Trying to think of an auspicious date for the ‘birth’ of this blog, I promised my brother Tom (who has been kindly and generously building my website) that I would start my ‘worded warbling’ on my 40th birthday… but with bike rides, swimming, dancing and CD launches, I found the day suddenly over and not a word written. The next day was occupied by airport strife due to the runway lights at Auckland airport failing – a worst case Christmas Tree lights scenario I would imagine – and so now I find myself in the back garden on Waiheke Island tapping away next to an open fire because this seems the only right and proper place to begin a storytelling blog in this day and age.

I had thought I would be in East Timor by now. As they nibble at my legs, I regard the Waiheke mosquitoes curiously – can they taste the Malarone  in my blood from the Malaria pills? Is a typhoid vaccination an extreme response to the local island tank water? Suddenly I am filled with gratitude for the relative comfort and safety of the world I live in. Tomorrow I head off to quite a different island – East Timor, formed they say from the body of a crocodile who over came his crocodile nature and returned the kindness shown to him by a young boy who saved his life. Nobody sings ‘Never smile at a Crocodile’ in East Timor I suppose. Instead they call out cheerily as they cross the water, ” Don’t eat me grandfather crocodile, I’m your grand child.” The nature of the scorpion is not fait accompli!

I hope you’ll join me on my adventures – after all that’s what stories are made of.