tahunanui

The beach of my childhood is Tahunanui, just outside of Nelson.

 The place where I have been hiding out since Thursday.

I lie, as usual, I've been staying in Brightwater

at Jolly Hockeysticks Jo's mum's house.
Brightwater is near Nelson but isn't Nelson.

Jo and her mum have gone to Rarotonga for a week.

So I jumped on that one and asked if I could borrow

Pauline's, mother of Jo house.

Plus it's over Easter so extra quiet and super peaceful

in the sun

(until today, it's raining and I'm still in bed

but now have a bed headache.

Do you get those?

It's when you've stayed in bed too long playing on facebook,

not to be confused with a fb headache.

That, just is).

I love this image I caught on my new iPhone

(love it, wouldn't want to be without it, am almost completely fulfilled by it,

am considering proposing, to the iPhone that is).

I love walking though scrub tunnels with the promise of sunshine and surf.

Coming through the scrub tunnel out on to the beach.

Always, always makes me take a breath, followed by a sign of homecoming,

and a temptation to fall to me knees and kiss the sandy sand.

Thankfully this passes quickly, I'd inhale.

Finding a possie and taking a pew,

drinking in the sights, stopping for a minute to

prioitise unpacking, swimming, sunbathing, diving into a book,

taking a walk, swimming, sunbathing, swimming, sunbathing, sunbathing, sunbathing.

I like to think of Tahunanui as the beach of my childhood but the

reality is that, though I was born a stones throw from this beach,

we moved away when I was two.

I was pulled away to Blenheim just over the hill,

bludy big hill to be fair.

Blenheim has rivers, awesome rivers.

Rivers of fresh, flowing water.

Willow trees shading the banks.

It ain't Tahuna though.

The beach I spent my childhood summers on is Waihi Beach.

It's a good east coast beach in the Bay of Plenty.

(that means white sand in NZ, west coast beaches are black sand)

lengthy, endless sand and

enough surf to give you a tumble but not enough to drown you.

Considerably less glamous and peaceful than Tahunanui.

Regardless of which summer, there was always a beach

and usually a white sand beach,

Mags's preferrence.

Is this not the perfect beach?

The water is warm and laps at your feet.

The sand is light and white with silica and

compact, not soggy, easy to walk on near the sea.

The air is filled with the sounds of waves and fun.

The people are everywhere but

as it works on beaches, nowhere near you.

I've taken a couple of American friends to this beach.

Friends from land locked states like Utah.

They have no idea what you do at a beach.

That makes me want to cry.

It's totally foreign place for them.

I remember years ago arriving at another beach not far from Tahunanui called Rabbit Island

with my sister Pippapotamus

and the only-to-be-mentioned-when-I'm-drunk* Bilious.

Me and Pippapotamus jumped out of the car,

raced over the sand dunes and promptly did what we have done all our lives

and wrapped a towel around us,

stripped off underneath

and pulled on our togs**.

Never, in all our days would we have thought this was strange behaviour.

Where else do you get changed when the beach is miles from any amenities?

Besides the beach is for half naked people

(unless you are my grandfather Dave,

who wore a suit at all times, even to the beach)

But for Bilious it was all too much.

all too much this sheltered Mormon as they come, Utah boy.

He fled back to the car to get changed,

least that's where I think he went.

PLEASE NOTE: ALL IMAGES IN THIS POST ARE OF TAHUNANUI BEACH - sorry for the caps, I realised I hadn't been very specific in labeling the photos and am too lazy to go back to rewrite this post.

* I'm Mormon so never, never drink anything that would make me drunk - it's been years since I imbibed.  I don't miss the drinking and the things I did under the influence but sometimes I reminisce about a long, cold gin and lemonade or khalua and milk, or maybe a eye watering whiskey.  The Bilious story can wait for another day when I really do run out of things to post about.  That and I feel the need to expose every last fibre of my being to the oxymoronic world of the public/anonymous world of the bloggersphere.

** Togs = swimsuit.