iWill: Counting my blessings

Will Johnston, host of The Hits 's 9am-3pm radio show. Photo/George Novak

Hits radio host, celebrant and MC Will Johnston muses on his indulgent life in the Bay of Plenty

Over the last week or so I've had three people I know die. A friend of some friends and a couple of different friends' parents.

This is the time of the year that you should reflect a bit and chop back a shot of perspective like that extra shot of tequila you slam at the bar on Christmas Eve when catching up with your mates who all come home for Christmas (alcohol-fuelled tip of the hat to Christmas Eve at Astrolabe out the Mount).

I know that this weekly collection of messily assembled words of mine resembles the state of your lounge directly after all the presents have been opened on Christmas morning and you have that instant regret that Christmas was at your house this year (and someone has to clean up that wrapping paper and sellotape ).

But this column also has a subtitle of me living my 'indulgent life' in the Bay.

When the editor first emailed me saying that would be the theme, I opened that email while in my underwear on my couch, eating crackers and wondering how I was going to get the crumbs from my chest to the kitchen sink without getting them all over the carpet. I know, I know; not only indulgent, but CLASSY too right?! Haha!

So here's the last week of my 'indulgent life' ... you may relate ... I'm alive.

I'm healthy (I think?! Ladies and gentlemen, the liver has left the building).

I live in the Bay of Plenty, literally a four-minute walk to a beach.

It's almost Christmas and I'm going to get presents and give heaps of them this year.

I live in a giving community I helped collect over $18,000 worth of food for the Tauranga Community Foodbank in one day.

Then I went home and had a really nice homemade dinner and felt a little weird about eating so decadently when so many more people than you would ever believe are struggling to put food on the table (the food bank is feeding 30-40 different families a day, on the regular).

As annoying as sitting in the increasingly Auckland-like traffic Tauranga is beginning to endure is (note the word 'beginning'), I'm causing it, in my car. I have a car. Put it on the indulgent items list!

I have family in the BOP.

I have friends here that I consider family.

I play golf. I'm a gluttonous mole, right?!

Jeez I even went to a waterfall (for the 'gram) and Pilot Bay to watch a cruise ship leave at sunset, all in the last week.

Celebrity Solstice leaving the Bay. Photo/supplied

Last weekend I was celebrant for some awesome humans at Lake Tarawera, ate and drank (fervently) for free afterwards. One of the most beautiful lakes/natural geothermal wonders in the world is an hour's drive from my door. How good's that Blue Lake too!

While we're on those summer vibes, how many times this summer will you eat and drink to a roll-me-out-of-here-good-lord-I'm-a-whale-and-will-never-eat-again level? It's definitely the Bay of Plenty of that, right?!

I MC'd my regular Tuesday night pub quiz at The Crown & Badger in Tauranga, they pay me and feed me.

I MC'd Tauranga Christmas at The Races. Free food, free booze and a bunch of people betting on frothy-mouthed beasts with lil' humans giving them a whack on the bum to make them finish strong. #innuendo haha!

I did five radio shows, got paid for it and laughed a lot during it.

I even had a couple of dodgy-looking moles cut out of me by the professional and on-to-it Skin Spots on Girven Rd out the Mount ... This happened because I have the luxury of health insurance and an anxious disposition! While I was living my indulgent life this week, three people I know died. They were all WAY too young. Merry Christmas, don't waste it wanting!