Year of many major milestones

LAST BUT NOT LEAST: Maui's dolphins - just one topic in a year of newspaper columns.A-250107NZHGPJMAUI06

They say the days are long but the years are short. Too true!

This is my 52nd column - yes, it's a year since The Glass Half Full started.

I feel privileged to have this chance to have my say in the paper and online.

As a former journalist, I've previously been part of presenting news stories through the same medium - but that wasn't putting forward my own voice. It's taken me a while to let go of the journalism approach, where I wanted to quote others as the technique of story-telling.

Anyone who knows me can attest that I'm not backward in coming forward, perhaps on occasion having a touch more than my fair share of the conversation.

A dedicated column means I've had the added credibility of an editor letting my words go through to the reader - a bit more serious than my regular Facebook posts.

Looking back over the year, there's been some life milestones, too - and these have influenced the columns.

We've shifted to Taranaki, leaving my beloved Whanganui behind, and finally have our house (nearly) sold. The challenges of the housing market - no rock star economy happening here - has hit home.

I've written about the joy of now living on the beach under the mountain and being able to walk everywhere, but I haven't forgotten about the fantastic features of Whanganui - I still miss this place.

Our firstborn has started school and the youngest is on his way to ditching the nappies - both milestones of significance. I've written about quality teachers, positive parenting and not smacking, the never-ending laundry pile of Mount Foldmore and of the challenges in balancing working with being a mum.

I've written about the appreciation I have for being supported by my employer to work part-time from home. For regions like Whanganui, I'd love to see more people returning home and bringing with them jobs that suit remote working or telecommuting - we should make the most of the incredible technologies we have. Sitting in traffic or even on the train is not something I miss from my years in Perth and I save 450-plus hours a year.

Politics has been a big theme for me. Last year I joined a political party for the first time, the Greens, and became officially politically active.

The Whanganui Green Party members were so welcoming and erased any doubts about whether I was "green enough" when I arrived at my first meeting and saw the familiar takeaway pizza boxes at the potluck dinner - not a mung bean in sight.

Nature has always been a big part of my life and my columns, whether it's been a popular but stinky dead whale (not the Slater kind), the last 55 Maui's dolphins, the implications of the intensifying dairy industry on our waterways, the beauty and benefit of a tree or that careful use of 1080 is necessary in the battle for our forests.

Called the biggest environmental challenge of our times, climate change has featured too - concern for melting ice caps, promoting plastic bag-free, critiquing the oil and gas industry's propaganda push through a dinosaur roadshow to schools, my excitement about the possibilities of biofuel or getting out of my car and back on my bike.

Sharing YouTube clips and Twitter conversations has been fun as well. There are some clever people who say it much more eloquently and simply than I can.

Russell Brand and his controversial call for revolution through NOT voting sticks out, but I hope people realise that a non-vote is a vote for the current Government.

Last but not least, I've written about chickens and free-range eggs - and our treatment of caged chickens reminds me of this quote by Mahatma Gandhi that also reflects the theme of my conversations with you over the past year:

"The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members."

Nicola Young is a former Department of Conservation manager who now works for global consultancy AECOM. Educated at Wanganui Girls' College, she has a science degree and is the mother of two boys.