New Year’s resolution

We twa hae paidl’d in the burn, frae morning sun till dine; But seas between us braid hae roar’d sin’ auld lang syne—eternal childhood memories of summer, including this one, judging by the sounds rising from the beach at Ōpahi. Auld Lang Syne Robert Burns

I was asked about my New Year’s resolution.

Momentarily feeling a pang of remorse, I had to admit that I hadn’t thought about the matter. I hope I didn’t give my neighbour the impression I considered New Year’s resolutions, or particularly her resolution, cliché. I didn’t, but then nor do I believe cliché has always to be despised.

New Year’s eve at Ōpahi was so near to perfection that it verged on the cliché. Aided by email, a general invitation had gone out to the Mahurangi West community to attend a bonfire on the beach containing the practically irresistible morsel:

Brian Ladyman is going to roast a lamb on a spit.

Brian would later give credit to another for the actual cooking but all present were plied with fresh buns brimming with deliciously roasted lamb. Very civilising and, while there was clearly a cost to somebody for this extraordinary hospitality, I couldn’t help feeling that it was far more cost-effective than a liquor ban.

Of course the chief ingredient that ensured that the evening was good-natured and thoroughly pleasant, in spite of there being sufficient alcohol at hand to fuel a substantial riot, was ownership—the community is small enough for a sense of ownership to occur naturally. The mix of relative newcomers and those with old connections to the area appears, at least to this 1974 newcomer, to be entirely comfortable.

It wasn’t all-perfect: I could have done more to cause the almost circle of Auld Lang Syne-ers to meet up where it failed to meet up, immediately to my right. And neither volume nor tunefulness entirely did the memories of our parents’, much less their parents’, generations proud, but there is always next year. And how could I ‘la, la, la’ through the second line, after surely hearing the words ‘and never brought to mind’ for 61 years (counting New Year 1947 in vitro)!

My belated New Year’s resolution is dedicated to my neighbour Annie and to the others who left such a warm glow when first the Mahurangi Magazine, then Jade River : A History of the Mahurangi and finally membership of Friends of the Mahurangi was mentioned to me

• To publish at least one fresh page in the Mahurangi Magazine every day…

…that the magazine may increasingly form an integral part of Mahurangi community daily life, encouraging the belief that all the good things that we want for the harbour and river are in our hands.

Footnote As editorials don’t count as content, under the self-imposed rules, the editor has also published today: The Mahurangi Punt: One of Two Icons