I may return

December 6th, 2011 • Comments Off Copywriting, Personal
Tags: blog, journal, writing

Bay of Islands

“It’s been a while since I arrived in New Zealand and – geographically speaking – I haven’t gone all that far. Still, I’ve got know a little about Paihia and its winter inhabitants. I have also established an unexpectedly close acquaintance with the ocean in that I am sleeping on it most nights and rowing across it at least twice a day in Bob-short-for-Roberta the dinghy.

In the past three weeks I’ve watched the sunrise almost daily, helped rescue a sinking boat, had a private sitting at the best restaurant in town, body surfed down a huge sand dune (with a bit of unanticipated creek-planing at the end), cleaned a few bathrooms, washed and folded a good bit of linen, cooked and hosted two dinner parties and sailed a 19th century gaff-rig cutter. Oh, and made a few friends.

I’m officially an overstayer now, but I really do leave Northland next week for Brisbane and then onwards to Beijing and Mongolia. If the point of travelling is to experience different lifestyles and settle in to the rhythms of a place, then I’m doing ok.

I may yet return.”

Catherine Langford
June 2007

It’s the nature of things

December 6th, 2011 • Comments Off Copywriting, Personal
Tags: journal, poetry, writing

She’s not what you thought
as you sought her to be

not the readable script
but a tapestry

of symbols
and colour
a muddle of signs
tea leaves or dreamscapes
wine stains and anger

of giggles
and tears
and things in between
that can’t be touched or written
or sighed

just caught in the atoms
the chaos of life

by Catherine Langford
Published in Stingray, Autumn 2009
(a Northland arts and culture magazine, sadly no longer published)