The Gallery: Black & White

There have been many ships wrecked in these seas. The Cook Strait – the deadly passage of water that lies between the North and South Island of New Zealand. A ‘perfect storm’ has struck the country this week, blanketing ground in snow and touching even the ‘winterless’ north of the country. It’s the kind of storm that only strikes once every fifty years. Snow flurries on Sunday evening in Wellington caused a tide of excitement on social media networks. A Facebook page was set up, ‘That time it Snowed in Wellington’, which now has over 15,000 fans.

It’s now Wednesday night. The south coast of Wellington is being battered with huge frothy waves, steely cold rain and gale force winds. We rugged up in the car and watched in awe. Alice, my eighteen month old, grumbling with growing pains and not entirely enamored with the scene described it as, ‘Bubbles’. I suppose it did look like a giant cauldron of bubbles; like a bottle of giant washing liquid had been emptied into the sea and stirred up by mother nature.

Personally, I’m looking forward to the softer side of mother nature returning, as forecast, by the weekend! I enjoy a good storm, but there’s a limit to my tolerance levels. Crazy, wild winds are now sweeping over the land, shaking the timbers of my house and hurling heavy rain against the metal roof.

Tempers are beginning to fray, the housework is burying me. But, I’m not complaining – not really. You see if someone gave me the opportunity to live without storms and angry skies and endless days of blue instead, I’d turn it down. It is because of these days of wild that I can truly appreciate and feel the days of calm for what they are. So yes, I may shout like the wind that howls in the sky. My face may turn down slightly at the corners and my hair look bedraggled like the beaten trees and torn branches littering my driveway. My children may run a little crazy with cabin fever and turn my living room into a fortress of cardboard boxes and teddy bears that double up as boats, planes and buses.

But there’s an end in sight and thankfully chocolate cake to eat.

Black and white. The two go together. They need each other. I need them both in my life, even though I struggle at times to tolerate the darker days.