Environment – The invincibility code

‘In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy.

For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.’ So wrote the French-Algerian existentialist philosopher Albert Camus.

After a grim 2023, we really needed to have an invincible spirit and an internal well of summer just to cope with the year. So once summer properly arrived, it was time to stock up. Time to lay a store of experiences, moments, laughter, adventure and some R&R to help heal the pain of the last year, of the anthropocene, and to bank some happiness resilience and invincibility for the year to come.For me, that meant paddleboarding among leaping fish in the warm rain in a green bay fringed with pohutukawa up north. It meant jumping off the pontoon and swinging on a rope from a tall tree with my mokopuna into the Wenderholm estuary. On that special day, my little great-nephew charmed the United Nations grannies of Wenderholm by toddling about the park towing his Buzzy Bee. I showed my beloved great-niece the magic of a pohutukawa tree.

We took friends sea kayaking. I swam and swam and swam along the Mahurangi coast. We camped in the shelter of the woolshed at Lagoon Bay.

After six years of closure, because of natural disasters that killed people and destroyed tracks and bridges, and management responses to kauri dieback disease, we were finally allowed back to some of the closed areas of the Waitakere Ranges. We, and all the other walkers we encountered back in the forest, sighed with relief at being among real forest, real trees, yet again. We saw tomtits, swooping kereru, stick insects and giant kauri, many hundreds of years old.

We tramped along the west coast and camped in a hidden and secluded forested valley. We swam naked in a rocky river pool in the rain. We watched sunsets, wondered at glistening moisture on caves in the night, saw infinite reflections in pooled water, oystercatchers bravely guarding nests. During an overnight stay at Tiri, we drank pohutukawa nectar straight from abundant flowers and laughed at our faces covered with pollen. We saw takahe chicks, tuatara, kororā coming ashore, kiwi and kokako skipping along the track.

I grew a bumper crop of cucumbers, gherkins, salad greens, beans and beetroot. The tomatoes are ripening, the blueberries are almost ready. The sunflowers have provided beauty, and food for birds. My sweetcorn is sweet. We harvested our compost pile for worm-rich humus that’s given my garden a boost. My flower garden has been a delightful medley of larkspurs, candytufts, harebell and marigolds with their merry gold. I’ve had time for pottery, for sketching, for catching up on overdue chores. Long daylight hours mean each day seems to last forever.

There are more adventures still to come. I’m building up my defences for winter. Invincibility is my aim.