Of all places, Southland suits me

OPINION: Lately, mornings have arrived wrapped in fog; the morning sun hesitates before poking a hot finger through the gloom, writes Patricia Soper in this week's And Another Thing.

The garden, naturally, is grateful for every drop of moisture. It shrouds every leaf and picks out every web. On sultry nights I leave my bedroom windows open, running the gauntlet of our feline, who finds such invitations irresistible after quitting his nocturnal marauding. So much for the cat-flap.

The superficial garden moisture burns off quickly when the sun finally exerts its authority. There is nothing half-hearted about summer now. My habits have changed, which is interesting, but only when I manage to feel objective – mostly I'm too exhausted to feel anything but grumpy. But what can you expect from someone born within a stone's throw of the Arctic?

I think a lot about my childhood, and how I can barely remember summers, let alone fierce heat. Mostly I recall winters, with endless weeks of snow and ice and the ploughs that peeled the roads, leaving margins stained with the detritus of buses and lorries. Last month my cousin emailed me a photograph of myself as a child of four. I was wearing a cotton dress. Amazing. Flanking the cobbled street in which I'm standing are two symmetrical rows of identical dockers' dwellings. They are joined and follow the steep fall of road; the only point of interest is a corner tobacconist that, strangely, I remember very well. A woman stands in its doorway, squinting into the fractured sun. In the distance is a dockyard with various workshops; a high brick wall divides this tangle of unfathomable industry from what passes for urban life.

My sister, who visited northeast England a few years ago, told me that this street, and indeed much of what I vaguely remember, no longer exists, replaced by trendy dockside developments or simply levelled. But not the tobacconist. It still stands against the relentless tide of change, a monument to another time, like a single, defiant bookend.

Childhood memories are notoriously faulty. I acknowledge this, my forgotten cotton dress a case in point. But my chilly childhood might explain why I find hot weather so trying and why I have never mastered summer pursuits, such as lying about on beaches or messing about in boats or camping or even being enthused by summer clothes. You could say that my genetic profile runs contrary to these things. I have to conclude that of all the places I could have ended up, Southland – apart from its occasional hot spells – suits me well.

» Athol-based Patricia Soper is a food and feature writer, columnist and retired public speaker.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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