The Stockholm winter struck early this time, in the dull, dark days of November, growing invreasingly severe, albeit somewhat brightening the December darkness. Friends with living space at ground level complained of being blocked in, of having to shovel aside great mounds of snow, and then when the temperature rose and the rain fell only to freeze, of the bone-breaking hazard of stepping out of the front door. The hospitals are overworked when it's like that.
All this I have noted with great sympathy and understanding while contemplating the blue-green waters of the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland, and now the gently rippling surface of Lake Taupo on the central plateau of New Zealand’s North Island. The temperature is in the mid-20s Celsius, the sun bright, the sky blue, while a bellbird in the shade of a nearby tree provides a wondrous musical background to my thoughts. I can put words to his song. ‘Do you know how well-off you are?’ he warbles.
Listen! There he goes again.
Postscript: I have been to Auckland many times before but not until this latest visit have I seen people begging in Queen Street, the main commercial thoroughfare in the country’s largest city by very far. No bellbirds there.
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