In the beginning

The morning is bright, the harbour is a mill pond, there are cloud trails drifting over the valley (cirrus, if you must know) and the dog is basking in a patch of sunlight, enthusiastically licking his privates. It couldn’t be a better start to the school holidays. Especially for the dog.

At the risk of wanging on about spring, I’m literally dodging tūī in this suburb. The skies are full of low-flying males driving each other off, or posing on branches with fluffed-up plumage, stringing together beautiful melodies and low chocking sounds to attract local females. And you can’t hear yourself over the whirr of feathers. Apparently the loud brr is entirely on purpose, because the draggy sound of wind across wings impresses the ladies. Honestly, tūī are as preening and self-involved as any nineties garage band, except wildly more talented.

Only this morning I watched a pair in the cherry tree outside our yellow front door competing for flowers. The smaller of the pair nudged his rival all the way along a branch in awkward hopping movements, like theatregoers side-stepping along an aisle before a show, trying to find their seats. The bigger one flicked to a different branch but then it happened again, nudge-nudge-nudge all the way along, until he gave up. The titch had chutzpah.

Tūī are so dominant in Karori they’re entirely unconcerned by us, so you can get pretty close to them. I like to go underneath. Their nectar-loving curved bills and grippy claws could probably do some damage but I think they like attention, so it’s possible to stand within reaching distance and watch them feed. It’s very cute to see their white cravats bobble about when they’re glugging the sweetness from kōwhai bells. They’ve an oily sheen to their blackness, like they’ve been dipped in petrol, and a straggly white shoulder cloak that almost ruins their perfection. Who doesn’t love a tūī, though I wish they’d let other birds get a look-in sometimes. Basically, they’re drunks who hog the bar.

Anyone who’s lived through Wellington in September knows you can’t bank on blue skies and unruffled seas until early December, at least. It is, after all, the season of flying trampolines.

Still, when we drove my husband to town yesterday afternoon for the All Blacks test, the city was splashed in sunshine, crisp, beautiful and windless. And it was teeming with sixty-thousand cheerful out-of-towners: Wallabies supporters and knots of well-groomed women presumably from the fertile lowlands of the Manawatū, here for the annual WOW fashion show.

‘They must think it’s like this all the time,” I remarked. “They must think we can wear T-shirts outside at night.” Honestly, if Wellingtonians could wear T-shirts outside at night, we would be different people. I don’t think we would read as much; we’d be stand-up paddle-boarding instead, probably.

To those who know, this city hasn’t shaken winter. George’s school had to postpone its annual celebration of culture by a week because so many kids and teachers had the lurgy. It was a nasty virus, too, with soaring temperatures and claggy coughs. Our carpool collapsed, and for a week it was only George and me on the commute, winding our way into the countryside each morning and back home again at three.

Low numbers threatened the school production, which was to consist of each class performing a Māori myth to explain the separation of earth and sky, and the hauling up from the depths of the North and South Islands. Too many cast members were sick; Māui caught a cold. Still, we put in our food orders (butter chicken, $10) and hoped for the best.

You feel a strange mix of anticipation and dread when you’re driving towards what may be an enjoyable evening in a country hall, while also knowing it could be a super-spreader. You hope it will be worth the risk.

You arrive and it’s already full swing. The food is going to be great, with piles of fry bread on platters and steam billowing from the serving hatch. The rows are noisy and packed with parents. You find friends to sit with; there are babies in arms, grandparents, the school’s matriarch receptionist sitting with an EFT-POS machine, handing out meal tickets.

When the performances begin, they are gorgeous and hilarious, especially when the Year Ones straggle on stage. Little Papatūānuku tiptoes in on cue, wreathed in a cloak made of paper leaves with a green coronet on her head. The cuteness is unbearable.

Her husband Ranginui emerges on stage in his own paper cloak but when the theatrical moment comes for their children to separate them, the Earth Mother won’t hug the Sky Father. Their embrace is where it all begins but she rejects him and meanders off, presumably leaving the universe in darkness because nothing gets done unless a woman cooperates.

You and the mothers in the audience titter the loudest.

Anyone passing the hall this dark evening must be intrigued by the warm lights spilling into the valley and the sound of kids singing to guitar. The pony club ponies may even be raising their heads to listen to the story of this country, sung by barefoot children with pretend huia feathers spiked upright in their hair, the older ones leading the younger ones in the poi and the gestures, the tiny ones gently driven into position, like geese, by teachers hidden in the wings.

Oh, yes. It was worth it.

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Spring, of course, also means cleaning. I’ve been doing the usual rounds but can’t seem to keep on top of this house. As soon as I empty one hamper, new heaps of clothes materialize. There are lone, wet socks in weird places, thanks to the dog, and unspeakable things dragged out of the bathroom bin. George has discovered the joy of a German potato fritter (salt; grated potato, squeezed in a tea towel; a dash of flour and beaten egg if you must) but not the pleasure of scrubbing the pan or grater clean.

The cat is shedding, my husband constantly loses his ear buds, his glasses, his chargers; there are used nails and screwdrivers on windowsills and odd building supplies left behind by tradies (they look like giant cotton reels, looped with rubber cabling). Thick drifts of plaster dust keep reappearing on the stairs.

Most puzzling of all, until yesterday there was a weird fishy smell inside the fridge. In which there was no fish, or raw meat. I lost my cool last night around six and unloaded everything, wiped down all the surfaces, swilled out the vegetable crisper, and took it upon myself to sniff each item, which was heroic under the circumstances. The smell was thin, high and unpleasant - somewhere between mildew and rot. Even the dog left the kitchen.

It wasn’t the black beans in a tub. It wasn’t the cheese. It wasn’t any of the jams (why? Why so many jams?). It wasn’t the stupidly expensive prosciutto or the eggs, even though I broke one dodgy-looking one into the sink, just to make sure.

You know what it was? The flat brown mushrooms. Who knew they could reek like that, if buried under a rubble of apples for more than a week? Mushrooms are so stylish right now, beloved of the plant-based middle-classes, a staple of foragers, vegans and vegetarians, and yet they lie in their brown bags and wait, ready to turn on their captors. It’s sinister and makes me think we don’t understand the first thing about fungi.

The call is coming from inside the fridge.

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A darkening sky, a muscular wind and a dog out of shot, straining to toilet. I call this September, Karori.

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