I didn't take camping misery lying down
Welcome back, campers. The three-day working weeks are over, the Christmas cake has gone mouldy and all that is left to remind you of the summer break is sunburn so bad you can stand in front of the mirror naked and mistake yourself for a cooked crayfish in a white bikini.
Or is that just me?
Back-to-work blues are something I have managed to avoid since my career as a wedding photographer began, simply because over summer I have always been far too busy to actually stop.
But this summer, as a special treat, I gave myself a week off right in the middle of the silly season.
Turns out it wasn't so silly after all.
At a time when the world around me normally shuts its doors, leaving me alone in the central business district to watch tinsel and tumbleweed drifting through deserted streets, this Christmas I actually got to join the madding crowd and shut up shop too.
On Christmas Eve, I felt the quick pulse and rapid heartbeat that comes with knowing that if you can just rattle your dags and get through the last minute admin associated with closing a business for a week, you will be free.
Not just end-of-the-day free, but end-of-the-year, vacation-message-activated, cellphone-switched-off free.
In order to fully embrace the festive season and all it offers to those who have time off, I left town and stuffed myself full of turkey and ham in the company of 30 of my extended family.
On Boxing day we joined the bumper-to-bumper traffic headed to the Coromandel Peninsula along with the entire population of Auckland and fought for a spot to pitch our tent.
Before long we were arguing over how to attach the fly, and swatting at engorged mosquitoes just like everyone else over summer.
We got to relieve ourselves in a foul-smelling long drop and stub our toes in the dark on tent pegs, and of course wake up at 8am feeling as if we'd accidentally crawled into an overheating oven before bed instead of a canvas tent. All in all, it was the quintessential Kiwi summer holiday.
Were it not for the outbreak of World War III between myself and my boyfriend (and the resulting standoff which left the third person in our tent wanting the ground to open up and swallow her), the trip would have blended seamlessly into my memory as just any other typical camping holiday.
Which was why the next day we drove home. Or more specifically, to the lovely home of my friend's parents ,whose bach laps at the shores of one of the country's best golden beaches.
Okay. So now it was a holiday.
With ice in the freezer, cocktails in the fridge and beds that had a roof over them and a bed frame under them, it was hard to deny I was right in the heart of heaven.
In my determination to make the most of my rare week off and have a fair dinkum New Zealand holiday, I had completely overlooked the fact that lugging your home around in the boot of a car and then unfurling it amid a flock of unwashed shaggy strangers was not actually the sort of holiday I enjoyed at all.
Of course, it took a reclining deck chair, a cold gin and tonic, an ocean view and a flush toilet to realise all this, but the main thing is I did it in plenty of time to get that just-boiled lobster look to take back to work as a memento.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
Latest from Bay of Plenty Times
1000 patients a day: 'Essential' healthcare workers to strike for 24 hours
A 'full withdrawal' of labour will take place on April 2.