Hi there
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
So many New Zealand families will be going to the beach today, New Year's Day. Soggy, sandy, tomato sandwiches anyone?
Have a wonderful 2024 -
ze
Hi there
Merry Christmas.
My friend and I went to Tutaki Resturant in Lower Hutt for Christmas Day lunch. It's funny to think Aotearoa-New Zealand is so many hours ahead of other countries because of the date line. As I type this it's 4 pm Christmas Day in Aotearoa-New Zealand, but it's 3am Christmas morning in England (the extra hour accounts for a daylight saving change).
There was such a feast at Tutaki. Here is the dessert table only -
Hi there
About ten years back I was trying on some sandals at The Warehouse when suddenly I got this electricity sort of thing zapping through the side of my body and down my leg. I couldn't change my position from where I was hunched over putting on a sandal. I did a type of bunny-hop around in a little circle trying to extricate myself from the stance, one shoe on, one shoe off. I was stuck in that pose for a couple of minutes...
When I recounted my embarrassing story, a friend said to me, "At their next staff Christmas party, you'll be on The Warehouse's funniest customer video."
Goodness, I hoped there was no such video.
But last week, I upped my embarrassment at The Warehouse by a hundred percent -
On entering the Lyall Bay shop, I made my way over to the customer counter to use the hand sanitiser. It was in a bottle with a push nozzle.
Now, I've had trouble with this particular nozzle several times. My aim has never been very good. Often I've had the sanitiser liquid shoot at my chest, instead of my hands. So this time, I turned the nozzle from me, waved my hand in front of it and pressed down the pusher.
"Owwww!" The guy behind the counter let out a shriek as he got a direct shot of hand sanitiser right in his eye.
... I apologised. And apologised. And apologised...
I fully expect the episode will most definitely be on this Christmas's funniest customer video....
Hi there
I went to the 'Dinosaurs of Patagonia' exhibition at Te Papa Tongarewa (Museum of New Zealand) on Friday . Hey, I'm 'A Friend of Te Papa', so I get in to the exhibition a day ahead of the general public opening day. And for free. I'm spoilt that way...
I was somehow expecting to see the skeleton of one dinosaur and maybe a hundred or so photos and notices about the timelines of dinosaurs. But, my goodness, there were lots of dinosaurs. Big ones, small ones, medium sized ones. With every step I took there was a bigger dinosaur mould than the one I'd just seen.
I was surprised to see that the majority of the skeleton bones had been discovered within my living memory. And yet the bones were 220 million years old. I would have thought they would have been stumbled upon years earlier.
A wonderful exhibition.
Hi there
I was decluttering my house last week (Swedish Death Cleaning?) and I came across some old photos. There I was as a child, sitting on Santa's knee, deep in thought, telling Santa the present that I wanted from him that Christmas. I'm pretty sure it was "a horse that bucks and gallops", a step or two up from a rocking horse and I wanted it desperately. But ... sigh, I didn't get it.
But looking at the photo, I noticed I was wearing my beloved cowgirl boots. They were really gum-boots ('Wellingtons' if you're from Great Britain). My boots were red with lariats entwined around the tops.
I loved cowboy movies and I so wanted to be a cowboy. Not a cowgirl. Girls in westerns were sissy. They were ranchers' daughters who needed help getting up on wagons, and the closest they got to shooting was handing rifles to the hero as he took aim out of a ranch window.
Mum had bought me a pearl-handled pistol and holster. There were bullets around my gun belt. I got a waistcoat with a fringe and a big star on the back -
But...
I was given a cow-girl skirt!!!
Devastation.
This little tomboy wanted buckskin trousers. She would never ever ever forgive her mother...
PS> I forgave Mum about an hour later...
PPS Gumboots got that name in 1800s New Zealand because of our pioneer gum-diggers.
Hi there
I've just booked to go back to Las Vegas next year. Hope there will be nothing to stop me going. A friend pointed out that either just before or during my holidays, I always get some sort of injury*.
He's not wrong. I've had a plethora of sprained ankles and knees, gone deaf in one ear, black eyes from falling over a curb, at an airport I got an explosion in my leg that left me limping for two weeks, there's been foot blisters a-plenty, have come down with lots of colds, broke my hand, got dehydrated, you-name-it.... Oh, and not to forget the time I'd had a cataract operation just before leaving for Las Vegas and had to take 15 eye drops a day during that holiday, all the while trying not to let my eyedrops bottle get in over 23c temperature (in Las Vegas during my stay it was 38c every day).
Cross fingers....
above: me, in Las Vegas, inside Venetian Casino Hotel. Fake sky, fake canal, fake Venice.
*another friend reckons the reason I get injured or I'm ill either just before or when I'm on holiday is because I'm always going on holiday! Rude...
Hi there
I had been writing my friend in England for 58 years. We started as young pen-pals, moved on to being email pals, and perhaps two or three times a year we rang each other. We met once - I stayed with Irene when I visited England the year we both turned 60.
Together we'd gone through the psychedelic 60's, the angst of romance, middle age, hobbies that came and went, job restructures, retirement, our beloved pets, back aches, growing old....
