dearth of celebrations following Christmas. Easter was too early and a damp squib anyway. As a child I always got new knickers. If that doesn’t sound very exciting  – it was, they were fancy knickers not school knickers. Usually chocolate as well, this year I’m so behind with everything because of the bang on the head, I simply carried on working. It’s a long drag because the summer holidays don’t come around again until Christmas.

This year though I’m uncharacteristically cheerful and I have no idea why. The world is going to hell in a handcart.

Trump wants Greenland, he’s kidnapped the now ex-leader of Venezuela, and waging war on Iran . Putin is bombing Ukraine and The Congo (DRC) has war and Ebola, and Israel is storming castles in Lebanon.

Obviously I have reasons to be cheerful, everyone does if they look hard enough, it’s the small things that matter. My Sweetheart for instance, not that he’s small.