Free Range Chickster

DON’T CRY FOR ARGENTINA

Apparently, an 18 foot ( that is the length of three big men laid end to end - haha), Albino Python climbed in someone’s bathroom window and scared the bejeezus out of them. I mean what kind of story is that? The Albino python (what is an Albino python for goodness sake?)- beggars belief, then the length of it and then in the window. Can we believe anything we hear these days? Life might just be a series of little scams getting followed by bigger scams into one gigantic scam. I am so removed from reality most of the time I wouldn’t have a clue.

I’m on a poetry course now – it’s terrifying. Everyone else seems to be so talented and they all know lots of big words! I feel like a carpetbagger from the north with a bag of tricks that any minute now will spill out all over the table and they’ll all find out the bag was full of subterfuge.

But a weekend in Christchurch is a little bit of respite.  Tonight I find myself in a bar with the rugby making big noise on big tvs all around the room. How did this happen? Not my dream Saturday night. One of my proudest achievements is my inability to name a single member of the All Blacks and not only that, neither can my daughter - it requires quite a lot of fortitude to ignore wall-to-wall rugby in this country. I think I could come up with Ritchie McCaw – but I have a feeling he might be out of it these days, probably doesn’t even live in New Zealand.

I messaged Laura and said, “How did this happen and how do I get through it?” and she said sagely, “ Just concentrate on how stylish the pale blue and white stripes look- don’t worry about the rest of it.”

Gosh it’s very noisy though.

Of course, I don’t want anyone getting the impression that my standards have slipped while down in Dunedin- fitting in with the locals is good but there is a limit!

So to keep my end up, earlier tonight and before all this mega noisy rugby malarkey, I went to hear the famous Liane Moriarty, (who wrote, among other things, the stunningly successful Big Little Lies) talking about what it’s like to be a famous writer - nooo, I’m not jealous or anything. I mean Nicole Kidman, Reece Witherspoon, Emmys etc. - who cares about that?

Actually she was so nice and so modest and so unassuming, it was a joy and I had to buy the book – kach-ing - it worked.

Anyway, no little life lessons for you today- it’s really really hard to feel like you are getting close to the meaning of life when you are in a pub surrounded by big gangs of shouting men- that is -  men shouting about things that are indecipherable and don’t matter a damn - gosh but I just saw an amazing beard in a blue and white jersey though- a small flicker of interest from me.