I sent her an email a couple of months ago. She didn't reply. This wasn't like Irene; she usually answered me within a week.
I sent her another email about three weeks later. No answer. Maybe Irene was in hospital; she'd been talking about going in for an eye operation?
I sent her two more emails over the coming month. Nothing. Was her computer broken?
I phoned her three times. Her phone number made a discontinued sound. I wondered if she'd moved to a rest home, she'd had one or two falls lately.
We had never told each other our in-case-of-emergency contact. I knew she had relatives in the area so I tried hunting them up. I looked up obituaries. At the same time, I searched Wellington souvenir shops for Irene's Christmas present....
I looked up Irene's name on the web. I found a photo of her, taken a couple of years ago. It was at a luncheon for a senior group. The photo was of her and a volunteer from that group.
So I emailed the group.
Within hours, I had a reply.
Irene had passed away two months before. Her dogs were given to her relatives, her house cleared out, and nobody had let me know....
I was devastated. I don't think I'll ever get over that I didn't know what had happened to my friend for all that length of time. Someone should have got in touch with me-
But it's come home to me very clearly that both Irene and I are to blame. We - well, older people, especially - we should be leaving a list of who, and when, and how to contact our friends, to let them know of our passing.
So, everyone out there, please-please-please leave contact addresses, email names, phone numbers in a prominent place, like on a hall table, or with your will, or by the phone, with instructions to please ring these people if something should happen to you.
I am so sad that I didn't grieve for my friend at the time of her passing...
Life Into Death Into Life - by Myra Reeves
It was a broken bird,
Hurt wings folded, forgotten how to fly,
Lost the blue air, the beyond,
Grounded.
Twittering against the healing hold of kind hands,
The voice saying 'Be still',
Be at peace.
So it became at last.
Now they have opened wide
With what sweet grace!
The bird flew straight to the eye of heaven.
It is flying, flying, flying
Into unnameable joy................
R.I.P Irene. Just you flap your wings like mad to get to that "unnameable joy", you hear me?!!
See ya!
T
Hi there
Hi there
Over a half-dozen years ago I went on a Melbourne day tour along The Great Ocean Road to see the Apostles rock formation. I enjoyed it all, but it was a 12 hour trip and extremely tiring. However, just about an hour out of Melbourne that tour bus shot through Lorne, a little seaside village that looked so inviting. I always wanted to go back to Lorne. I even emailed the Lorne Visitor Information Office to see if there were any day trips from Melbourne city. There weren't.
But a month ago, after digging through dozens and dozens and dozens of Viator's Melbourne tours , I discovered a day tour from Melbourne to Lorne. I went for it.
This day tour was relaxing, with stops for wandering, and fun. It was run by this lovely lady named Kel who grew up in the area around Lorne, so she knew everything about the area. We stopped off in many places including beach areas, The Great Ocean Road sign, and Erskine Falls. There was a lovely lighthouse view, rocky cliffs, rural vistas, dead or alive kangaroos - you know how we kiwis count dead possums on motorways? I think it's what Australians do too, but with kangaroos.
In case, anyone is going to Melbourne, Kel can be reached at www.amazingoceanroad.tours. Or from overseas, phone +61 481 771 485. See her card above.
This Lorne day tour wasn't tiring. We got back to Melbourne at a reasonable time.
The tour went a little way along The Great Ocean Road but very soon we veered off to visit a chocolaterie shop.
This chocolaerie was set on 15 acres of beautiful gardens and with a huge carpark. The shop plus cafe plus factory gave out brunch, lunch, beautiful pastries, hot meals, cakes. There was a beanery, and a chocolate workshop. The complex was huge. There were stands and stands and stands of all type of chocolate. There were samplings of light chocolate, dark chocolate, and a new 'breed' of chocolate called Ruby. There was a Vegan chocolate stand that must have had dozens of vegan varieties.
I got myself a hot chocolate drink. It came as white chocolate, with a little tub of Ruby liquid which I stirred into my chocolate -
Hi there
Sorry, I can't seem to insert any photos, so you, my four readers, are going to have to wait with baited breath, until I can call my computer guy in to help me out (sigh). What annoys me is that it's probably only some little button that needs to be pressed. When I think that once upon a time, way back in my working days, I used to be good with computers. But now....? Grrrrhhhh.
Hi there!
I returned from Melbourne about an hour ago. This is a quick blog, there will be much (much) more later (poor you!). As my four readers will remember, I went over to Melbourne to see "Moulin Rouge - the musical". Wow, what a spectacular show. The dancing, the lights, the singing, the theatre, the chocolate dip icecream, the Moulin Rouge tote bag that i bought and really shouldn't have because everyone will think I went to the actual night club and not the musical.....
Left: me, in the foyer of the theatre. The screen behind me changed its picture every 30 seconds. People who wanted to stand in front of the screen had to choose when to go for it. No dithering allowed. The woman taking my picture snapped the camera a split second before the screen behind me changed its picture.Hi there
I've often wondered why I sneeze and cough more when I'm in two places:
1 the library
2 the bus
Once-upon-a-time I was a bridesmaid. The bride, as she walked down the aisle, gave a delicate little sneeze - ch-ch...
