Biking at Avalon Park

#1 and I went to Avalon Park on Labour Day to have some fun on the bicycle track. The track is a latice of minature roads with road markings and road signs, which is intended to be a fun way of parents teaching they kids about safety on the road.

On the way we stopped off at the bakery for a sausauge roll, bacon and cheese bun, and a coconut iced bun.

We split our bakery comestables more or less in half (i had the more #1 had the less) and ate them at the park, sitting down on a picnic mat laid out on the grass. Whilst eating we surveyed the kids already going around the track. As exciting as the track looked, there was no suggestion of haste from #1 over his meal. I admired how he could calmly progress through his 3 course feast, anticipating the fun to be had but giving his meal the time it was due. I sensed in him an "everything in good time" attitude, an attitude which will no doubt pass as he becomes more conscious of deadlines, transcience, aging, and all the other side effects of time that afflict those unfortunate enough to be tuned in to the ticking clock.


Notably a kid of seven going too fast crashed at an intersection with a younger child. the 7 year old boy was catapulted from his bike and tumbled 3 times before coming to a stop. An adult would have required an ambulance but the boy just stood up and dusted himself off.

He went back to his bike which was locked up with the younger boy's bike. The younger boy was rubbing his arm but otherwise unharmed. The older boy looked at me, mumbled something to the other boy, then stood looking at the boy, then me, back to the boy, and finally back to me. He then made some inaudible summary statement, mounted his bike and pedalled away giving me one last look as he departed at a much slower rate.

Afterwards i realised that his wary glances may have been because he thought i was the other boy's Dad. But certainly i was an adult, and all kids know that adults disapprove of accidents, especially ones where there is injury or broken property.

It was a seminal moment. Although i have long suspected that i was no longer a child the boy's wary glances, i realised were from across a vast 28 year gulf.

Mind you while #1 was riding his bike i was rolling along on my man sized scooter having a blast.

Standing on a donkey flying a kite

I went to the new Dowse with my family the other day, a gallery in Lower Hutt with a fine selection of modern New Zealand Art.

However, its very location across from the vast architectural turd of Westfield Mall is perhaps its finest work. Well it would be a potent statement on the vacuity of modern life, were it not for the fact that the Dowse was there long before the mall, so instead of sensing artistic defiance one feels a faint sense of tragedy.

I have lived in 'the Hutt' for 5 years and although pretty happy with life here, if it were not for nearby Wellington the 'Arts Capital of New Zealand' it's fair to say i might be slightly embarrassed by the lack of restaurants, nightlife, daylife, and culture.

The Dowse though is great.

One work by an artist with learning difficulties whose name i have forgotten or perhaps never read, was a painting of a man standing on a donkey flying a kite. The painting's caption said something about needing to stand on the donkey to ensure the kite could catch the wind higher up.

It struck me as a wonderful metaphor. It has inspired me to create this blog.

Mostly the blog is about the donkey. Occasionally the blog attempts to be the kite dancing in the sky. I will always be the man donkey-surfing, arms flailing, arse out.