Free Range Chickster
Did I miss the Rapture?
I have spent the whole day driving the West Coast – it’s incredible, endless, endless, endless and lush. I had to say farewell to my lovely animals, even had to have a wee cry when those dogs looked at me like I was a traitor to leave them. After a bit of avoiding the flash spots in Queenstown, I am heading north.
The West Coast is something else. I feel as though I am a dot, a tiny mark on the page of a coffee table book - Scenic New Zealand - very small and irrelevant (well actually I am small and irrelevant anyway). The landscape is so over-powering and …. empty. Honestly, no traffic, no houses, no shops, no cell phone coverage, no radio – just me with my foot on the accelerator.
Did I miss the Rapture while I was faffing round with those animals? Perhaps I am the only one that got left behind – too naughty to go up there I suppose.
So a solitary day - windy roads, gee they have a lot of one-lane bridges down here. A bit tense for me because I am only 99.9 percent sure that I won’t actually crash into the side of it. No other traffic anywhere and heaps of signs for toilets – and heaps of actual toilets. They seem to have about ten (well - maybe five perhaps??) signs for indicating toilets ahead and then the actual toilet; so the whole journey is punctuated by toilet awareness. Is this to counter the disgusting roadside defecation that tourists are reputed to indulge in?? Or do they just like putting up those dinky wee buildings?? I kind of liked the marae-esque style one in the picture but honestly, there is a godamm lot of bush out there and no people.
And now for something completely different – since it’s the Queen’s mourning weekend (is that what we are calling it? – I’m a bit out of touch now) – here’s my Queen poem.
MAY FLIGHTS OF ANGELS SING THEE TO THY REST
Whether my life be long or short she said with her perfect diction.
The Queen’s English.
A beautiful dark-haired girl with no guile.
A rope of pearls circling her slender neck.
I promise to serve she said, for my whole life.
Did she ever imagine her life would be the golden thread, carried down decades?
Keeping her word as she kept her faith.
Seven long decades, through war, through loss, love, and the seething sixties, unemployment, poverty, revolution in the streets as the Irish and the miners fought back.
Ghastly brutal governments and weak Prime Ministers with strange hair styles, scandals at Downing Street.
She served as she had promised.
Did she ever imagine a force like Diana, bringing her monarchy to its knees, her entitled and arrogant offspring, playing polo games with history.
The guileless girl grew steel and stamina
And we grew to love her for it.
She is gone, pageantry past.
May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