When I sneeze, it's AHHH-TISH-OOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
Dittto for coughing. My friend goes: cough, cough....
I go: COUGH!!!!COUGH!!!!COUGH!!!!COUGH!!!! COUGH!!!!COUGH!!!! COUGH!(repeat at least 5 more times).
Pre-covid, I hopped off many buses because fellow bus passengers stared at me in horror and shuffled in their seats while trying to blend in with the wall - anything to keep away from me and the germs that I don't have. Hayfever causes my sneezing, and the cough ....? My doctor calls it an 'old lady cough"- I've often wondered if he could have been more gracious and named it an "old person's cough"?
Librarians have never liked me either. Is it the mustiness of books that causes me to cough and sneeze? Who knows?
But after covid, everything's got so much worse. I get glares from all around me. Over and over again, I've stood up from my seat in the bus and all but screeched, "Hayfever, it's hayfever!"
Oh dear....
Hi there
Two weeks ago I got a burst blood vessel in my eye and for some reason, I also ended up with a black eye. My friends had the most hilarious time, making up reasons why I got it. But, for the life of me, I can't fathom how the black eye happened.
I did have a nightmare where I dreamed I was being attacked, and I woke up screaming and fighting. Had I injured myself? No, that was just too silly.....
I wondered if I should still be taking my Eye Clinic-prescribed eyedrops. I went to a pharmacy at 9 am-
"Hello, I've got a burst blood vessel in my eye. And a black eye. I just want to know if I can still take my eyedrops?" Easy-peasy for the pharmacist to answer, I figured.
"Um, better ring the Eye Clinic," said the pharmacist.
I rang the eye clinic. "Someone will ring you back about it," a nurse said.
I waited. And waited. And waited for the phone call. At 3 30 pm, I rang my doctor and got an appointment for 5 pm.
"Oh, I don't know about your eyedrops," said the doctor. "I'll ring the eye clinic."
"It's Friday," I said. "They close down early."
But she had the magic way to reach the on-call ophthalmologist. "Take the eyedrops," the ophthalmologist said.
On Monday, I got a call from the Eye Clinic. The nurse said, "I forgot to follow-up on your phone call to us. Sorry."
What a lot of trouble for such a teeny enquiry....
H
Hi there
I'm always confused when some northern hemisphere tourists are upset by our cold wet windy and, in certain areas, snow-y weather -
"But it's August," I say. What did they expect?
" Yes, August is when we always take our holidays. "
"But August is the dead of winter in New Zealand. You should have come in February."
" Huh? "
If I didn't want to be immersed in a snow-y Christmas card scenario I wouldn't visit the Northern Hemisphere in the midst of their winter, so why come to Aotearoa in August? ... unless these tourists want to don mittens and windbreaker jackets, and ski on our mountains (yes, NZ spawns world champion snow-boarders and skiers).
And don't forget that though we're officially in the South Pacific, Aotearoa-New Zealand is just about the closest country to the South Pole (though Argentina will dispute this)...
Hi there
It's all go.... Our big political elections are next Saturday. The two main parties - Labour and National - and a bunch of smaller parties are wearing themselves out, racing up and down the country, visiting schools, factories, farms, outdoor markets, etc. The present prime minister came down with covid and had to stay confined at home for five days - what, no electioneering?; is there some sort of conspiracy theory here?
There's been lots of back-biting. I remember times, in the past, when no one party would lower themselves to sling off so horribly about another party. Nowadays ... the gloves are off.
One thing that I can never understand is why so many people vote in advance of official election day. I would never do this. What if, between my vote and election day, there was some giant scandal to do with the person or party I'd voted for? I couldn't claw back my vote ...
***
I went for a return walk from Lyall Bay to Island Bay last week. The sky was so beautiful.
Hi there
When I was a kid in the early 1950's, my friend (Jean-Marie) and I went to the movies as often as we could. Yay, bring on Audie Murphy who usually got shot at, like, 10 times in every western but still staggered around the town before killing the baddie and claiming the rancher's daughter.
But in those days, New Zealanders never said that they were "going to the movies". They were "going to the ... pictures".
Jean-Marie and I read Archie Andrews comics. Archie talked about 'movies', not 'pictures'. So, we did too. Everyone looked on us as if we were mad -
"Hey, Mum, we're off to the movies -"
"You're what?"
"The movies." Mum looked puzzled. I sighed. "The pictures! The pictures, okay?"
And today ... I got to thinking about word spellings from the United States that have completely taken over from New Zealand's english heritage language.
For example:
English - gaol
US - jail
English - capital
US - capitol
English - centre
US - center
English - pyjamas
US - pajamas
In the fifties, I loved doughnuts. They were big balls of dough, split by cream and jam and covered in icing sugar. So delicious, with a crispy skin. I would have a "Harry Met Sally" moment (the junior non-naughty version) whenever I ate one.
Now we have 'donuts', circles with a hole in the middle and with icing on the top. Nice and tasty but nowhere near as yummy as a "doughnut".
