I'm in New Zealand now. Just got out of Heathrow before the snow and ice made things very difficult. I truly hope you all survived... I don't think I would have.
Here, they've had the wettest summer ever. It's really difficult to keep abreast of climate changes and the extremes of weather that we're having to endure of late. I watch the New Zealand TV weather reports and am amazed that it always seems to be blowing up a storm in the Pacific Islands... Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Cook Islands and others in that group. It seems to be raining there constantly. Not the image we have in mind of tropical island paradise.
In Auckland yesterday they had waterspouts over the harbour. On land they would have been classified as tornados and might have done a lot of damage. Here on the Coromandel Peninsula we had wonderful rainbows.
No doubt, like me, you grew up with the tale of the pot of gold being at the end of the rainbow. You can read different interpretations into this. There's no doubt that a rainbow seems to embody a sense of optimism and hope... like a light at the end of a tunnel. I never found a pot of gold, but this rainbow's reflection ends almost at the bottom of my garden. I like to think of this sanctuary of mine as my pot of gold. It's a place I come to to unwind, to re-charge my batteries, to re-connect with friends and family and to kick-start the creative side of my whatever you call the thing that drives you to create and communicate. For all of that, I'm prepared to endure the long journey (and the expense) for as long as I can. And I'm not alone. Our local croquet club here has members who come every year from far flung places; from Aberdeen and Andorra, New York and The New Forest, Hertfordshire, Gloucestershire and Guernsey. They call us Godwits (a bird that makes the return trip Alaska to NZ every year) and they welcome us with open arms... literally. It's a small world really and we all seem to be seeking the same thing. A sanctuary and time to reflect on just what our personal pot of gold holds.
