Thursday, May 01, 2008

Queenstown, you've just got to go.

So this is the view I have been looking at for the last three days.

And if you can hear some distant whooping and cheering it is just me throwing my own party because I have worked out how to upload pictures, all by very own self.

If you know me, you will understand what a monumental feat this. I have just climbed my very own Everest. And it only took me about the same time as it took Sir Ed.

I have been down at Lake Hayes, just out of Queenstown avec ma soeur, her husband and the six year-old and her four year-old sister. It's a place we spent many a holiday growing up, so it's familiar smells and lovely memories. And well, that view. You can waste a lot of time looking at it.

Just after I had arrived we were casually sauntering around in the supermarket, when the six year-old looked at me and said, 'You're cheeky, Kate.'

I burst out laughing, 'I'm not cheeky! Why do you think I'm cheeky?' (I hadn't been cheeky to the parking Nazi at the airport at that stage, either.)

'You are. You're just CHEEKY!'

'Yeah!' Chimed in her little sister, 'You're cheeky!' And then promptly dissolved into giggles.

And the thing is, that description wouldn't have come out of their mother or father's mouth either. I suppose I am continually surprised and fascinated at how these small brains work and process information. Also when they aren't possession of a word, I love the logical process that fills the gap.

I was walking out of a shop in Arrowtown with the four year-old and as we walked past a mannequin she said, 'That's a pretend lady.'

I think I'm going to take it and run with that one, if I was a mannequin I think i would much prefer to introduce myself as a 'pretend lady' instead of a 'mannequin'.

When my nephew was about three, we were at the beach and he picked up a circular shell that he wanted to give to me as a ring and he said to his mother, 'Mummy what are those things that ladies put on their hands to make their fingers look pretty?'

And my personal favourite (apologies to those who have heard this story before - it is on high rotate), when the four year-old wasn't quite two her mother came back from Dubai with a little stuffed camel for her and she exclaimed, 'Look Mummy! A horse-turtle!'

I think that same literal naming went on when they were naming things of significance around Queenstown. (And for those of you who haven't been, but have just heard of people banging on about how beautiful it is? Believe the hype, it really is truly beautiful. Breathtaking, even).

Queenstown sits in the Wakatipu Basin and when you fly in, you fly past a spectacular mountain range which are called, wait for it, The Remarkables. I have got a vision of two vaguely pompous (yet intrepid) Englishmen sitting puffing on their pipes looking at them and saying, 'Well, they're fairly remarkable aren't they, old chap?'

'Now what shall we call them, The King Edwards?'

'The New Cumbrians?'

'Dammit man!Why don't we say it as we see it? The Remarkables?'

'Great name, great name.'

And I'm sure if Kevin Bloody Wilson was the guy in charge of naming stuff they would have been called The Fuck Me-s!

And I reckon if my nieces had any hand in the naming of them they would be called something along the lines of The Dinosaur Jaw Mountains.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, well done Kate!
Please post photos of 'Numbers' being a geek so I can ogle my hubby, you know he gets dressed up for you...I just get him in shorts!
Enjoy your time down south - just make sure you come back.

laughykate said...

He dresses up for us?! I am always asking where the job interview he is going to, is.

savannah said...

great post, sugar! children are incredible and totally adorable because they speak from the heart without self censoring...absolutely delish!

laughykate said...

Thank you ! I love how they connect the dots.