326kg

That was how much that big pumpkin weighed from my last post. I realised I never told you. Poor things, you must have been tossing about every night, unable to sleep, weeping into your respective pillows and gnashing your teeth in despair at not knowing. Well I hope this brings you peace.

326kg! When I told Graham he just said, 'they grow twice as big as that in the US.' That blows my mind.

Rachel: 'do you know what the secret to big pumpkins is, Connie?'
Me: (obviously) 'No.'
Rachel: (stage whisper) 'TPN.'

The weather's picked up again for a last hurrah but the sea is absolutely bloody freezing. I know because I tried to go for a swim in it last week and nearly froze my face off. That's the last time I make that mistake this year.

Instead I've been looking at it.

Here it is from the Coromandel.

And here it is from the Mahia peninsula.

(Fig. 1: Tim recoiling from the effort of stone skimming)

And here it is (distantly) from a pool of hot water we're burning our bottoms in in Hot Water Beach. Yes - we finally finally got to Hot Water Beach and we had a proper spade and we managed to find some hot water. We even stayed in Tatahi lodge, where I stayed with Robert the previous year.

It didn't feel like more than a year could have passed, but here we are, almost a year and a half in New Zealand, almost two years out of the UK.

And only a month and a half left until we finish work and go back (via a bit of South Island of course) and get back on the treadmill. Now that the time is almost up we've been ticking off the last few things to do on our list. The East Cape drive for one:

The East Cape drive isn't really one you can hurry and it's not really a drive that tourists do that often - it takes about 3 days and nothing really happens on it: all there is to see is wonderful views and a load of beaches 'great for lazin', surfin', and fishin',' as the local guide says (really: the guide is basically a list of beach names with apparently random permutations of 'great for'and 'lazin', surfin', fishin', sailin', swimmin', and kayakin' - but mostly 'lazin'') and some beautiful Maraes and churches:

This is the country where Whale Rider is set and Boy was filmed - real Maori heartland. It feels along the East Cape that we are heading into another country altogether, that we've barely scratched the surface of while we've been here - not The Real New Zealand, but A Real New Zealand, another version of NZ we've only caught glimpses of.

The days have definitely turned chillier now and it is autumn now for sure. We went to our old favourite, the arboretum, for a walk this weekend and everything was a glow of orange and red.

A lot of people have asked me 'what do you do when you're not at work' which is quite a hard question to answer. I can't really quantify it, but I know I have done everything I could. I've got nothing tangible to show for it but memories and a deep, abiding satisfaction and contentment and feeling completely refreshed, recharged and ready to get back onto the training ladder and work my little guts out back in the UK. But all the while knowing that there's some corner of the world that remains, as the poet didn't say, forever East Cape, forever for lazin' and surfin' and always sunny and the same, and which doesn't give a rat's ass about what I'm doing with my career. Which is tremendously satisfying.

I don't even wish I'd started writing my Great  Novel (again, for the 14th time.) This time is all about collectin' material and lettin'it coalesce. And reading fiction and doing crosswords and watching reruns of Elementary. It all settles down, I reckon, and gets used up for a great plot some time in the future, maybe.

And, in the wise words of my Ed Supervisor back at Oxford, Susie Dunachie - 'the best advice I've ever got about my medical career was from my Supervisor. And he said, 'the most important thing to know in medicine, Susie, is when to slack off.''

And she then proceeded to tell me a story about how she flew away for a 2 week holiday to Thailand when she was meant to be doing a PhD and when she came back she has to explain away her tan by pretending it was jaundice and the whole time she had been in ITU.

 Well I got my tan from a beach on the Coromandel. And I've got no regrets. And no publications this year, and no audits. And I feel pretty damn good about that too. I reckon that's about the last year for the next 40 or so I'll be able to say that, and I'm not sure I'm going to appear quite ever so jaundiced again.

Love
Connie