Golden tower

The morning dawned calm and sunny. The rising sun was reflected by the windows in one of the apartment towers of Herne Bay. It was a good day for the bike ride to work. An early meeting, after which I was time tabled to ride the staff shuttle to GLCC. However, there had been no new referrals to Aronui Ora (Maternal Mental Health) in the last week, and I stayed at Auckland City Hospital and did the other (non-clinical) part of my job.

At midday I took my sandwiches and walked to the adjacent Auckland Domain, and sat on the seats in front of the Domain Pavilion to have lunch in the sun. I was able to enjoy all the activity going on. Just to my left a young woman was training with reps. Sprinting up the steps (more than a dozen), and then gently down to the bottom where she turned and repeated. I didn't count the number of reps. I did notice that she did sit-ups, push ups and other strength building exercises in between the running reps. She had started before I arrived there, and she stopped at the same time I got up to return to work; so she spent at least 30 minutes training really hard (and not looking as if it was any sort of strain). 

To my right were two, perhaps three, small groups each with a different personal trainer, also doing various repetitive exercises,. Mainly women of various degrees of fitness and a few men likewise. I never did steps in my running days, but I would have preferred that to the other training I witnessed. 

Off to the left and out between the newly laid cricket pitches was a small group who had set up two low goals and were playing 5 or 6 a side football (soccer). When I first saw them, the one woman playing was passed the ball, turned and drilled home an excellent goal. Thereafter, I saw only two other goals being scored. They were clearly having great fun.

Straight in front was a man in cricket whites. He had put two sets of stumps in place at either end of one of the cricket pitches. I watched as he went around the painted boundary line, dropping plastic cones every ten or so metres. He then looked almost lost, with nothing to do. Until a group of schoolboys approached from the far side of the ground all carrying large bags of cricket gear. After arriving they proceeded to change out of school uniform into cricket whites in front of the watching lunchtime gathering. Their coach (for so he was) then started to work them a wee bit, as the opposition school boys approached from the other side, and proceeded also to get ready for the game. Which started after I left and was still in progress when I rode home later in the afternoon.

A lovely interval of uncomplicated people watching.