And what about the word 'programme'? It's on the way out. 'Program' is on the way in ....
Of course, it can go the other way around. Way-back-when New Zealand had an everything-except-groceries department chain store called: Woolworths. I used to think it was part of the famous United States chain (think Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, the Paris Hilton of her day) until a friend pointed out to me that it was all about the apostrophe. NZ had the apostrophe after the 's', ie Woolworths'. In America it was "Woolworth's". Goodness, did we blatantly copy-cat? And Woolworths Supermarket from Australia arrived here some years ago. It disappeared for a few years but is now due back again within a few weeks. Don't ask me to sort out the do's and don'ts of the name; I've given up....
Hi
Last week I was determined to walk from Miramar to the Ataturk Memorial, by way of Wellington Airport. If I were coming from town, I would catch the Airport Bus. If driving, I'd pay the toll and (return) drive straight through the airport to the sea and onto the memorial (or drive via Lyall Bay for free).
it's a 22 minute walk from my house to the airport terminal, and once I got there, I thought, um, should I go into the terminal and have a little nosey around?
Nope! I must not deviate from my plan. Samosas and kebabs, get out of my brain!
From outside the main doors of the airport terminal, I walked straight south through the airport grounds, past car parks, freight buildings and a sewage plant, to reach the sea at Moa Point (about 15 minutes from terminal). Maybe I should turn right and do a short walk through a tunnel to Lyall Bay to watch the surfers (and eat at Spruce Goose)?
No! I turned left and walked jauntily past the dozen houses at Moa Point, past several pebbled coves, and round about quite a few flax bushes.
it was a narrow rutted and, in parts, stoney track.
After about a half an hour I wasn't walking quite so jauntily. Some puffing was involved.
There were a couple of times that necessitated my running into a sometimes busy road when the track was not passable. It was no more than 15 seconds-a-sprint, but I was a little miffed at having to do this.
Finally after about an hour from leaving Moa Point (I had stopped to take photos, and sit down once [okay, twice, but I was eating my picnic lunch so who's counting?]), I reached the bottom of the hill leading up to the Ataturk Memorial. The Memorial commemorates all the fighting dead from the first world war, Gallipoli.
I'm sure there is no shame in admitting that by this time I was a bit of a red-faced sweaty, puffing mess.
Oh, bugger... I just didn't want to climb the hill to the memorial. Besides I'd been up there loads of times. It was only about a five minute hill hike but ...
I prodded back home the way I'd come.
Quitter..........
Hi there
Well... The wild gusty winds certainly hit Wellington last night. My kowhai tree blew completely out from the ground. My neighbour lost her fence. Electricity went down in many areas.
I was so stressed out because I didn't know how on earth I was going to get rid of the tree from slap-bang in the middle of my front lawn. I couldn't get around it or over it, I couldn't open my bedroom window, I had a little garden lopper that could only cut twiggy branches. Many branches were as thick as my thighs and if you've ever seen my thighs you would be horrified at their thicky-ness. The kowhai tree's trunk was even thicker. How on earth was I going to chop it up and cart it away.
This morning I lopped off as much as I could from the tree, but truly it wasn't much. But then - miracle of miracles! - a neighbour arrived with a chainsaw. Whoopee, my lawn was soon tree-free, with blocks of branches safely tucked away for me to gradually feed into my wheelibin.
Wow, thank you, neighbour....
above: a stock photo of a New Zealand tui bird in a kowhai tree. I will so miss watching the tui sipping from the kowhai flower, and my listening to its beautiful singing voice.
Hi there
Wow, it's been windy in Wellington today. For the last hour, I'd been hearing bangs and noises. A couple of pieces of my garden furniture blew around.
It's about 8 pm Sunday (NZ time) as I type this.
About fifteen minutes ago, I went to close the bedroom blinds and I thought, "Hey, I don't remember the rose bush outside my bedroom blocking the window... Oh, wait a minute, that's not my rose bush - I see yellow kowhai flowers..."
My kowhai tree had blown down. The bushy branches were actually brushing against the window, the tree trunk about a metre from the front of my house. Thank goodness it's not a huge tree. It broke off at ground level and is lying not-so-flat on the front lawn.
Hi there
When I left home for Sydney, it was 4 am in the morning. I wasn't concentrating too well as I went through Border Security at Wellington Airport,
My little plastic bag of liquids - foundation, toothpaste, eye drops - was siphoned into a lane away from my carry-on bag which was my only luggage.
"Oi, that's my plastic bag." I waved at the security guy. "What's wrong with it?"
"You have toothpaste," he said with a tut-tut.
"It's allowed," I said. "The tube's only quarter-full."
"But the weight on the tube says 110 grams. You're only allowed 100 grams."
"But it's quarter-full." the tube Was even folded over. Was the guy thick or something?
It didn't matter. I had to relinquish my toothpaste. When I arrived in Sydney, I forgot to buy toothpaste on that first day so had to get out of bed at 7 am the following morning and find some . Hey, but the toothpaste was only $2, what a bargain. It was a shame I couldn't take loads of the stuff back home with me and sell it on the black market, but by now I was probably on every country's Border Security Blacklist. Toothpaste, you are not going to be my downfall...
