Mark Story.
Organisers of Mother's Day this Sunday were obviously not aware it's also duck shooting season's opening weekend.
Seriously, two Kiwi calendar flagship events are on a collision course.
Fighting out of the blue corner is a husband with the camouflage paint - while in the red corner is a wife poised to be pampered.
Needless to say, the wives and partners of hardcore duck hunters aren't traditionally termed "duck widows" for nothing.
Thus, we have a dilemma.
Maybe the hunting authorities were hoping a freshly-felled duck, rendered into duck l'orange, would make a timely dish for mum.
As a suggestion, it occurs to me you could always kill two birds, as it were, and take your bird(s) into any of the three Bay restaurants (Breckenridge Lodge, Ten Twenty Four and Mister D) participating in the Gamebird Food Festival. Said eateries are promising to deliver flavours not normally associated with the home dining table.
Maybe mums (and dads) would prefer the day to themselves anyway - one in town with friends, the other miles away with his friends in a draughty mai mai.
Will the weekend's winners be the duck widows, or the duck widowers?
Neither. Because on top of everything else the school winter sports season also begins this weekend. The heady mix will make it the ultimate weekend of compromises.
The upshot is that the obligations shared between mum, dad and kids means the feathered fowls will have fewer shotgun pellets aimed in their direction. Therefore, a smaller collective bag and hence, the true winner this weekend is neither mum nor dad, but the ducks.
Paunovic moved to Havelock North with her family from Croatia seven years ago.