saturday

Yesterday started as a good day, Flash did the housework, I designed a wee baby cardi for Maisie ( the neice to be) ….my sister wanted to call her Madeleine…Maddie…but the surname is Maxwell…mad max….my Mama and I think it is great, we love it…but my sister has reconsidered…I say be brave!

Anyway, so went to SSK, which was wonderful as usual, Alison brought beautiful yarn from Marta’s for us to fondle, and “Loop de Loop” which had some gorgeous patterns, I have been resisting the urge to buy it, but I don’t think I can hold out much longer, there was one cabled jacket in particular which I have been dreaming of since…Lara has designed the absolute last word in cute as baby bootees, they look like little duck feet, or flippers, too too cute.

Met Flash in the Irish pub, where he had commandeered the big table, and had been getting the hairy eyeball from a big group seated at the small table, luckily some acquaintances turned up, so he didn’t look like a loner, so, I did it…I watched rugby…it wasn’t too bad, better than the last game I had to sit through, which was so stop start I felt like I was watching middle aged men replicating battles with plastic armies…anyway…”we” won…which was weird, cos Canterbury won…and I am from Auckland…but I suppose when away from home, Kiwis is Kiwis!
I was rewarded with Indian takeout for my trials, arrived home, started watching a movie, ate our dinner, settled back with a glass of red, when…squeal…thunk…outside…
I grabbed the phone and ran to the patio, a lady lay still in the centre of the intersection of the busiest road in Sydney, cars hurtled past, I called the ambulance, as people started to make their way to her, the cars did not stop, just kept speeding past her body.
I didn’t go down, we are lucky in Camperdown that there are trained medical professionals every where, the ambulance took 12 minutes, the police arrived first, they shut the road down for hours, took statements, photographed the scene and the cars, the poor woman lay there alone for a couple of hours…Blaise said “someone should be sitting with her” is it the Maori influence, the importance of the Tangi? Is it our family belief, which says the deceased should lie in the home until the burial?
Finally, thankfully they took her away, then hosed the road, I feel for the fireman who had that job, I feel for all of the police, ambulance and fire staff who deal with this every day.
The lady was apparently crossing legally, the lights are set up so that turning cars think they have right of way, many don’t even look when they turn, and my kids cross there every day. Flash said “this wouldn’t happen outside our house in Waihi” and he is right, but it doesn’t change anything, we have to keep trying to make our world safer, help people to think about one another, I am looking forward to the release of the book “Affluenza”, it puts a name to the feeling I have had, that society as a whole is sick with greed and want, that marketing men from New York and London are trying to have more influence in my children’s lives than me, that I am grateful they spent their early years living in quiet idyllic innocence, and I can only hope that will stand them in good stead.

As I have been sitting here writing this, there was another squeal, crash…a nose to tail…people screaming at each other, and as I looked out I saw a yellow circle, spray painted in the middle of that busy intersection, a life lost, and the stupidity that led to that tragedy continues.