On the way home, I got caught at Sydney Airport by Border Security. Thank goodness they weren't filming that day for "Border Security Australia", I would never have been able to live down such an episode -
And before you, my four readers, start to chastise me, no I didn't get stopped because I was a toothpaste smuggler -
The Border Security guy reached into my shoulder bag and pulled out a bottle of water.
"What's this?"
"Um. Water?". I was mortified.
"You're not allowed it on the plane."
Yes, I knew that. I'd been so stressed on my last day in Sydney and no matter how often I'd told myself not to take the water bottle into the airport, I'd ... gone and done it (thanks Shania Twain, nifty song line).
"I'm so sorry," I said. "Sorry, sorry, sorry. I forgot. I'm sorry." I sorry-ed about ten more times.
He thrust the bottle at me. The guy didn't speak english that well and in my stressed state, I couldn't understand him.
He mimed drinking from the bottle.
Oh. How kind. He was asking if I wanted to take a final gulp before the bottle was confiscated.
I took a gulp and handed back the bottle.
And I was on my way home to New Zealand, and out of Australia.
It was only when I did get home a friend said to me "That Aussie security guy? He probably thought you were a terrorist and demanded that you sample the water in case it was full of acid or something...."
Hi there
There was an exhibition on of Marilyn Monroe artifacts. Here's the dress she wore to breathlessly sing "Happy Birthday Mr President" to John F Kennedy.
,In Sydney I stayed at the Megaboom Hotel because I just had to stay at a hotel with such an adorable name but, mainly, because it was right in the middle of the CBD, a couple of minutes walk to several theatres and all the shops and trams
The Hotel was nothing to write home about but "Location, Location, Location" (and free breakfast). The nearby Hilton was to the side of Queen Victoria Building.
The historic Queen Victoria Building (posh) shopping mall is all but across the road from Megaboom hotel. If arriving on the airport train for Megaboom, get off at Town Hall Station, follow signs for a few minutes past the underground shops to go up on QVB escalator. Walk right through to far end of QVB mall, you're almost facing York Street (on left) where the hotel is about two minute walk away. David Jones, Myers, Tiffany's, etc are just around corner from hotel (I didnt go to Tiffany's though I would have loved to have had breakfast outside of it).
So ... enough of Sydney. Whoopeee, Melbourne next, and "Moulin Rouge - the musical", here I come....
Hi there
When I was in Sydney two weeks ago, I went on the ferry over to Manly. It's about a half hour ride. Extremely windy, if you sit outside on a deck.
Manly is my favourite area. There is Manly Beach which I far prefer to Bondi. But the best walking area for me is when I turn left out of the ferry building and follow the footpath. It twines around the water's edge. I walked a long-long way along this path once before, then caught a bus (I think) to take me over the bridge to Sydney CBD.
This time I just had a leisurely walk for about an hour or so each way. I loved it. The views are great, tranquil, and it was nice looking at the expensive homes lining the footpath. I passed several lovely swimming coves which had shark nets. A few people were swimming. I spoke to one swimmer coming out from the water. He told me the water was cold. -
"What would the water temperature be?" I asked.
"Um.. About 18c."
"It' would be about 11c in Wellington."
We both pondered that, then agreed it was relevant to the two countries having way different winter temperatures in August. Australia warm, New Zealand cold. Bodies acclimating. He was cold in the water at 18, me at 11. A temperature of 18c would be okay for a Wellington summer...
I couldn't get over how botanic-garden-ish the walk was. The plants, flowers, and grasses lining the walkway, between the sea and myself, were all perfectly manicured. The suburb of Fairlight had great views to a marina.
I went back to Manly on another day, a Sunday. If Manly hadnt been so far from my beloved theatre visits, I would stay in Manly.
This time I turned right from the ferry building and wandered up the main shopping street (I bought an expensive bathing suit!), and across to Manly Beach. My left foot had now reached full-blown blister status from the Manly walk I had done to Fairlight days earlier. Curses, why hadn't I brought trainers with me on this holiday?
I hobbled along the foreshore, then popped in to a grand hotel for a lovely-but-expensive lunch. There was a regular Sunday market on down the main streets and I bought a (expensive) shoulder bag.
.... all-in-all, an expensive, footsore, yet lovable day...
Hi there
I've just got back from a week in Sydney. I went over there to see some shows. I saw "Disney's Beauty and the Beast - the musical", "Elvis, his revolution - the musical" and "Tina - the Tina Turner musical".
B&B had such magnificent special effects. When it started off, I thought, "Oh, no, they're using a screen background? I don't particularly like it when shows rely on a static screen background of a village or woods, etc. But, my goodness, everything soon changed and the show became spectacular! Even the background of the dark and dreadful woods became super-scary through background screen action. "Be My Guest" song was the highlight, with the full cast performing their hearts out.
I had seen Disney"s B&B many years ago in Wellington where the props were all constructed by Weta. But this Sydney production was much more lavish.
