I do most of my thinking as I drive into work each morning. Sometimes I even do it out loud. I come down Ngarunga Gorge and there is a sweeping corner with a tiny sign that proclaims proudly, ‘Wellington’. In one breathtaking scene, the city is laid out before me, motorway snugly  curving next to the sparkling harbour.

It is just beautiful here, the sky is clear blue, even in the city, where tiny wooden cottages wrestle for space with huge structures made of concrete and chrome, even in the city where pohutukawa trees scream scarlet as they burst into bloom, and I think to myself “I want him to come in the summer time”

January, 2001