Time to cross off another column

Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.

I looked at the calendar this morning and I got a fright.

I've had these frights before and will continue to experience what I have come to dub the "calendaric chills" because the thing that sparks it will never cease.

Time.

For the month of March has marched...quickly.

In less than a week's time we will have sent one quarter of the year on its way.

And that's also one third of the season of autumn.

Which means of course that season of "atmospheric chills" is but eight or so weeks away.

Which will also mean that by that stage of course we will be halfway through the year.

Halfway.

I have wandered down this pathway of time before and when I take that wander it is usually at the cusp of either winter or summer.

Therein lies another slightly chilling aspect to it all because it only seems like a fortnight ago I was championing the imminent arrival of spring and that in no time at all it would be summer.

And thus it came to pass...as did spring and summer.

As I glanced at the calendar this morning I had a flash of inspiration.

I could market a new range of T-shirts which feature the image of a calendar page being torn away and underneath lie the words "What the hell happened to summer?"

They'd sell out in no...time.

My greatest fear in the wake of my growing susceptibility to the calendaric chills is that one day I'll start ticking the days off for no good reason.

Like some sort of obsessive countdown toward nothing in particular.

Except summer of course, for it is now only about eight months away.

As is Christmas...sigh.

But hey, the chills are being kept at bay for now as the weather remains locked into summer, although we are now hosting morning dews and slight wisps of condensation.

Along with this fixation with calendars I have a fixation with global temperatures and enjoy nothing more than noticing on Monday that the temperatures around these parts, at around 27C, were just one degree shy of the temperature in Rarotonga.

And it was raining there to boot.

And we were way out in front of Los Angeles and double that of London and Paris and New York.

Forecast for Thursday?

Rain...but we'll rub that one out on the calendar yeah?

Like the weather and Mother Nature, dear old Father Time steps up to change things through the years.

It can be called evolution and in some ways evolution improves things.

But in other cases it has the potential to wreck things.

Like the spiralling out of control journey of the global social media front.

When the first computers, the size of small rooms, first began to whir no one would have seen it all coming.

It could not be reined in and I suspect it will all spiral further into eventual oblivion.

An acquaintance of mine experienced the unwanted trauma of time recently when he set out for what was scheduled as a day trip to Auckland for a health-related appointment.

Good flight up but no flight back.

The aircraft was fine and dandy and all the passengers were ready to step aboard but the message came through that the flight had been cancelled...because the tower at Hawke's Bay Airport was unmanned.

No controller available for the set time so that was that.

Tediously long bus trip back into the city and hastily arranged accommodation and calls to family to advise he would not be home that night.

It is quite remarkable in this age of increased travel and aircraft numbers that a finely tuned aircraft and its obliging and devoted crew is left on the ground because there's a person missing at the other end.

Go back 30 or 40 years and the only thing that ever prevented a dear old Fokker Friendship coming in would be heavy fog.

While it's a problem for the airport it's not their fault as the coming and going duties are undertaken for them by the national navigational service provider...and they are struggling to find new staff for those roles.

Which is equally tough on them because they are dedicated to providing the best service they can.

So, back to the calendar.

If and when he has to partake in another day journey for treatment my chum is going to put two rings around numbers on the calendar.

One for the day he has to be there and the following day circled for "probable" return home day.