Mr Frosty has hit - my Basalm and Busy Lizzies are drooping and wilting and look like the living dead. Frangipani looks like she's having a bad hair day. Poinsettia has shrivelled and needs to be cornered by the house. Otherwise it's beautiful sunny weather apart from the cold.
I don't have any plans to do anymore in this cold weather when the mud starts caking on my boots except for a bit of pruning - thinning out the Feijoa trees.
Even a garden needs to rest. Besides I am heading to sunnier climes - the Cook Islands to be exact at the end of August. While everyone is muddling through winter I will actually be on the beach in my hammock sipping coconuts and strolling through lush tropical gardens.
Flying north for winter seems like a good idea to me, it's what smart Kiwis do.
Before I congratulate myself on this splendid coup I will have to keep answering the vexed question that people constantly ask me 'what do I do'? or 'Are you working?'
Well that depends. If it's Sunday of course I am not working and I look blankly at the asker like they are an idiot and can't see that I'm not actually working that day.
If I tell them 'I work in my garden' they might ask me again what I do as according to some people, working in the garden does not count as actual work. I have had some nosy people say, well no thats just volunteer I mean something paid.
Before I consider smashing their face in with a spade...I have considered answering 'Minding my own business, the same as you'.
If I say 'studying' some people still aren't satisfied thinking studying isn't actually working when there's heaps of homework I need to do while studying. Then if I say I work at home, the busy bodies also seem to imply that housework isn't actual work either.
Even working for the Lord by doing ministry is not work for some people. I just think they want to know the exact amount of hours I do and the hourly rate and salary. But how can you quantify that and why are people so nosy? Even if I get jobs from an agent that are different each time, everyone suddenly wants to know what all these different jobs are and am I actually doing them!
So that's why I am leaving all this behind and heading off to the Cook Islands where nobody can bother me. I can't imagine the Cook Islanders asking other people what they do all the time. It would just be rude.
