Beauty is in the Eyes of the Beholder

The wind blew shrill and smart,
And the wind awoke my heart
Again to go a-sailing o'er the sea,
To hear the cordage moan
And the straining timbers groan,
And to see the flying pennon lie a-lee.

Robert Louis Stevenson 1850 – 1894

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
In 1997 our family headed to the beach for the summer, to a place on the Karikari Peninsula called Whatuwhiwhi—pronounced Fatufeefee, not the way you were thinking.
Our ridge top rental possessed views of the sea in two directions. To the east—the long slow arc of Tokerau Beach and the sweeping curve of Doubtless Bay. Legend has it that when Captain James Cook arrived here on the Endeavour in 1770 he reputedly said, “This is doubtless a bay.”
To the west, across nobly grass covered dunes, lay a series of reed fringed finger lakes, haven to heron and gull, and glimpses of the white sand of Rangiputa. The old, low volcanic dome of Puheke stood guard to the west coast of the peninsula, north of the entrance to Rangaunu Harbour.
Our home for the summer was a two storey Kiwi bach, a functional, if not fancy, house designed for visits in the summer and on weekends throughout the year when the weather was favourable. The absentee owners maintained the basic garden of rough lawn and a few hardy evergreens that withstood the incessant winds of the hilltop.
The vista was superb, like a prince, the garden drab and colourless, a pauper in comparison. We loved that summer, swimming and walking every day. The girls would play on a makeshift swing suspended from a large, beach-side Pohutukawa, New Zealand’s red-flowering Christmas tree. We ate our evening meals on the windy deck on the north side of the bach, struggling to keep kelp granules in the salad rather than on our clothes. The sky would colour majestically as the day waned.
By autumn we knew we had to move on. The wind grew increasingly chilly, and found refuge inside our dwelling, like an unwanted guest. The house had no insulation or woodstove. It was not really an all-season home.
By the time we took refuge in what was to be our sanctuary for four years in nearby Peria Valley, I was craving a garden with colour. It was that summer by the beach that I discovered the importance of flowers in one’s life. Their absence made my heart fondly long for them. Love is beauty and beauty is truth. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.