Stateside with Rosalea: Sunday, Sunny Sunday

With all this potting mix under my fingernails, I'm forced to observe--as an entry in my high school autograph book once did--that spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where da boidies iz!

Note to self: Do not go into a nursery centre and say you want to get the doings to grow some pot plants on your balcony. House plants, Rosalea, house plants! It's the kind of misunderstanding that could get you arrested.

After a lovely walk along the shoreline on Alameda Island, with its view of San Francisco across the bay and pohutakawa trees lining the street, I went to the nursery and got some monkey plants and vegetable seeds.

The pohutukawa are beginning to bloom already, which probably means nothing meteorological here at all because everything in the Bay Area seems to bloom all year round. Manuka especially, of which I have never seen so many varieties and colours.

Speaking of things Down Under, Air New Zealand is going to have to figure out a new advertising ploy. IcelandAir has just started flying direct to San Francisco, and its ads show all the same things AirNZ's ads do--green open spaces, mountains, hot pools.

Their radio ads emphasise the nightlife and the fact that Iceland is en route to Europe. They're targeting the youth market, who are right now making their summer vacation plans.

I've been trying to think what AirNZ could feature that would make it stand out, and I've decided it must be the proximity to the Red Centre, Fiji, and Asia. Emphasising Auckland and Christchurch's Asian culture, for example, would attract a lot of Bay Area residents.

rosalea.barker@gmail.com

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