It turns out that mum is on broadband (though she hardly uses it). So here I am.
Auckland doesn't change. Or rather my Auckland doesn't change. My first response, getting off the plane about 6.30 in the morning, jet lagged but not crippinglingly, was how dazzling it is: literarily (the sunlight on the blue sea is blinding) and metaphorically.
Despite the fact that house prices have gone through the roof, that people endlessly complain about traffic jams, overpopulation, despoilation of the natural environment and so on (which may all be fair enough) it still feels raffish, incomplete, relaxed and charming to me. Yesterday I walked down to Cockle Beach about ten minutes down the hill to the north from my mother's house. There must have been about 200 Cook Islanders there, almost no Maori or Pakeha. Some wore tiaras of flowers around their head (I am sure there is a technical name for these but I dont know it); young men strummed guitars; families were collecting shell fish; old people asleep under blankets; small children everywhere and only they spoke English. It was a scene from Gauguin, even if they were clearly all from a very intact Christian denomination since there was no drink anywhere. And its that mix of the rather proper white suburbia with various alternatives (islander, maori, diasporic chinese) set into this extraordinarily benign natural setting which characterises the place.
The flipside is that Auckland is more langorous than any other city I know. The air is seeded with boredom and indifference: it possesses a thickness that keeps all intensities at bay.
Auckland in summer: dazzling langour.
In spite of that I have to work: my book proposal and a revision of my essay on Milton.