Getting the hump about cricket
In a novel turn for me, who lives a life of enviably self-regulated ease with a complete lack of work-related stress, I had to eschew my usual leisurely morning routine in order to meet an urgent deadline. I know! So unreasonable.
It was my own fault, having spotted a hook for a story, and pitching it to one of my editors. (Does that jargon make me sound like a proper journalist? Ha! Fooled you.) She then took me up on it and wanted it straight away, since the subject was actually news, of sorts: that the Hump Ridge Track in Fiordland has been added to the golden list of New Zealand's Great Walks.
Regular 😃 readers will recall that I did this walk a few years ago and was lucky enough to strike lovely weather - by no means a given, in Fiordland, where annual rainfall is literally measured in metres. It was a really enjoyable tramp, starting with a helicopter ride across the bay and including two lodges, wine, venison, hot-smoked salmon, a hand-knitted hot-water bottle cover, 20km of much-appreciated boardwalk, lots of birds, spectacular views and some wonderfully picturesque sculpted tors reflected in still tarns. As well as lots of walking, scrambling, climbing, puffing and sweating, natch. It fully deserves its new status.
Sadly, though, it pipped the also-gorgeous Queen Charlotte Track to the title. Regular etc will remember that I did the first day of that tramp not so long ago, and was most taken with it - though the chance and, in NZ highly unusual, meeting with a couple of deer made it especially memorable. (Today's connection: the only other time I've met deer was the young white tail I surprised on Stewart Island on a ramble around the bays - where I went on the very same trip that I did Hump Ridge.)
Driven by the deadline, I worked solidly and filed the story, plus its images - always the most time-consuming bit of the whole process, by the way, since I've never yet had the self-discipline to sort my photos on return from a trip, so that they're selected, edited and captioned all ready to go when I need them. Yay, all done. And then the editor emails back: er, sorry, no room on the homepage today, something to do with cricket...* Sigh.
* Cricket World Cup, dear reader - strictly speaking, Men's Cricket World Cup, since the women's one has been and gone already. NZ v ENG at Lords, two draws and a subsequent debatable (and inevitably much debated) ruling giving it to England. The mere fact that I - me! - am writing these words at all tells you everything you need to know about the super-saturation this event has received here, despite taking place in the middle of the night.
UPDATE: Finally!
6 comments:
Hey! In the middle of the night when the news anchors gushed that Britain had beaten New Zealand, I wondered, “is that Big Dot’s All Blacks,” but of course - the All Blacks are football. Aren’t they?
Did you article make it in at all, even though it wasn’t on the front page?
I should have written 'homepage' (old person mistake) - but no, not yet. It's all taken up with wrangling over cricket rule interpretation plus, now, aggrievement that our Steepest Street in the World claim has just been stolen from us by Wales. As a nation, we're feeling somewhat beleaguered.
[Previous version of this comment removed because of spelling mistake. Any guesses?]
Ah, and I see that my “you article” stands unedited. Hmph.
I have moved on from correcting other people's mistakes (once upon a time, I carried a red pen specifically for that purpose - signs, menus, etc. Insufferable, I know, but that's being an English teacher for you. And a natural-born pedant).
Re the All Blacks - yes! They're football, which most other countries call rugby (that's union, not league) - to us, their football is our soccer. Gets confusing. So do the names of our teams - Black usually features, unless it's White: caps, ferns, sticks... Frequently feels like scraping the bottom of the barrel, theme-wise, and it can be hard to keep on top of.
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