Well, it didn't actually rain for once.

There was a day of brilliant weather.

Then a night of absolute shit wind that hit our tent like a drunken gale trying to force itself upon us.

I got no sleep that night. I kept thinking of a few years back when there was a story in the news where this family were camping. The kids were in a house. The mother and father were in a tent. But the husband couldn't sleep, because, well it's hard to sleep in a tent when there's lots of wind hitting it, so he went inside the house to sleep. And then a strong gust of wind picked up the tent and sleeping wife and then sucked her fifty meters into the air and then dropped her and then she was dead.

But we survived.

The sides off our veranda were ripped off. But they were only Velcroed on.
My weekend newspaper was strewn across various parts of the campground. But it deserved it.

The sun did come out again.
It was kind of relaxing break.

There were thermal pools. I lay there at night, gazing at the stars and the broken moon, thinking of beautiful words, but instead I held their heads under the hot water, because doggerel is a beast best drowned at birth.

Then this elderly old aged Maori lady started talking to me about how her retirement village just up the road had a spa pool, but they didn't wear clothes when they got in, and I decided it was then time to get out, because, even though I was pretty sure she was senile, I didn't want to take the risk that she was coming on to me. Even though wrinkled sex with a hundred-year-old is very tempting. Mmmmmm.

We came home a night early.
We often do that. You get kicked out of the campground at 10am anyway. And I like to have at least one good night’s sleep before going back to work.

Speaking of which…