"Elvis, the Revolution" (I haven't quite got that title right) was about his story from childhood to his Las Vegas performances. Like "Mama Mia" and "Tina", the "Elvis" songs were fitted in to reflect the stage action. Not only did I love this show but I loved the audience too. Everyone had memories of Elvis and chattered away non-stop to each other, perfect strangers. I met one woman who said she used to be a milliner and had made a hat worn by Nicole Kidman for "Moulin Rouge" when the movie was being filmed in Australia. This lady insisted on taking a picture of me on the stairs of the State Theatre. The theatre is ostensibly the oldest non-stop operating theatre in the world.
I met a lady the day after seeing the Elvis musical and she said she hated the show -
"We've got better Elvis impersonators in the area where I live," she said contemptuously. "We have Elvis competitions every year. They sing every note as it should be sung, not like that bloke last night."
"But this show isn't a tribute act. It's a musical," I tried to explain. "It has a story, a plotline. It's tailored for now, for today's audiences."
"Mmmmm..." She wasn't convinced.
Then I saw "Tina". Oh, there were some parts in this musical that were so sad. And violent. This show started (like the Elvis musical) from Tina's childhood right up to all her later hits (post-Ike). The last half-hour was spectacular.
The "Tina" audience was full of "Sex and the City" sort of women who arrived in bunches, toting cocktail glasses, wine glasses, and bottles. They were tipsy when they arrived, tipsy-er when they arrived back in their seats after interval, and at their tipsiest when the show ended. At intermission, theatre staff scooted around gathering up plastic glasses and bottles from under seats.
I went to other places as well as shows. Much more about this another time. I did take the expected pictures of Sydney Harbour Bridge and The Sydney Opera House, even though I've been to Sydney quite a few times before. Somehow it feels obligatory to always take photos of these icons.
me on foyer steps in State Theatre, Sydney
Hi there
On the one hand, I understand that it's not good to see animals caged up, away from the freedom of their native lands but, on the other hand, I realise that if many animal species are to continue then zoos or wild-life parks are perhaps the only way to go, with inter-zoo breeding programmes, and the like.
Even on huge 'protected' reserves in Africa, as an example, there are always poachers. And dry conditions. And no food to hunt or forage for. Many animals are so close to extinction. I read a recent article that said seagulls will be extinct from New Zealand skies in fifty years - hey, I can't truly believe this because there are so many squawking, flapping seagulls hovering around me as I eat my tomato sandwiches whilst sitting on a bench at Oriental Bay???
The nicest zoo experience I've ever had was a few years back at Melbourne Zoo where customers were allowed into the huge reserve holding the lemurs. The cute little creatures were all a-frolic around me. In full move-it-move-it mode. So adorable, but I couldn't help feeling guilty about their captivity...
Hi there
I've mentioned before how I don't particularly like it when shop assistants comment rapturously on something I'm wearing, in an effort to create a bond with me. Anything for a sale, eh?
Well, last week I went to the doctor for a renewal of my eyedrops.
"I like your bag," he said.
"Um...". Perhaps he'd just finished reading the 2023 edition of "The Desk-Side Doctor's Handbook - how to bond with your patient".
It's a companion piece to "The Counter-Side Shop Assistant's Handbook". And the "Kerb-Side Postie's Handbook". And others....
just kidding; there are no such handbooks. Maybe....?
EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, HEAD OFFICE, GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS, 1975-ish
I was back! Back in Govt Bldgs on Lambton Quay, back under the guiding arm of Mrs Rowley, the supervising typist who had mentored me since I joined this department in 1960. I had truly loved working at Health Regional Office, not-so-much the Curriculum Development Unit, but all of that was in the past .... I was home!!
But not in Room 305 typing pool. Or even Room 206. I was in a new pool on the ground floor. The department was expanding and, here I was, pride-of-place, Typist-in-Charge of seven (count 'em, seven). Was I scared? On that first day, you bet I was. I girded my loins and pushed open the door -
The typists in this pool worked for sections on the ground and first floors (first and second floors, if you're American). Maori Education Foundation and UNESCO were our main customers.
Mr Joliffe ( many years later he was fifty-percent of the first couple to get an official civil union pairing in New Zealand) was a head honcho at Maori Education Foundation. The Foundation was responsible for giving grants and bursaries to students. Often we typists saw applicants as they came in for interviews.
"Guess what-?" said Maureen as she burst into the room. Maureen was in her forties. Her children had now left the house so she had come back to typing, and finding it a little difficult getting the hang of a basic electric machine rather than an old manual one. This woman did love her gossip. "I was introduced to a new applicant. She's blonde and blue-eyed."
" Going for a job in UNESCO?" asked Megan, a young British immigrant, working her two year stint, and only been in the country a few months. Megan was the best typist in the room. Heck, she was the best typist I'd ever come across. She was so perfect, she could have apprenticed Mary Poppins. Only have I ever come across two absolutely perfect typists in my entire typist career, and Megan was one of them. Never a typo brought back for this girl. It was the bosses who made the mistakes, changing their minds again and again and again. With a sigh we would have to retype what had been a perfect page, trying desperately to jam in the extra sentence an officer had added. We could do this by raising, dropping or widening margins or - here's a serious no-no - the squashing of some letters together (the lower-case 'l' was probably the only alphabet letter a typist could get away with squashing). Otherwise it could be many pages that would have to be retyped, just for that one sentence.
