Break the glass and hit the panic button Labour

[Kenj]

Ahhh but our rainwater tanks (plural) were at the back of the two baches my grandparents owned on the beach at Orewa. The little weatherboard house right at the top of the dunes, with the Army hut at the back for us kids. Oh it was heaven. Hours and hours to get there from home in whichever green tree suburb my parents were renovating the latest flip project, but oh once there it was heaven. Bonfires on the beach, watching and helping pull the nets in, screaming in mock horror at flapping fish, being brave enough to bite the tongue off pipis freshly plucked from the sand in the shallows. No poverty there, hard work for sure, the entire family working in the factory in Newmarket, or out on the road selling, doing well, until the import rules changed and Japan then China cut the bottom out of Made in New Zealand.

Gentle years, conditioned me beautifully to love gorgeous things, to know how to put up wallpaper, and to understand that things never stay the same, live in the present, because tomorrow brings surprises. It really is true, those childhood years create the adult to come, strengths and weaknesses both.

Gentle years is a good description. None of the pressures that young folk have these days. Looong gone are my days of home maintenance, but I never paid anyone to do anything I could legally do myself. paint, paper, concrete, moving internal walls..... it just goes on. All taught to me by my Dad, bless him!