Be careful what you ask for

OPINION: My resolution is to have as much fun as a child, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

Cynics would be pleased that Christmas Day had nothing on when I was a kid or when my kids were kids.

After eating too much I went for a walk with my eldest girl, taking a tiny ball that is meant to bounce on water.

The nearest water is the Otepuni Stream and we chose a section where the banks are low on both sides.

The game was to throw the ball into the Puni and bounce it to the other bank. But did the instructions include bouncing on river weed? That's the first rule of being a child – ignorance. The ball could sink to oblivion. It could bounce. Who knows?

My daughter was giggling with nervous anticipation as I wound up and released with all my strength. The ball slapped into the weed and burst upwards in a splash of urine coloured spray, clipping the far bank and hitting my daughter in the leg. She fell to the ground laughing and cheering. "You did it dad! Amazing!"

A while since I'd heard those words.

Now my daughter plunged the ball into the water with all her strength. In cricketing terms, it was a short delivery, clipping her side of the bank and plopping into the water a metre away.

We both fell about laughing at her failure.

Now the game had changed to getting the ball out of the 'Puni.

I lay prone on the ground, stretching my arm out. My fingertips just touched the ball enough to send it downstream. My daughter laughed and I scrambled up in hot pursuit.

This time she held my right arm while I stretched out above the water.

"Give me more length!"

She released a fraction. My fingers held the ball and I flicked it back on the bank.

"Yes, dad!" she yelled, flinging her hands in the air including the hand that was meant to be holding me. I clutched desperately at the stringy grass on the bank.

Clinging off balance all I could hear was my daughter shrieking with laughter. And then I laughed and laughed because I was helpless and any minute I could fall in the Puni.

And that was a delicious feeling I hadn't had for many Christmases.

How many more moments of ignorant bliss await me in Portland, USA?

» Gerry Forde is the Venture Southland regional identity brand manager.

- © Fairfax NZ News