"No, no-" Maureen was all agog: "The girl's here for a grant from MAORI EDUCATION FOUNDATION."
Mmmmm.... We pondered the fact that a blonde blue-eyed young woman was applying for a grant from MEF.
"She speaks fluid Maori," said Maureen. "She can trace her roots back a century. A great grand-father was a chief...."
After a time, an Islands Education Foundation also opened up on the ground floor. Many young polynesian teens were brought over to New Zealand for schooling. They were given some money to buy clothes. However, as these young people had never come across cold, windy, wild New Zealand winters, the clothes they ended up buying were terribly inappropriate for that season. Soon remedied though, and the students were given snuggly-warm winter coats. Lesson learned by our officers.
In the pool, we also dealt with Pitcairn Island, the place where the historic mutineeers of 'The Bounty' ended up. I loved reading the newsy information sheet about the island. It was a wee bit reminiscent of the writings by my Medical Officer of Health at Health RO: gossip galore. A teacher had been sent over to the island.
The head of our UNESCO office was a lovely person, vibrant and intelligent. She went over to India on a business trip, and brought me back a ring that she'd picked up at the markets. She'd known I liked rings, the gaudier the better -
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One day she came bursting into the typing room with two prints of etchings in her arms. They had been signed and dated by the artist. She whispered the price to us. We were horrified by how expensive they were. Maybe about $80 each.
Megan raised her eyebrows to me. "Prints?" she mouthed. "For that price?" And I remembered the time when Miss Hopkins from room 305 (and now truly retired) had brought in a framed print of Van Gogh's Starry Night from the gallery on Lambton Quay, and she hanged it on the typing room wall.
"The man in the gallery said I could bring it here and see if it suited our wall," she proclaimed. "I'll buy it for us, if we all like it." We typists huddled around her, ooohing and ahhhing over the picture. Yes, we'd have it! But then the Admin Officer walked into the room and said no way could Miss Hopkins buy the print. Tch, tch, it was not allowed. Sadly, Miss H took it back to the shop. We would have to stick to our boring faded prints of early Victorian New Zealand.
We mostly delivered our typing, giving a curt knock on the door, and placing a completed typing job right in the middle of a desk if the officer wasn't present.
I liked to walk along the wide lengthy corridor that went from the north entrance of Government Buildings through the building to the south entrance. I imagined I was in some english country mansion swanning along a long gallery. Halfway along the corridor, beside the post office, there was the building's elegant foyer and main entrance. This area had not been used in years, but painters were now working on the walls in preparation for a re-opening. They were hurriedly packing up their gear -
"What's up?" I asked.
"Asbestos," said the foreman.
"What's that?"
I went back to the typing room and told the others. We'd never heard of asbestos, and when I relayed everything that the painter had told me, the typists were horrified.
Especially Maureen. Like me, she was a bit of a scaredy-cat. One day I said to her, with a shudder, "Is there still a mouse problem in the walls?"
"What?" She leapt out of her typing chair so fast that the chair's castors spun her chair halfway across the room. Good thing she had not tried to stand on it.
I told her that a few years' back mice were often found in waste-paper baskets, fat and helpless to get out again once they'd gorged themselves on peanut-butter sandwiches and the like.
"Mr Ivers from Records pulled them out by their tails and flushed them down the toilets."
Maureen vowed to always look down into the Government Buildings' toilets from then on. I think she was scared of the appearance of some weird mutant-like monster mouse peering back up at her.
Poisons were brought in. Some mice died in the walls. The smell had been awful.
But now ...
... there came a typing shake-up. Our typing style was changed. It was decreed from the State Services Commission (all bow down!) that typists would save a high percentage of typing time by not indenting paragraphs. Or including much punctuation. Or capitals. On the day of changeover, an officer raced into the pool-
"Who's the left-handed typist?" he demanded to know.
We tried to keep straight faces, but he waved a typed letter at us. The block paragraphs flummoxed him, but it was the signing-off that shook him -
Gone were the full stops after the initials, the comma after each line and the colon after 'per'. We still kept 'Yours sincerely' if it started with 'Dear Mr Smith' and 'Yours faithfully' if it started with 'Dear Sir'. However the addressee's name and address, along with the date, were moved across to the left too.
Oh dear, the officer was so confused. In the body of a letter we would previously type phrases such as "The Commission said...". This would now be "The commission said...", unless you were typing "The State Services Commission said...". He just couldn't get his head around the new style. Neither could most of the officers or, at least, the ones who hadn't read Mrs Rowley's memo advising about change-over day. And this was most of the staff.
Probably, the new way of typing was a direct result to the time-testing all govt department typists had been doing for several years. Each morning we had been given a scrap of paper and every job we typed - be it short, long, or even an envelope - necessitated us crossing off strokes of five (like a prisoner crossing off days on a cell wall). What a rumpus this caused -
"I've typed 50 envelopes. Hoorah, I've put down fifty strokes. I win today - !"
