The pohutukawa trees are out in time for Christmas. I haven't seen them bloom in person for five years. Whenever I pass one I turn into a silent movie actress from a particularly heart-tugging melodrama: the clasped hands, the shining eyes, the whole bit. It's starting to get a bit embarrassing. I mean, I'm bad enough when I occasionally see my dream car, the Karmann Ghia, but there are literally hundreds of these trees everywhere. They are the New Zealand Christmas tree, after all. I need to get a grip, as my mother would say. But there's nothing quite like a whole lot of these trees in full flower, at the edge of the water... sigh. I feel like an Englishman waxing eloquent about the voluptuousness of the moors, or something. I should own a whippet and a big walking-stick and go striding manfully about.