Living in a 'less-than-perfect' paradise: Wellington Anniversary 2022

Wellington Anniversary Day, and the first day of the whole country under the red light to deal with Omicron. No reflections on COVID however, just a brief bit of history, an amalgam of various things I did on the extended weekend, and a poem written long ago about this “mix-and-match … pavlova and pizza, less-than-perfect paradise” that I call home.

Wellington Anniversary is celebrated on the closest Monday to 22 January, the date on which the first European settler ship to Wellington – the Aurora – arrived in the harbour in 1840, carrying 148 emigrants and 21 crew. This followed the hastily arranged sale of land in the area by Te Atiawa iwi to the (English) New Zealand Company after their advance party arrived on the Tory on 20 September 1839. Notably before the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. (Read my earlier blog on how that initial Wellington settlement was ruled by a Committee.)

This Saturday past, I was welcoming people ashore, in both te reo and English, to Matiu, the island in the middle of the harbour returned to local iwi Taranaki Whānui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika in 2009 as part of a Treaty settlement.

On Sunday afternoon I was conversing in Dutch and English at the Dutch Club at Avalon House, and learnt the distinction between Hollandse (mainstream ‘proper’ Dutch, to some), and Brabantse (my father’s dialect, from the South). Fifty to sixty years after their arrival, there is still gentle rivalry between those of my father’s generation who emigrated here from different parts of the Netherlands. For some, parochialism never dies.

Then on Monday afternoon, I participated in a murder mystery over a well-catered lunch, set in 1899 Victorian England at the invitation of the (fictitious) George Sweet, Earl of Coddingham. A splendid, if somewhat disturbing affair. All in fun.

And with the sun shining strongly all through the weekend, twice I was able to cool down at the end of the day in the relatively warm waters of Te Whanganui-a-Tara.

All reflective of the nature of the place where I live, Aotearoa New Zealand, where many of us are still finding our place here. Expressed in this poem written several Governor-Generals ago:

 

Kauri and Bricks

In a quiet corner, outside 

the Great War Exhibition

grows a small kauri

twice my height.

 

It’s outta place here, ya’ know.

It’s natural habitat

north of Auckland.

But marauding humans

have fossicked around

long enough

to plant

this one here, that one there,

mixing it all up.

 

No plant knows now

where it’s supposed to be.

 

*

 

Through the trees,

I spy

the layered brickwork

of the old Police Barracks.

A bastion of Britain,

in this farthest-flung outpost of Empire.

 

The National Anthem strains

through the trees:

“God defend New Zealand”,

before the Last Post

sounds for the Last Time

for Governor-General Mateparae.

 

This quiet corner of the globe

is a mix-and-match

half-gallon, 750 ml

townhouse and quarter-acre

pavlova and pizza

less-than-perfect paradise.

 

Kes Young