Wellington Bound

[Postscript: Saturday 23rd May. The flight back to Tauranga has been cancelled due to wind gusts of up to 140km. And every flight to Auckland. So we are trapped. Another night in Wellington. Another reason why this place fully deserves its name - 'Windy']

Any misconceptions about where I am in the world will vanish tonight. I will land in Wellington to a seasonal cold blast from the south. (And in Windy, this is one long season).

It's the first of two fairly quick visits to the capital. Next month, I arrive for the NZ Microsoft SharePoint Users conference. This week, it is meetings with the usual suspects. Enough said.

I've been back in Tauranga now for five days. The mood on the street HAS slightly changed since I left for Hong Kong in April. The change is an absolute mirror of my final days in the UK just over a week ago. The common factor? The weather.

I'm no economist, but looking back to last October and November when the world's banks were having 'their moment', in NZ, spring was in the air and the focus here was on the beach. It all seemed so distant. Now the nights are closing in and the threat to jobs becomes more real, so does that change in mood. Contra in London. MPs may have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar, but the temperature is heating up - and so is the pound and the stock market. People are looking forward to the summer. Coincidence?

Over the next two days, I will put the theory to the test. Once I have found my thermals.......