Coconut Ice and Ceilings.

Insurance companies and empty promises.

I wonder if it’s because we never really had a Summer that this year is feeling long and uncertain. Feels like the seasons are all skew-whiff, as is some of the thinking out there. Christmas and New Year were a write off here in Tamaki Makaurau, and most of the north. We consoled ourselves that good weather would come in February and March, but it just rained and rained.

Here we are in June and while it’s pretty cold it feels like we’ve had a week of clear blue skies. A warm winter sun provided you stay out of the breeze and the shade.

I’ve been glad of the good weather as our house is chaotic with tradies doing repair work from the January storm. You remember that one, where we all learned the reality of Wayne Brown. The place is a mess but for the first time since April we have ceilings! Woohoo! I never realised I’d be so grateful for ceilings.

My daughter's room last week.

But then I’d never tried to keep a house warm in June when you can look up and see the roof tiles. For someone who hates people leaving the door open when the heating is on, this was something else. But now all our rooms have ceilings - it’s so fancy.

Some of you that see my Facebook page will know it’s been a long process with our insurer to get what was surely a very straightforward claim settled. Many hours of holding in phone queues, and chasing people, it felt at times like the claim had disappeared into a bureaucratic black hole never to be heard from again.

Last week I had a bit of a rant online about the terrible service we were receiving. I then copied that post to every email address or contact point I could find for ASB who we’ve been paying insurance premiums to for 23 years and also their insurer, IAG. By sheer coincidence our claim was finalised that afternoon and paid out.

Although it’s been a pain in the ass to deal with we’re lucky. Especially to have had a good building company on hold, able to start the work with just a couple of days notice. So now we have ceilings! They aren’t painted or anything yet, but they have new insulation behind them and they are making it possible to actually heat our home.

I’m very conscious though that so many others are worse off. Those over the hill above the west coast beaches waiting to find out what the council or the crown will do. Those on the east coast with months and years ahead of cleaning up. It must feel like a very long year for them.

I thought about the folks in Canterbury while I was having my own small insurance company problems. What life must’ve been like for the poor people who waited for years and years. It makes you feel helpless and dominates your life, despairing that it will ever be resolved. I have a lot of sympathy for those who’ve had, or continue to have, it far worse.

But we’re lucky. We have ceilings and as of yesterday the plastering was done, we’re on the home straight. We’ve still been living in our home, it’s just been a bit breezy.

Last night felt a bit like Christmas with that work done and the house warm. Mrs Rockel was making sweets for a fundraiser, you know the old classics - fudge, hokey pokey, coconut ice, she does things like that. Smelled like the Cadbury factory, the house that is - not Mrs Rockel.

Image: Women’s Weekly.

I remember when I was a kid at Westbrook primary in Rotorua the school would provide ingredients to mums who would then turn those into sweets to be sold at the school gala. I recall my mother making what seemed vast quantities of coconut ice.

It feels like a long hard year too if you follow politics. We’re now four months from an election that’ll determine the direction of our country for the next few years. A four month marathon of campaigning. At the end of it half of this country is going to be unhappy, and the other half are going to be insufferable. To be fair many will just be glad it’s over with.

What are things going to be like next summer? Assuming we get a break in the climate change and actually have some decent weather.

That relative you see once a year who is already angry about this government destroying the country with communism and giving it all to the Māori is going to be incandescent if they win another three years. Even worse, imagine it’s a coalition with the Greens. Some would refuse to believe the result. That can’t be right, all my mates hate Labour and what they’ve done to divide this country.

It’ll be grim for we on the left if Luxon and Seymour win. We listen to them and we just don’t get it. How could anyone look at these men, and their obvious lies, and want them to lead the country?

For goodness sake this week Luxon is blatantly lying about something as stupid as who owns the family Tesla. He or his wife. First he said it was him then no, it’s definitely his wife, nothing to do with him. We look and we shake our heads asking “how could anyone want this man, these men, to run the country”.

We look at climate change and the effects already upon us, health and education, reducing poverty, these two blokes don’t seem interested in any of them. We don’t get it, how could people possibly want them to be responsible for looking after families in difficult times? Surely it can’t just be because Jacinda was female and Chippy is similarly afflicted with kindness? Is it really as simple as wanting a bloke in a suit?

Are people going to vote for Luxon because he has been an executive at a couple of corporations? Think of the CEOs you’ve heard speak candidly, or perhaps the CEO of the company you work for. Would you choose them to lead the country? To act with the interests of their people front of mind in times of crisis?

To be a successful CEO you have to be prepared to do some unpleasant things. To make people redundant so execs get their bonuses. Do you really want someone willing to throw their own people under a bus, for short term gain, to lead the country?

Can we all just maybe calm down a bit? We’re in a bit of a hole as a result of things largely out of our control. Covid, living costs, even youth crime, are all world wide trends, and they have bugger all to do with our government.

Having an opposition say they are going to magically make everything better by measuring results and sacking a lot of public servants is nonsensical, even if it finds an audience. As is demanding the government fix the problems, while simultaneously insisting that they reduce spending.

If National get elected crime isn’t going away. They won’t be sending the army in against a gang tangi, it’s just nonsense. It’ll be exactly the same, if anything worse because police funding will be lower.

Mongrel Mob members talk to police. Photo / Andrew Warner.

They won’t address the cost of living crisis. We know they’re planning tax cuts, although we don’t know the details because it’s secret. A little to those at the bottom and in the middle, a lot for those at the very top. The only impact this’ll make for most, beyond a few extra dollars in their pockets, is further inflammation of inflation.

We should all take a deep breath and step back. Realise things aren’t so great, but just blaming the government and saying it’s time to try the other lot, is not a good plan.

When it’s Tim Minchin time, if we do get our White Wine In The Sun this year, I hope as we’re sitting with those we love it is with hope and not with sadness. That we have a government who will worry about the big problems, even if the solutions take longer than we want.

Mostly though I hope those still impacted by the events this year get progress and see their lives returning to normal. It’s a luxury to have less time dealing with insurance companies and more thinking how long it’s been since you last had coconut ice.