Summer in New Zealand

I took a walk down to the main thoroughfare street in Auckland’s CBD today.

Queen Street is arguably the most popular street in Auckland city. It is maybe a kilometre - or two - long (I am very bad with distances) and one end leads to the waterfront club district known as the Viaduct; while the other end takes you towards the motorway which will take you away from central Auckland. A lot of adjacent streets are quite famous in their own right; like the Victoria street which houses the Sky-Tower, tallest structure in the southern hemisphere.

Or so they say.

Queen Street just underwent a MAJOR upgrading and beautification exercise which saw the expansion of the pedestrian walkways, addition of benches and general work to make it more user-friendly to pedestrians. And the pedestrians were out in full force today.

It is the middle of summer here in Auckland and although the day today is a bit overcast and cloudy, there is still a very nice humid feel to the air. The kind that brings to mind a June day in Lagos. And the afore-mentioned pedestrians dressed the part! T-Shirts, Tank-tops, skimpy shorts, spaghetti tops, jandals, And oh so many different shades of shades. Sunglasses that is.

A favourite mental exercise I am constantly playing is I zero in on 2 apparent strangers and build this whole complicated history and story around the both of them. How they might be connected, what they are doing, why they are where they are… fantastic stuff! I usually end up putting these poor ‘characters’ into such ludricuos situations and dilemmas I am laughing with and to myself! Of course there was still the odd sprinkling of formally dressed people as this IS still the CBD afterall. But even these ones were seated in outdoor cafes – ties and buttons loosened – obviously having lunch and making me wonder if they intend to return to work!

The weather is one of the safest topics to cover in a conversation and in Auckland it gives more than a few talking points. Anything from the harshness of the sun – the ozone layer is thinner in this part of the world – to the fact that you can get 4 different seasons all in the same day. It has especially been a talking point in my office as the air-conditioning has broken down on my floor and we were actually asked to come to work in cool clothes as it got unbearably hot, stuffy and humid! My floor is one of those where you cant open the windows and relies heavily on the cooling system. Thank Goodness they got that fixed!

Temi was especially pleased to learn she would be arriving in the hottest month of the year. I wonder how she will cope with the cold after this especially hot summer!
Hang on…. What I am doing inside sitting at my computer blogging about the wonderful weather outside???
DUH!!!