Best Day of Your Life: Abby Smith

October 23, 2011, was a pretty good day. You'll remember it was when New Zealand lifted the Rugby World Cup. But, was it the best day of your life? Possibly, but probably not. Summer Times has asked 12 Otago people to describe the best day of their lives, and the responses will run over the next two weeks. (To ensure variety, we ruled out the days contributors met their partners, married them, or their children were born.)

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He was about 5, I think. A little boy, although tall for his age, already totally obsessed with cricket.

He already knew the skills, the attitude, the stats for his favourite players.

He learnt to count and read watching cricket.

When he was mad at me, I had to be Roger Twose. When he was happy, I was allowed to be Mark Greatbatch or maybe Chris Harris.

He was always Matt Horne, a sturdy opening batsman.

We usually played in the limited space of our driveway, boundaries coming thick and fast.

It was a Wednesday in spring.

On Wednesdays, I sometimes got off work early and collected him from after-school care to come and do something special just with me.

On this day, I walked him along Great King St to the North Ground, where there was a big expanse of flat grass, and fished out his plastic bat and wickets and a ball from the boot of the car.

"Surprise! Today we're going to play real cricket."

We set up the plastic wickets and he carefully paced out the distance for a pitch. We moved it a bit to make sure the ball didn't go on to the road.

For a while I bowled and he batted, then we switched. Later we did some catching and fielding.

Sometimes a student or a worker headed home stopped and watched us for a bit. One of them commented on his professional stance, and we both smiled with pride.

It was an hour lined with sunshine - overwhelmingly happy, just us two, just being together, with all the time in the world, just playing catch, as people walked past and the spring sunshine sifted through the leaves and life was perfect, perfect, perfect.

It's hard to find a "best" day, in a life that has been mostly simple and benign. A loved childhood, a happy marriage and good kids, an interesting job, moderate health and moderate wealth, a nice house settled in a safe and loving community.

But one day, in my rocking chair, when I've forgotten all those things, I hope I can still remember one golden hour spent playing cricket with my son.

- Abby Smith is the Otago Conservation Board chairwoman.

If you would like to share your "Best day of my life except for ..." story with ODT readers, please email: mark.price@odt.co.nz for details.