Happy Waitangi Weekend

It was Waitangi Day yesterday. I did think about it but I was painting... I guess I was indulging in another history. I do wonder, though, what life would have been like if Hobson hadn't done his job, if the French had colonised New Zealand instead of the British. I enjoy Akaroa, New Zealand's little piece of France.

Mmmmm... growing up with French cuisine instead of English/Scottish... but then I remember the late 1960s and French testing in the Pacific, particularly at Mururoa, and then the 1985 sinking in Auckland of the Rainbow Warrior when it was not so good having a French surname, and I am happy to just be Kay or Katie of no fixed heritage or abode!

But oh how the mind jumps about! From Waitangi Day to the song about a yellow polka dot bikini... I can't think about weapons and nuclear testing in the Pacific without including the Marshall Islands and Bikini Atoll... and the itsy bitsy teeny weeny... (nostalgia warning: if you click on the song, listen to the static, watch the arm of the record player and drift back 40 years!)

Last year I shunned the thought of perpetual summer, living between two hemispheres, believing that I need all seasons and therefore no more Waitangi Day holidays for me. Thinking of the holiday weekend in the New Zealand summer as I add yet another layer of woollen clothing to keep warm I do wonder at my sanity a little!

The house I live in is older than the nation where I grew up. Sometimes such concepts mess with my brain a little.

Here is the Wikipedia version of Waitangi Day, but personally I prefer the quiet dignity of the history link above. It encourages more reflection, perhaps?