New Zealand's Heatwave

Hi there

This week, Wellington temperatures reached as  high as 30c, a high for Wellington at this particular time.  Down the South Island the temps have gone up to 38c.  Naturally, I went to Hataitai beach on the hottest day -

My Auckland Aladdin Holiday

Hi there

I've just returned from three days in Auckland,  a city near the top of the North Island.  I flew up there to see the Disney stage musical "Aladdin".  It was great.  Most shows I go to I always get the tallest biggest guy in the theatre sitting in front of me.  This time I chose to sit front row Dress Circle.  Sheer bliss.  Perfect view.   The show was at my fave NZ theatre, the Civic.  The theatre was built, maybe a hundred years ago in the style of Arabian Nights, so a perfect venue for "Aladdin".

I went on another night to see "City of 100 Lovers", a full-length musical comedy at the SkyCity Casino Theatre.  A New Zealand production. I loved it.  So professional.  Big cast, great costumes, excellent singers,  lovely sets. One scene was supposed to be underwater, and it was so beautful.

Aside from my usual grizzling, moaning, growling, frowning, glaring at overseas tourists walking up Queen Street on the wrong side of the footpath (left side, left side, for goodness sake, you have to walk on the left side in New Zealand!!!), I had a lovely time in Auckland.   I went to Mission Bay, and also Onetangi Beach on Waiheke Island.  Nice swimming.

The woman sitting next to me at "Aladdin" suggested I go to a buffet lunch at the new Cordis Hotel (the old Langham).  I did go.  Enjoyed it.  There were separate meat and fish display cabinets, just like in a supermarket, and the customers picked their products and watched while it was all being cooked on the grill. This only took a few minutes.  I only ordered tarakihi fish but a woman next to me said "I'll have tarakahi, flounder, trevally, cod ..."  I was stunned.  Okay, at one of the other food stations, I did grab a dozen oysters on the shell. Yummm.

above:  meat products

above:  fish products

above: downtown Auckland harbour, with the ferry building over to the right.

Rainbow Pedestrian Crossing

Hi there

There's a new pedestrian crossing that cuts across the Cuba Street Mall in Wellington.  It's rainbow-coloured.  So prettty and bright -

Carmen Rupe, New Zealand's most famous drag queen from the 1960's - she ran a coffee shop at the bottom of Cuba Street - has her image depicted in the Cuba Mall 'cross now' traffic lights (see above).

PS:  Cuba Street isn't directly named after Cuba, the country.  It's the name of a first ship to carry pioneers to Wellington, New Zealand.

I Wanna Be a Cowboy

Hi there

When I was a child, I wanted desperately to be a boy because boys got to play at Cowboys.  Boys got to climb trees, play in the long grass, stomp through streams, and scramble over and under fences.

Girls wore puffy-sleeved organza dresses, played at cooking, wheeled dolls around in prams - I hated it.  I wanted to be like Roy Rogers, and (sigh) Audie Murphy.   Jack Palance was my fave bad guy.

I didn't care for the silly women in western movies.  They simpered, and batted their eyelashes.  They always seemed to twist their ankles when  escaping across the hills with the handsome square-jawed sheriff.  They needed a man to save the family ranch from the black-hatted baddie, they carried parasols, and needed to be helped up onto buckboards and stagecoaches.

Oh, how my nine year old heart craved to be a cowboy, in a proper cowboy outfit.  But my mother bought me a cowgirl costume.  I was heart-broken.  Okay, I had a great pistol and gun-belt, nothing wrong with them.  The gun was pearl-handled with a silver (ish) barrel and the belt had bullets tucked into it.  But, oh, that cowgirl skirt - there was a fringe around the hem, stars were stuck here and there over the (fringed) jerkin, and the boots were a rosy pink!  The whole thing was so, yuck,  feminine.

By the time I was sixteen, I was wearing rock'n'roll bop skirts, stiletto heels, and lipstick.  If I accidentally mis-matched my handbag to my shoes I would turn around from the bus stop and rush home to change, regardless of being late for something.  I wouldnt go as far as the letterbox without full make-up.  Yes, I had morphed into a girlie-girl.

A few years' ago, I achieved a dream by touring Monument Valley in the States.  Real cowboy country with all the scenery I had seen in 1950's cowboy movies.  The nine-year-old in me was over-the-moon.

I look back, nostalgically,  at all those cowboy movies I used to see at double-feature sessions at the Rivoli and Ascot theatres in Newtown -

Hay fever? Or not?

Since I was a young teen I had hay fever.  During much of Spring, and also Autumn, and especially winter, I sniffed and snuffled through the night and, more often than not, through morning work, sometimes right  into the afternoon.

The doctor gave me pills and potions.   I must have gone through thousands of tissues and hankies over the years.  I resorted to sleeping with a tissue stuffed up my nostril ( I know, ugh!).

When I was age forty-something, I was still taking daily nose-drops, as a matter of routine.  Then, I forgot to take them, and I suddenly realised I was unshackled from my hay fever ...

... and all because I had got rid of my eiderdown.  An eiderdown that, during colder months,  had been on my bed since I was a child, a nostalgic piece of bed frippery.

The eiderdown had been stuffed full of feathers!!

I had even had the thing re-stuffed periodically (feathers in eiderdowns have a tendency to squirm out of pin-prick openings).  For goodness sake, "eider" and "down" actually relate to feathers, but I'd never given it a thought.

So there you have it, hay fever sufferers.  Maybe you don't have hay fever after all?  Maybe, get rid of your eiderdown?

And Don't hug any fluffy ducklings -

Stick to a Fluffy Duck cocktail;  it's a better option.