Well, it’s been a quiet week in Waikikamukau

where all the women are strong…and apt to correct your sleep habits. The blogging process, in my personal experience, often begins when the blogger is lying awake in bed wondering if a natural need awoke the sleeper (for instance, necessary micturation) or whether one’s sleep was being improved. (It’s a good time to draw a few thoughts together and sketch out a sentence or two.) One’s sleeping is improved or corrected—the second being the path to the first—by one's being nudged, ever so gently at first but then with increasing firmness. This may lead to the sleeper rolling over into a position where snoring ceases for a period, or, just as easily, to a wakeful period of an hour or two. Lying awake this morning, wondering why sleep had left me, I could only wonder if I had failed the improvement process. There was some light in the room. I had been awake for a while listening to various bird calls and realized that it was already dawn—the alarm clock read 5:40 AM!

Saturday night was the first performance of ‘Giselle’. After three days of rehearsals, Tessa was in the pit as concertmaster for the Southern Sinfonia accompanying the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Wim, Lily and yours truly did some serious tube time while she was working, catching the Simpsons and then So You Think You Can Dance. The young’ins then tried some new moves and were tucked away, inspired and happy. My mindless entertainment continued with Sin City—a black epic (cartoon/movie) with story by Frank Miller. A little of something for everyone.

On Sunday we exhausted our store maple syrup supply with the blueberry buckwheat pancake/egg/bacon breakfast. Lily opined that if they had a show called So You Think You Can Cook Pancakes that I would definitely be a winner. Typical Lily thoughtful sweetness! Lily’s invitation to a birthday party supplied something different for Sunday’s dance card. Her party was at an ice skating rink. Willem and I could not resist the lure and ended up skating too. It was great fun! In the meantime, equipped with binoculars, Tessa went off to find high ground whence she might spot an iceberg! (She tried again today, again without success, but we hear there’s another massive one on the way…). There have been beautiful photos in the paper of the frozen visitors. Sunday was capped with a second ‘Giselle’ performance. Wim, Lily and I sat in the Dress Circle and mom played away in the pit. It was a treat (at least for the audience).

Like the sleep business, the topic of climate returns for renewed scrutiny. Two ice events in one day reminds me that it is clear from some blog feedback just how difficult it has been to convey our everyday climate and temperature, and that this effort has not totally succeeded. True, Spring is in full swing. Most rhododendrons have finished blooming, the fuchsia have come and gone and the roses, among other things, are blooming like nobody’s business. Flower gardens are looking most attractive. Because it is never below freezing here in Dunedin, the trees and flowers that grow all year long are thriving on the new intensity of the sun. Even still, most days the air is generally somewhere between chilly and cool. When I arise to begin the tea ceremony, to a long-sleeved flannel top, I add a corduroy shirt, a thick sweater, a warm vest, underpants, long-underwear and lined trousers, socks and slippers. It is true that I have ventured out in shorts 3 or 4 times. (Guy Fawkes day for instance, was warm and in the high 70’s all day.) About three days ago, I took a walk in shorts but by 4 PM it was very chilly and damp and the layers had to be piled on again. There have only been a handful of mornings when it was not necessary to combat the chill in the kitchen by turning on the electric oil heater. We’ll let you know when and if summer really takes control of the climate in a way familiar to us New Englanders. We are hard put to prepare for a summer Christmas. It is strange to see X-mas sales advertised on the same page of the paper along side hay fever nostrums.

(And, what about Thanksgiving?)