The wind is squealing at the window-cracks as I sit typing this on the 16th floor of our apartment block in Upper Queen St. The last time I heard that noise was in Edinburgh, in the swaying monstrosity of the David Hume Tower (Scandinavian Studies: 13th floor). Now I'm in Auckland - and while Mr Q dozes beside me and little Pie just across the hall, it's time to write about my New Zealand holiday.
It's two in the afternoon here on a gloomy and rainswept day. We can't even see the North Shore for the drizzle. I said I wouldn't blog unless I got bored, but today is the exception: it's dreary and hard work out there. Not as bad as Kilburn High Road in the rain, but still, we're taking the afternoon off. We've been out already and encountered the wet and taken a few buses, had lunch at a fun Indian canteen on Karangahape Road and now we're back at the flat, a little tired and not too keen to get out in the grey day again just yet.
To tell you about the trip in its entirety, in time-honoured amateur journalistic fashion I should begin by saying that the journey to the airport was uneventful. Considering that I had opted to take public transport and the Heathrow Express with a baby, buggy, little backpack and massive rucksack, this was a blessing. Mr Pie was very happy with Heathrow - he loves a good crowd - and boarding a plane at 10pm didn't seem to faze him.
I wasn't such a happy bunny. Never again will I fly to the opposite pole, alone, with a baby on my lap (apart from for the return journey as I'm anxious to get back to Blighty whilst the last shudders of Election Fever can still be felt.) All the things aeroplanes do to make travel palatable, fun even - such as alcoholic drinks and up-to-the-minute cinema - are rendered completely useless. The baby wants to crawl around the aisle and explore neighbouring seats. The baby doesn't want to sleep in the bassinet when the lights are switched off. The baby wants to stick to UK time whilst everyone else bends to the will of the International Dateline. And so on for twenty-seven hours (or however long it was. I lost count and sanity).
After this test of my endurance, Auckland would have had to pull off something utterly spectacular (fireworks and dancing horses) to have convinced me that the journey had been worthwhile. It failed. Ratty and sleepless, I complained continually to Mr Q about how ghastly everything was. Our first walkabout, the day after my arrival, took us down to the Viaduct Basin, a piece of land 'reclaimed' from the harbour to make space for all those pretentious chrome'n'glass restaurants and faux-bonhomie pubs that need to be built. And then back up Queen Street, the main shopping and banking street, as featureless and American-branded as any rotten high street in the UK.
Luckily it was Pie's first birthday, and so his parents put aside their grievances against the modern world, and took the gentleman baby to the park for a go on the swings. This place, Myers Park, is directly below us when we look out of the apartment windows. There are palm trees and many other species of native arbor spread out below us. From our eyrie perspective we had believed the park to be flat, but down on the ground it has steep grassy slopes: it is in a sort of gully. The swings and slides are second to none. Pie was delighted, if a bit dazed. He woke me at two the next morning - attempting to make his bleary eyes bright and his crumpled tail look bushy - and lunged hungrily in the direction of the jalopy. I think he wanted to go out and have another go on those New Zealand swings.
Having recieved a 'Cease & Desist' notice for my crusading work against a ruthless band of petty theives (fly-by-night photographers), I am taking time out from the blogosphere. 
