On the morning of Friday the 13th I watched the Breakfast telly hosts sneering at people who are suspicious about the date. I had to agree. Intelligent people don't hold out much belief in 'old wives tales' and old fashioned suspicious beliefs. One hour later I was begging at the Air New Zealand counter after having been mistakenly booked on a flight that had already departed. Could happen to anyone at anytime. So could an error that meant there was no rental car for me to pick up when I got to Auckland making us an hour late for our meeting. Nothing to do with it being Black Friday.
We were meeting with advertising agencies – you know those companies where the prerequisite to working there is that you are blonde, blue eyed and incredibly slim – and that’s just the guys. Attempting to behave incredibly cool, I got my foot caught in my handbag and went head first into the door in front of a boardroom of ‘Joe-cools.’
Back at the airport later that day there was a gate change and I ended up trying to board a flight to Christchurch instead of Wellington. As I reached down to get my boarding pass from my bag my finger smashed into the skirting board and a large wooden splinter rammed itself right down the length of my fingernail. Dizzy with pain, I heard my name being called to please board immediately. I tried to break into a run when the heel snapped off my shoe. I hobbled onto a plane full of annoyed waiting passengers. By this time my finger was swelling in red rage at the foreign object that had slammed into it. I spent the flight dipping my finger into a warm cup of tea in an effort to ease the pain – it didn’t! Black Friday? Surely just coincidence.
Back in Wellington I took my broken shoes off and walked through the airport barefoot, splashing into a freezing puddle in the dark outside.
By the time I got home, a throbbing mess, I was bundled off to the after hours medical centre to have the splinter extracted. The Dr said it wouldn’t be as painful as childbirth. The only difference was it didn’t take quite as long. $65 and a $5 packet of antibiotics later, I am typing this blog with one hand.
in the hope that I never have such a tale to write about Black Friday ever again.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
Adrenalin Forest Porirua – a review of sorts
If you fancy an adrenalin hit for free, try taking your kids to Adrenalin Forest in Porirua. You will, of course, have to pay for your children. But that comes with the chance to watch your distressed offspring dangle from a 25 metre high rope pleading for help – all at no extra cost.
There are five grades of high ropes. The top is 25 metres. There are no age restrictions only height. The first sign of trouble was when the manager broke their own rules and insisted boy child could do the whole course even though he wasn’t quite tall enough. The children were whisked through to a safety briefing that had already begun. And brief it was. The key message was that once you’re up the tree you’re on your own, so don’t forget to always stay clipped on. No guides are up in the trees and to me the expectation that a nine year old boy would remember to keep clipping himself to the wires under increasing stress was mildly ridiculous.
And so it began, a slow creeping horror as boy and girl child climbed higher and higher away from terra firma with me running from tree to tree, craning my neck to yell instructions.
The first real trouble was on Grade 3. Boy child was indeed too short and not strong enough to tug the pully along as he balanced precariously sideways on a rope. He hung suspended above me sobbing 'Oh God Mama, Oh God,' and I could do absolutely nothing about it. Then it was no holes barred. All rules about not swearing until you’re 18 went out the window as he yelled and screamed down from his 14 metre high hell. "Girl child and I promised fun-filled flying foxes if he could just get through this tiny little bit of difficulty. It was, in fact only a half truth, as there were a few more challenges before the flying foz. ‘You lied,' he screamed at us in outrage. "You lied, you are liers.’
But the real nightmare was Grade 5. Let’s just say a lot of the adults didn’t dare to try this grade. One woman told me she was ‘going home to change her pants’ after the 22 metres high Grade 4.
Girl child’s confidence was rocked on the ghastly slip ropes where ropes looped in stirrups slide down as you put weight on them forcing the other side up. You then have to fling your other leg high in the air to force the stirrup down – all this while balancing 25 metres in the air. By this time I was reciting the rosary while listening to Girl child snuffling away to herself miserably alone in the air. Somehow, she got through that but on the next part the guide starting screaming at her to go back to the start. He claimed she was on the wrong side of this activity – even though there were no instructions. That was the living end. Girl child slunk over the rope and all I could hear was ‘can’t, can't, can't,' sobbed over and over again. The guide started to give her instructions but I had had enough. ‘Believe me this girl is staunch' I said. 'And if she says she can’t, well she bloody well cant’ I said. ‘Get her down.' The guide looked at me. "Now!'
And he was gone up a ladder to her rescue.
My heart was wrenched at the tragic look on girl child’s face as she was lowered down under the watchful eye of the guide. "How embarrassing' she sobbed. Despite the fact that by this time there was noone there.
Ridiculous exercises such as this are not totally unfamiliar to me, although I wish they were. A previous boss had a penchant for pushing us outside our comfort zones in similar strange and wonderful activities. But I have to say, although I often felt blind terror, I never felt as unsafe as I felt my kids were that day.
There are five grades of high ropes. The top is 25 metres. There are no age restrictions only height. The first sign of trouble was when the manager broke their own rules and insisted boy child could do the whole course even though he wasn’t quite tall enough. The children were whisked through to a safety briefing that had already begun. And brief it was. The key message was that once you’re up the tree you’re on your own, so don’t forget to always stay clipped on. No guides are up in the trees and to me the expectation that a nine year old boy would remember to keep clipping himself to the wires under increasing stress was mildly ridiculous.
And so it began, a slow creeping horror as boy and girl child climbed higher and higher away from terra firma with me running from tree to tree, craning my neck to yell instructions.
The first real trouble was on Grade 3. Boy child was indeed too short and not strong enough to tug the pully along as he balanced precariously sideways on a rope. He hung suspended above me sobbing 'Oh God Mama, Oh God,' and I could do absolutely nothing about it. Then it was no holes barred. All rules about not swearing until you’re 18 went out the window as he yelled and screamed down from his 14 metre high hell. "Girl child and I promised fun-filled flying foxes if he could just get through this tiny little bit of difficulty. It was, in fact only a half truth, as there were a few more challenges before the flying foz. ‘You lied,' he screamed at us in outrage. "You lied, you are liers.’
But the real nightmare was Grade 5. Let’s just say a lot of the adults didn’t dare to try this grade. One woman told me she was ‘going home to change her pants’ after the 22 metres high Grade 4.
Girl child’s confidence was rocked on the ghastly slip ropes where ropes looped in stirrups slide down as you put weight on them forcing the other side up. You then have to fling your other leg high in the air to force the stirrup down – all this while balancing 25 metres in the air. By this time I was reciting the rosary while listening to Girl child snuffling away to herself miserably alone in the air. Somehow, she got through that but on the next part the guide starting screaming at her to go back to the start. He claimed she was on the wrong side of this activity – even though there were no instructions. That was the living end. Girl child slunk over the rope and all I could hear was ‘can’t, can't, can't,' sobbed over and over again. The guide started to give her instructions but I had had enough. ‘Believe me this girl is staunch' I said. 'And if she says she can’t, well she bloody well cant’ I said. ‘Get her down.' The guide looked at me. "Now!'
And he was gone up a ladder to her rescue.
My heart was wrenched at the tragic look on girl child’s face as she was lowered down under the watchful eye of the guide. "How embarrassing' she sobbed. Despite the fact that by this time there was noone there.
Ridiculous exercises such as this are not totally unfamiliar to me, although I wish they were. A previous boss had a penchant for pushing us outside our comfort zones in similar strange and wonderful activities. But I have to say, although I often felt blind terror, I never felt as unsafe as I felt my kids were that day.
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