just a regular Sunday on the Barrier.

It's about noon on a Sunday. I'm tired and hungover because I was up late last night watching rugby and drinking beer at the Irish pub I'm working at. In spite of said hangover, I have been coerced into going and "playing" golf at the local golf club, cause that's what everyone does on a Sunday on the island. So I'm hanging out with my friend Henry (a girl, and probably my favorite person on this island...except for JP, but we'll get to him later) at the golf club, with my "boss" from the pub, John, and we're the only 2 females around, probably for miles. This island has a serious lack of ladies. We're drinking beer, as you do at noon on a Sunday, hanging out with Archie, Gibbo, Dave, Wop (not Italian at all), and various other men, including one wearing a shirt which says, "I'm not a gynocologist, but I'll take a look anyway!". Nascar is on the big screen tv. Next to us, there is an entire sheep roasting on a spit, which is covered with rusty corrugated tin (I'm sure that adds to the flavor). And off we go to play golf, beers in hand still.


Ah. Life on Great Barrier Island is something else. I might never leave.


Oh and about JP--my most favorite person on the island. He's at the pub most every night--he has a special seat with its own cushion and he always has a Waikato beer in front of him, except for when he goes outside to roll his own cigarette and smoke for a while. He's about 5 feet tall, is 72 years old, has the most gravelly voice I've ever heard, and the other night he told me about the time he went to the Virgin Islands during Carnival last year and got his body painted by all the ladies, and then went wakeboarding.

I can't decide if I want to marry him or if I want him to be my grandfather. Seeing as how Ian's gone for the weekend and left me alone on the Island, he suggested the first one.