We ended up having a great Independence Day yesterday. We were invited to an afternoon BBQ at Naomi and Brian’s place at Ela Beach Towers, and when we arrived discovered that it wasn’t a small BBQ – lots of adults, lots of kids, and a fantastic pool area with tennis court for the kids to play on.

We left at about 7pm, so I could get home for a Radio Live interview back in New Zealand, and on arrival home had a message to say that they had someone else lined up for the interview, and was it OK if I was just on standby. Of course, it wasn’t really a problem, and as it was scheduled for 7:30pm – when I didn’t get a phone call I just went back to an evening with my wife, and a very exhausted early night.

At 10:25pm, I woke up to my phone (which was on silent) flashing an incoming phone call. Yes – I know it’s weird that a silent phone can wake me up, but such is life when you are always oncall – I can tune out kids crying in the night, wake up to kids vomitting, sleep through kids climbing in the bed, and wake up to a little light flashing on the phone.

So I answered the phone, and it was bloody Radio Live. I was doing a WTF moment and wondering what the hell they we’re doing ringing. The guy at the other end of the phone said 10:30pm PNG time….! D’oh. Turns out the number 1 had fallen through, and I was it.

So I had a nice chat to some guy Hamish, at 1:30am NZ time to an audience of maybe 1 or 2 (who else is listening to talkback at 1:30am Monday morning). I love pushing a positive image about PNG, as the media really beats the country up… I bet most of the writers have never been here though… So talked for maybe 10 minutes, before saying goodbye- and then when the phone clicked off, realized I hadn’t even put a plug in for my blog!

Must have been too tired!

Today is the observed Independence Day holiday here in Papua New Guinea. And l think the whole whanau agrees – we are all too buggered to do anything!

Might be a relax in the pool and lots of PNG coffee 🙂

Cheers
Aaron