This was NEVER on my bucket list.

Most appropriate - on a rock on Kakamatua Beach

There are moments in life that you just HAVE to work through.

They’re NOT going to disappear

They’re NOT going to go away even if you act like an ostrich.

The sun trying to rise at Kakamatua Beach ... gorgeous red glow on the cliffs

NO-ONE knows what they’re capable of until placed in a situation
 where every fibre of their being rises up in protest.

Visiting the Correction Service facilities does that to me.

It was NEVER on my Bucket List.

I don’t think it’s on ANYone’s.

I don’t LIKE being there.  

It feels SURREAL and it just feels wrong.

It’s NOT your more USUAL Sunday morning jaunt.

The facility where the significant other is housed is in the country, 

an hour’s drive out of Auckland.

I’m a child of nature.

I love the country.

I love being out in the wild.

And yet, when we visit the significant other, I feel trapped.

Like a bird in a cage.

My early morning fellow explorers ... Saturday morning that is

The walls confine and restrict me.

I feel suffocated and ill-at-ease.

So when the Correction Service Officer tells me to remove my gloves and take them back to the external visitors centre before he’ll let me through the second security check-point, I lose it.

Anger bubbles to the surface.

It covers a multitude of emotions, not all of them pleasant.

I know they have a job to do

but this is hard enough already, 

WITHOUT petty bureaucracy.

Fortunately the walk up to the External Visitors Centre is a good 600m 
there and another 600m back.

Fortunately it’s NOT raining.

That would have pissed me off even more as umbrella’s aren’t allowed either.

The oldest lemming is far more understanding than I am.  

He just takes it all in his stride, smiles and thanks them.  

I wish I had his patience.

“Hold the hand of the child that lives in your soul.  

For this child, NOTHING is IMPOSSIBLE.” 
~ Paulo Coelho