Are We Nearly There Yet?

A small, iridescent feather becoming a fairy’s wing. A toadstool a fairy’s house. A glimmer of light, a near-glimpse. A piwakawaka / fantail, a fairy-bird. Imagination dancing among green shadow and bird song.

A recent stay with my son, daughter in law and their small child was off-the-scale pleasant.

Nice to take time in late afternoon sunshine to wander, past flowering hedges nuzzling soporific bumblebees, down to the shoreline where fragrant, coppery forests of gleaming kelp swirl and sway.

Nice to have the time to take it all in – the slurp as rock pools fill and / or empty with each small crash of a lapping wave … the rueful call of black-backed gulls … the scrape and shift of shells and sand.

After we’d left the beach, we looked back to see a seal emerging from the waves, its appreciation of the sun’s glossy heat on its body plain to see as it blissfully threw back its head to savour the warmth. It was truly the perfect example of a seal giving its seal of approval.

On another day, a walk through the forest at Herbert, with granddaughter on a gleeful hunt for elusive fairies. A small, iridescent feather becoming a fairy’s wing. A toadstool a fairy’s house. A glimmer of light, a near-glimpse. A piwakawaka / fantail, a fairy-bird. Imagination dancing among green shadow and bird song.

Serious, solemn-faced Teddy accompanied us on each adventure – sitting in the back seat with his seat belt on, wearing a sunhat and socks on the way to kindy.

“Teddy wants to know are we nearly there yet?” Granddaughter asks five minutes into the ride.

All too soon it was time for Grandma to leave the idyll of seaside-village life and head on down the road, back to city living but taking with me rich memories of whanau / family and life lived well.