Just above the arrow, you can see the female frog with her head just above water (like most of us at this time of year) and directly below but slightly to the left, the male frog with his throat blown right up as he sings his morning song to her. A pair of the beautifully-named Green and Golden Bell Frogs; tiny inhabitants of Waiatarua Park, which I didn’t know existed until my latest self-improvement idea. I can’t remember why now, but I think it was something to do with googling how to improve sleep, and there were numerous links to Dr Michael Moseley’s shortlist of things to do to improve your health. Here’s the recent Radio NZ chat: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018868560/dr-michael-mosley-just-one-thing

Now I’m a big fan of changing one small thing at a time rather than a big list of New Year’s resolutions. So I read through several of these lists, and saw that going out for a walk first thing in the morning is the best thing you can do to get the right quality of light into your eyes to stop melatonin production (that’s the hormone that makes you sleepy). It seems that as we get older it’s even more important, as our eyes don’t absorb the light so easily.

So the next day, we shifted the usual dog walk to first thing. No morning cup of tea, no reading the paper in bed; straight into the walking gear and out to the park. And that’s how we discovered the musical frogs. I’ve been walking in that park for about 25 years now, since before it was tidied up and the cows removed and the wetlands reinstated. And I’ve never heard the frogs before. To be fair, the frogs probably weren’t there back when it was the anomalous cow paddocks in the middle of Remuera. It took us a while to work out what the noise was, and then a few days later we were lucky enough to spot the little pair in the photo above, quite close to the path.

The frogs give us an extra incentive to jump out of bed even if we haven’t slept that well - if we arrive in the park even at 7.15am it’s touch and go whether we’ll hear them. If we get there at 6.30am, we have singing all the way around the park - multiple locations of frog chorus. Something about their ridiculously loud song, coming from such tiny creatures, and always the same pattern, delights us and brightens our early morning walk. We laugh, right at the beginning of the day, and feel a little bit pleased with ourselves that we’re out so early, and we start the day a little lighter.

The frogs are Australian, by the way. They probably spotted the grove of gum trees and thought they were home.

But what have little frogs in the park got to do with standing on one leg? Only that the stork pose, both with eyes open and eyes shut, is supposed to be life-extendingly good for you! Sounds easy, eh? The eyes-shut version is surprisingly difficult but does improve with practice. And very easy to add into the daily routine.

As for the cold showers and chocolate, I did say I advocate one small change at a time, but in this weather a blast of cold at the end of a shower feels wonderful. I’m not sure how I’ll feel about that sometime around May, but I’m going to give the chocolate a really good try.

Happy New Year everyone!