I bike past the wild West Coast punga man. His plants are bona fide bush specimans, he even has a silver fern, our Kiwi symbol. I've never seen one and am drawn by the silver blue hue on the upside of the fronds. It's beautiful. Priced accordingly so I buy a bog standard punga. Wheke dicksonia, hardy in sun and wind. Perfect for Christchurch. The pungas I've got already do well on my whenua. Kahu's used to travelling with God knows what in the car and doesn't blink an eyelid when he gets in beside the fern. Biff is amused as she hands an axe through the window. We're going on another seaweed expedition. I keep expecting Kahu to turn up his nose but he's amenable. I must have trained him well. Quick stop at Nicky's for a tile inspection, ka pai e hoa. As we leave she's tackling her front deck.
The sea air speaks of far away places we can't go to right now. The water is also inviting but, as yet, too cold. There's seaweed about, submerged in sand and difficult to move. We yank out all we can then pay homage to another of Llew's voluptuously bulky heroines. She's happily sunbathing in the salt air as she has for the last 20 years since I've been coming to North Beach. Ageing better than me, but I can get into the water.
It doesn't take long to chop and sow the seaweed then I'm left to move plants. Today I'm repositioning creepers...honeysuckle, jasmine...and wondering what else I'm going to move. It was easy to plonk plants out of the way of the rebuild but putting them where they will spend the rest of their natural lives requires consideration, and time.
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