The ‘Lockdown’ The Visionary Year? One could say it has been an eye opener – just the place for a virus to enter?  At the time of writing we are moving into the third week of the lockdown. The ‘lockdown’ with holes large enough for aircraft to fly through and ships to sail through and along with contradicting instructions from up high, the doom and gloom via the media, is it any wonder that the general public are confused or a little blasé? 

It won’t be long before a suitable antidote will be ready for this virus. During the lockdown, there will be a lot of thinking going on – positive thoughts for the future hopefully. 

Thoughts on how come so many years ago, a family could survive on one wage per household? And by only working 40 hours a week? Tourism needs to be toned down; our natural lifestyle is being overwhelmed both the wild places and us. There was a saying “keeping up with the Joneses” but at least the ‘keeping up’ things were not frivolous and wasteful as of today.  

Maybe we will start up our own newspapers again? Maybe local councils will get back to the actual needs (not wants or frivolous dreams) of their citizens? That would be a good thought for the central government too??  This is a good ‘excuse’ to get rid of a lot of silly things and to start using some common sense for a change, although this is a rare commodity it seems.  

So, looking into the future: Not quite, but Richmond had the most number of sunshine hours in New Zealand for 2019 with 2859 hours in all. It will be interesting to see what 2020 brings and it will be good if we have an even spread of rain throughout the year although rainfall for the first three months of 2020 is down a lot. January, 8mm (average for this month 110mm); February, 25.5mm (71mm); March 41mm (85mm). 

The Wakefield Country Fete   In our area during the first month of each year we have a number of fairs and market days throughout the month. One of the first is at Wakefield but it was disappointing this year with a lot less stalls. It seems as if the Higgins Heritage Park was in serious opposition as they had their open day along with many stalls on the same day. This is not very thoughtful as a local community should work together surely? 

A Visit to Picton: The next day we went to Picton to meet up with sister June and her husband Eric and had lunch with them. They were on one of those large cruise ships, calling into different ports in the country and then over to Australia. Many people from the boat wandering the streets. It was good to catch up with them but a long day for us.

Rabbit Island walk and BBQ  On the Sunday before we went out to Rabbit Island to check out the walk and brought back a lot of pine cones then on the day with our 50+ walking group we started the year’s walking with a short walk. So it was about an hour walk along the beach, checking in on one of the pest trap lines, then back to the cars and ready for a BBQ just before noon. Fifteen walkers enjoyed a nice sunny day’s outing.  There’s something about Rabbit Island.