It wasn’t until I found myself to be the subject of the frank, inquisitive gaze of a herd of cattle, that I realised how casually I assume that I am always the observer, not the observed, the watcher not the watched. 

At the time, I was walking with my kind ex-husband around the perimeter of his small piece of rural paradise in Mahana which he’s planted entirely in trees, including sugar maples.

Our ramble began in deep tree-shade. Drifts of fallen leaves and pine needles crunched under our feet. Then, as  we reached the back fence-line we stepped from shadow into sunlight and a bucolic landscape worthy of a Constable painting: a gently rolling patchwork of fields, small clusters of trees, the roofs of half-hidden houses and farm sheds, and tracks created by the movement of animals and humans over generations.

A small herd of young steers grazed in the neighbouring field. We paused taking in this appealingly domesticated landscape which, for us, included these handsome, sturdy animals. And then almost imperceptibly, the cattle stopped being simply part of the landscape ... 

There’s a lot of formication going on at my place at the moment. It’s a condition which should not be confused with fornication, which is something quite different (if you don’t appreciate just how different, the right kind of therapy will improve your sex life beyond your wildest dreams).

​Formication, from the Latin for ant, is the feeling that insects are crawling over your skin, a tactile hallucination which can be a symptom of fibromyalgia, Parkinson’s disease, drug withdrawal or severe anxiety.
 
In my case, it isn’t the anxiety that’s causing the formication. It’s the formication that’s causing the anxiety. And it’s no hallucination. Over the last month or so, implacable hordes of Argentinian ants have invaded my home.

It’s bad enough to find them in the dog’s bowl, the microwave, or swarming on the bench. It’s really infuriating to have them crawling and nipping at you in bed, or clambering up your arms and down your neck when you are innocently reading a book or working at the computer. 

In an effort to find a peaceful solution - Donald Trump take note - I’ve circulated the following Open Letter in English and Spanish to all ants:

It was the curious incident of the dog (almost) exploding in the night time which suggested to me a revolutionary way to improve science teaching in New Zealand. I have high hopes that our new Labour-lead government will be eager to trial the idea I am about to propose.  

First, some background.I did poorly in maths and science at school although my failure can't be attributed entirely to the education system: I spent a lot of class time digging holes into lab benches with the spiked end of a compass, or melting ballpoint pens over a Bunsen burner.

It might even be possible that my brain function was reduced by mercury poisoning. The  dental nurse at my primary school rewarded us for not screaming blue murder during her ministrations by giving us a drop of mercury in a little plastic box. Returning to class with stretched lips and a mouth full of amalgam, you'd would immediately tip out the mercury for the fun of watching it roll about your desktop.

It was by observing the melting, silvery, slither of the mercury that I learned what “mercurial” actually meant.

​I believe that if such connections between real life and taught fact had been forged more frequently in science classes of my youth, ​​I might now be in charge of the Hadron Collider or the recipient of a Nobel Prize for mathematics. 

Which brings me back to the incident of the (almost) exploding dog which occurred last week ...

We’ve all seen enough portly old gents and with arthritic, rheumy-eyed spaniels, or whip-thin joggers with greyhounds to suggest there’s some truth to the cliché that dogs look like their owners. Or that owners look like their dogs.

​When in my fifties, I got my first dog - an unusually-coloured grey and white Fox Terrier - I feared that I had become a doggy cliché myself: the dog and I both had grey hair and rather long noses. 

Ironically, I had hoped that owning a Fox Terrier might help me avoid becoming another kind of cliché – a woman of a certain age with a small, white, curly-haired dog with a composite-breed name like LackaNoodle or YuckyPoo.  
What I really wanted was a dog whose temperament would complement mine. I went so far as to complete a questionnaire which purported to assist in the matching process.

Some of the questions – allergies, activity levels, sociability – were predictable enough. Other questions were rather more left-field: What kind of amusement park ride best describes the energy in your home? (Carousel/Ferris Wheel/Log Ride/Roller Coaster); How do you react on the road when another driver cuts you off? (Slow down to give him some space/Lean on the horn/Accelerate and try to cut him off); Does drooling bother you much? (Not a bit/Not my favourite thing/I really don't like it)
​
The results suggested that I’d be happiest with a Fox Terrier, a breed known for being “intelligent, outgoing, active, inquisitive and quite stylish (when groomed properly)” That sounded like me. And so it came to pass that I lived very happily with my Fox Terrier, Pete, until liver cancer and the ministrations of a compassionate vet delivered him to the Great Bone Yard in the Sky.

​A couple of years ago I wrote a profile of Hone Ma Heke AKA Lewis Stanton in this blog and in my Nelson Mail column.  He'd been a controversial figure for so long I was curious to find out more about him. At the time, he was camping with his Horse in Neale Park and so was actually a neighbour. 

Clive now camps out on Nelson's main street (minus horse and cart) and has become the subject of renewed controversy during the lead up to the City Council elections. This republished profile is my contribution to the debate.

In town, on the day before Christmas, while Nelson glittered with tinsel and thrummed with last-minute shoppers, I overheard a young man ask “What’s the date today?” How I envied him his utter ignorance.

I’m hyper aware of the date because of Christmas, a column deadline, and being stuck in a war zone for another two days.

Let me explain. I’m house-sitting this week for some dear friends who offered me the expansiveness of a much larger living space and sea views in exchange for watering the garden and feeding (and loving) the household cat. This sounded so wonderful that I lept at the idea without properly thinking it through. 

I've just survived a fortnight of Fifty Shades of Grey. It involved a lot of lying in bed and horizontal passivity though not (what a life-saver !) velvet hand-cuffs or spanking.   

Shades of Grey is what happens to your life when you find yourself in the clutches of flu-with-cough virus. So much energy is taken up with coughing that almost immediately your get-up-and-go gets up and abandons you completely. 

This enfeeblement soon makes even the short, but essential trek from bed to bathroom like climbing Everest - without oxygen tanks or obliging Sherpas.
Very soon after that your brain goes into recess and a grey fog descends. If you are lucky, in the midst of this mental pea-souper, a synapse will send out the occasional hopeful pulse - rather like a rescue flare sent up from a ship foundering at sea. 

While the dim interior of your skull is thus illuminated a few thoughts occur to you. Where is the? Why is the? I wonder if? How come? In the foolishly optimistic moment before the flare dies out and all coherent brain-activity ceases, you really believe that you might be able to relieve the fog-bound boredom with a little light reading. Then you realise that no reading it quite light enough.