Over the years I've dedicated a lot of column inches to quoting people far more brilliant than I in order to push my point with polish.
A little while ago, however, I found myself in the unique position of having my own words quoted back to me while being introduced for a public talk. Apparently, all on my own, I came up with this little pearl: Life is like a fine-cut diamond. The stone never changes, but its beauty and brilliance is defined by which facet you choose to look through at any one time.
As I stared out of the rain-streaked window of a timeshare stuck in an 80s time-warp (as timeshares are inclined to do), I thought to myself that Turangi, like life, is just like a diamond.
Depending on who you are and what's going down, the small service town tucked between the western edge of Lake Taupo and State Highway One is either the most exciting or most boring place on earth.
Heavily pregnant and accompanied by a two-year-old and his elderly grandparents, I was finding it extremely hard to see or appreciate the finer facets of Turangi.
Having spent large swathes of the first few days beside the toy box in the public library and information centres, the highlight appeared to be a trip to the indoor heated swimming pool complex, where Edward's trepidation around water saw us restricted to the three-foot-deep baby pool. The less-than-attractive sight of my beached body flopping about in the shallows almost certainly ensured we had the pool to ourselves.
Our days consisted of dawdling round trips to the playground, which was only a block away but took an hour to reach given the necessity to inspect every stone, puddle, stick and grimy bit of well-trodden chewing gum en route.
Edward, meanwhile, was so excited by this new world outside his own familiar one you'd have thought we'd taken him to Disneyland. He and I were quite clearly looking through different facets of the diamond.
