Celebrated summer
Posted 1 January 2008 // Carl Walrond
Summer. The word conveys associations – sun, swimming, youth, listening to Hüsker Dü’s ‘Celebrated summer’.
Getting drunk out on the beach, or playing in a band
And getting out of school meant getting out of hand
New Zealand’s regional climates
I wish. I spent my school holidays in an empty Dunedin. Scarfies long gone. Locals inland. The north end a ghost town save a few flat painters. The ODT morphed into double-page spreads of red boozed-up flesh in Central O.
My parents moved north. Over the break Auckland has little traffic – the best time to visit. Last December looking down Newmarket’s Broadway I saw no cars, expected tumbleweeds.
Up north you head for the beach, down south the interior. Late December and early January weather can still suck the kumara – conditions are most settled in February and March. The hottest recorded day was 7 February 1973. The mercury reached 42.4°C at Rangiora (Canterbury) and Jordan (Marlborough) and 39.2°C at Ruatoria (East Coast).
I’ll be here. A cold beer on a hot day is the time of your life. Don’t shorten it working on a tan.
Make it your celebrated summer.
