Slices of heaven
On New Year’s Eve I weighed myself. This was a mistake, writes Kate Oktay.
Okay Oktay
Let’s make 2021 a new kind of bad
Let’s make 2021 a new kind of bad
It is my last column for this year, and I would like to take the opportunity to say "Goodbye 2020, you absolute dick", writes Kate Oktay.
Hauling up the big girls’ pants
Hauling up the big girls’ pants
I am officially a middle-aged woman. When others aren’t around to witness it, I have started sporting a floppy hat, jeans that have not been fashionable in a decade, and gardening gloves, writes...
A vote of appreciation for the South
A vote of appreciation for the South
The bottom of the South Island is an oasis of calm in the middle of a whole world going mad, writes Kate Oktay.
Extinction distinction
Extinction distinction
On many levels I imagine I am a fairly disappointing mother, writes Kate Oktay.
Speaking in tongues
Speaking in tongues
For a few months, every couple of years since I was 20, I follow a predictable chain of events. I get enthusiastic, or the guilt climbs to a point where I cannot ignore it anymore, and I resolve to...
Just horsing around
Just horsing around
Childhood memories are a patchwork; random snatches of scenes mostly hidden, but suddenly surfacing when jolted to consciousness by the smell of sunscreen, or the feeling of flannelette sheet...
Food that time forgot
Food that time forgot
Leaving lockdown has been a slow emerging from a world that seemed to stop, writes Kate Oktay.
Quality bogan absurdity
Quality bogan absurdity
Predictably enough, the world’s top distraction during these extraordinary times has been a one-season, seven-episode, meth-fuelled, lion-pitted ode to craziness, writes Kate Oktay.
Wanting not to waste
Wanting not to waste
Everyone has something that makes them quite annoying to live with. A tiny, wee thing that even you, the person with the least objective opinion in the world, can admit must be mildly irritating,...
Wanting not to waste
Wanting not to waste
Everyone has something that makes them quite annoying to live with. A tiny, wee thing that even you, the person with the least objective opinion in the world, can admit must be mildly irritating,...
Thanks but no thanks
Thanks but no thanks
Sometimes it's more about what you don't do. . . writes Kate Oktay.
Generational anxiety
Generational anxiety
Lately, there have been a lot of awkward conversations, both real and imagined, writes Kate Oktay.
Soaring like a turkey
Soaring like a turkey
Because I am a bad person, I go overboard with Christmas celebrations, in the hopes that I will make a clear point to my small daughter that my own holiday celebrations are much more fun than my...
The thoughts that count
The thoughts that count
OK, I know that it is not OK to talk about Christmas now, writes columnist Kate Oktay.
Kate Oktay: It has not grown on me
It has not grown on me
Kate Oktay always imagined she'd love gardening. The reality is somewhat different.
A whiff of crisis and patchouli
A whiff of crisis and patchouli
Every few decades, a generation sees the need for change, and society jolts forth,. writes Kate Oktay.
Happy Father's Day
Happy Father's Day
For those of you in the part of the Venn diagram that means (1) Father’s Day is news to you, and (2) you know someone who may have expected you to remember, I’m truly sorry for the terror that is now settling in your heart.
Doing our (little) bit
Doing our (little) bit
Living in NZ, especially, I suspect, in a small community, when you are middle-aged, is a long succession of attending community meetings to plan fundraising initiatives, writes Kate Oktay.
Kate Oktay: A queue in place of a cure
A queue in place of a cure
I was going to write something more cheerful this week. Something positive, and upbeat, and joyful. But then my daughter got sick and I had to go to the urgent doctors, writes Kate Oktay.