This is half-pie.

The first of several nights away from the farm up here at Lake Hawea… and instead of the sound of the wind in the trees and the occasional bellbird we have… Jimmy Barnes at the Hawea pub. Not that we are amongst the crowd; it’s just that we can hear him equally well from where we are, about a kilometre away.

While I’m on this sour and grumpy note I should relate how disturbed I am at the amount of development going on here in the Upper Clutha. Vineyards; new subdivisions; and in Hawea itself infill housing! Next door to our humble wee crib, there was a house where a lovely old retired couple once lived. Now, someone has crammed an extra house on the section and called it a B&B! Where will it end? The people responsible should just piss off back to the Pig Island.

Ahhhh… no, wait…

No doubt if I had the money I’d be adding to the problem. But I do feel some regret that the wide open and dusty spaces of my childhood summer holidays are disappearing into expensive real estate oblivion.

Progress, that’s what it is.