New Year Trip: 2~Hometowns are funny places

A bad sleep made for a sluggish start. But lucky for Mike (or perhaps lucky for me) I got to the airport before his flight landed. Rain was somewhere in the forecast but not imminent so we detoured to have lunch in Cornwall Park.

There are worse places to have lunch

We scurried back to Parakai as my friend Hannah and her children were visiting for a couple of hours.

And since the rain had still not arrived I took Mike on a walk. Helensville is my hometown, though we lived quite a ways out in the country. It is always ‘interesting’ (a versatile word I find) to be confronted with things and places from my childhood and teens. Anyway, we wandered into Helensville via a couple of walkways along the river.

The Kaipara River, brown as always, with its collection of moored boats

Flowers, or maybe weeds, I am not to know such things

The old Kaipara Dairy Co-Op Factory, possibly the most interesting feature of Helensville. It was to be sold in December

Remains of a wharf

The old railway, rarely used now

The old bank and post office buildings - of course, in this day and age, they are no longer used for their original purpose

The old picture theatre. So many memories! Including: sitting in the aisle to see Star Wars; crying children at Watership Down; a drunk fellow high school pupil power-spewing during the screening of something; walking out of a movie with the family to find someone had crashed into our parked car.

Such walking endeavours deserved a soak in the spa before dinner with mum, dad and gran. Mum passed on a couple of gifts for me from my aunt. As well as a copy of her recently published first fabulous children’s book, there was also a small trinket that laughed in the face of my spider phobia.

The famdamily, minus brother. Dad was happy to be there honest

My finger is there for scale, rather than to demonstrate how brave I am