January 22nd, 2023Kyle’s Rant

I AM never too sure when to stop saying Happy New Year. Is it after the first day of
the New Year or do we wait about a week or so?
I watched the TV with interest as the year drew to a close, we were all encouraged to cook up heaving
tables of food for the big day. We were meant to waddle around visiting people, imbibing ourselves
to the point of alcoholic poisoning. And then wake up on New Year’s Day to find the message had
dramatically shifted, to the reality of the diet, exercise and home gym equipment advertisements.
Hot cross buns miraculously take the place of the chocolate Santa sacks and although the wrapper has changed to a bunny, the chocolate rabbit looks suspiciously like a reindeer when denuded from its casing.
So, it’s onwards and upwards into the great unknown of 2023.

Will Covid finally settle down into a garden variety common cold? And are we able now, after three
years, to get on with our lives and hug strangers, travel and not lurch away when
children get too close?
When I celebrated 2019/2020 New Year’s Eve, myself, the wife and a couple
of mates welcomed the New Year watching fireworks from the safety of a highrise
apartment in Melbourne. Right on the chime of midnight we kissed, hugged, laughed
and cheered.

A big difference to the latest celebrations as a bunch of neighbours sat
around the balcony at TL HQ and one remarked “oh, it’s five past midnight, we
should go home” – an anticlimax of a midnight celebration if ever I have seen one.
But maybe that’s the key. 2023 was not so much back slapping and celebration,
more a “by the way“ comment.

We kind of slipped into the year gently without huge expectations and less pressure on the resolutions or maybe it’s just my age.
Our Christmas break was a lot of fun as Donna and I winged our way to see our
whanau (family) across the ditch. It was great to finally catch up with everyone.
My niece Melissa, pictured, is a single mother, a demure woman who has a pighunting
dog and a 303 bolt action shotgun. As well as long walks down the beach,
photography and sunsets, this pocket rocket likes to kill her own lunch up in the
mountains behind Kaikoura. She sometimes gets a bit lazy and instead of hiking the
40 kilometres into the bush, she and her girlfriend get a lift on a helicopter to a bush
hut where they kill wild deer and boars. (A sort of a chip off the old block, really.)

The name Kaikoura means literally to eat crayfish, so not keen on venison, I
asked Melissa if she wouldn’t mind grabbing me one and like that I found three large
crustaceans flapping away in my sink the next morning without a note.
However, I am the son of a cray fisherman so I know a thing or two about
cooking crays (not). So, after 10 minutes Googling the subject, I drowned them in
freshwater, chopped them in half, cooked them on the barbeque and gorged down on
two and a quarter, leaving three quarters for my traveling companion. Yumbo.
So that was my memorable end to the year and I hope we are off to a better 2023
and the sadness of the last three years is now behind us.
Happy New Year rant over…
(Ed’s note: Hmmm. The only thing Kyle kills for lunch is when he barbeques the life
out of sausages and chops.)