CBD by Miranda Spary
I’m thinking of firing my editor. Old ladies like me worry all the time that they might be getting dementia so it was very cruel of him to leave a text message saying the column hadn’t arrived on Monday morning just before said old lady goes to yoga. He had accidentally deleted it himself but I’d had an hour of worrying it was time for me to enter the Home for the Terminally Bewildered. PHEW!
Wasn’t the NZ Open great? I don’t even watch golf, but on the last afternoon it was really fun being down at the sunny 18th hole catching up with lots of friends. Having no entrance fee meant there were masses of families and young people enjoying the music and delicious food from the many foodtrucks on site. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t even know who had won the tournament until I got home and saw the happy Japanese guy on TV. He did look VERY happy!
And there’s now a very happy one-armed man - I was talking to the producer (or maybe director) of a TV series that’s being made here, and he was struggling to find a one armed actor for a particular role. He was chatting with me in a cafe, and suddenly leapt up and ran out to talk to a man with a baby in his one arm. Would he be interested in a film career? He most certainly WOULD!! Life moves in very strange ways….
We had accepted an invitation to a fundraising lunch for something called NZ SAS Trust at Mana Whenua - the amazing lodge that Mutt Lange and Shania Twain built between here and Wanaka. I only went because I am CHRONICALLY nosy and thought I could cope with some boring speeches. What a surprise - it was fascinating and we heard about the trust they have set up for the families of those brave men and women. I’m a soldier’s daughter and although we lived all over the world, my British soldier dad was never away from home for more than a couple of months. NZ SAS are often away for more than a year and this trust uses donations to help the families cope while their parents are away, or if they get injured or killed. When I was little, I didn’t know anyone whose father wasn’t a soldier, and once we got to Arrowtown, it seemed very weird that fathers had different jobs - mostly farming. Only a couple of my friends had fathers who’d been soldiers but I didn’t know that until Anzac Day became so popular after the 1990 75th anniversary of Gallipoli. Now it’s an enormous event where the public show their appreciation of people who are brave enough to risk their lives for their country and as some of my American friends say, it’s our equivalent of Thanksgiving.
For all you Latin lovers and dance nuts, there’s a special event at Dorothy Browns on Tuesday LET THE DANCE BEGIN - it’s a film about a trio of tango dancers who reunite after thirty years and travel through Argentina. Can’t wait!!