"Oh, no, I've just finished a job of 90 pages. It's taken two days. I have one stroke to put down-"
"Mr Evans has brought back his ministerial. Yet again! He's changed his mind so many times. Why aren't we allowed to rub out on letters signed by the minister (side-note: notice the small 'm'). I can only class this as one job-"
Thankfully, with the advent of the new typing style, filling out the daily forms became a thing of the past...
Mrs Rowley had amended her "Typists' Guidebook" to include all the new changes. The 'book' included any typing problem that could ever arise for her 'girls'. We even knew how to address the mayoralty, members of parliament (all parties), how to correctly spell "milage" (not "mileage") - the daily newspaper somehow picked up this mileage/milage decision and gleefully mentioned it in a column).
The "Typists' Guidebook" was handed out to all the officers.
It didn't make their handwriting any better...
Hi there
Last week, I went to the Roxy in Miramar, Wellington, to see the old movie musical "Calamity Jane". starring Doris Day and Howard Keel. I had seen it lots of times before and loved it. I also know that Doris Day had been miffed that she'd never got the lead role in "Annie Get Your Gun" so her studio had written "Calamity Jane" especially for her.
It shows. This movie is truly a knock=off of "Annie Get Your Gun". Some songs could even have been considered replicas from that movie. "I Can Do Without You" appeared to be a copy of "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better" from "Annie Get Your Gun". When Day was singing about how she "just blew into the windy city...", I realised that I was confusing it with "Everything's up-to-date in Kansas City" from the 1940s stage musical (movie 1955) of "Oklahoma!" Looks like the writers cribbed from several shows.
Still... the songs, by themselves, stood up pretty well, considering the movie was - what? - about 70 years old.
The rest of the movie was... cringeworthy.. The second I got home, I went straight to my DVD collection (which has laid dorment for about ten years) and got rid of "Calamity Jane".
Calamity shoots to kill "Redskins" and "Injuns". She's riding shotgun on top of a stagecoach, I mean, come on, these native Americans are on horses, and with mostly lances and spears; how much of a chance do they honestly have against Calamity's deadeye aim?
In another scene Wild Bill Hickock (Howard Keel) dresses up as a squaw with a papoose on his back (a bit of a copycat scene from "Annie Get Your Gun" where a dressed-up Betty Hutton sings "'I'm an Indian too"). Later on, Doris Day gets spooked by a drugstore wooden "Injun" and draws her guns, much to the amusement of the townspeople.
Sidebar: I came across a replica life-size sculpture at a candy franchise store in Hollywood about eight years ago. Instead of feathers in his headdress, he had candy sticks. I was so horrified I wrote a scathing review about the place. When I went back to the store a couple of years later, the wooden sculpture was gone.
In "Calamity Jane", the backgrounds were obviously studio settings. Even when the settings were 'outside', the areas were pristine and perfect, as were the stars themselves. Day rolled up in perfectly pressed trousers and a modern persil-white blouse that I don't believe would ever have been worn by a pioneer woman in the untamed wild west.
Okay, the scene where the movie extras were singing about "The Black Hills of Dakota" as, maybe, a dozen of them sat on a hayride cart was very cliche, but it might not have been so cliche in the nineteen-fifties, so I'll try to excuse that...
During the last few minutes when Day and Keel were having a love-conversation, the script was absymal. I was embarrassed.
I was equally embarrassed over the film's characters waxing about "A Woman's Touch". Day floated around dusting, cleaning, cooking, and singing the song. And the phrase was mentioned over and over during the second half of the movie. So ... Day changed from a sharp-shooting buckskin-wearing tomboy into a subservient female with "A Woman's Touch", and Wild Bill fell for her (shades of Sandy in "Grease" who also changed for her man)? Cringe-cringe-cringe.
I did spot an 'easter egg': At one stage, Day is singing the line "By the light of the Silvery Moon". "By the light of the Silvery Moon" was also a stand-a!one song and movie starring Day.
It's been said to never go back to a movie you loved when you were young. I think this saying could be right. The times change, as do we....
Hi there
(Oops I'm having trouble with the layout. I hate it when I get stuck somewhere on the computer and I don't know how to get out of it....)
Now, over to a quandry that is leaving me a bit miffed: where have all my favourite shops disappeared to? Well, no that's not quite right. The shops are still there, but the businesses have gone.
A few weeks ago, via the radio*, a talkback host was telling how he walked through Wellington CBD, from the bottom of Lambton Quay to the end of Courtenay Place, and he counted, like, 35 shops that were empty of businesses.
And it's everywhere. When I was in New Plymouth, Mt Maunganui, Whakatane, Levin, Queeenstown, Wanaka, Melbourne, etc, there were soooo many empty shops.
My fave cafes have gone. My fave clothing shops have gone. My fave butcher has gone. Many shops that were empty have now morphed into incense/crystal selling stores, $2-type shops, or here-today-gone-tomorrow places that can be leased out quickly by shop owners.
I went to go to what I considered the best Chinese buffet in the CBD, but it shut down overnight. Ditto the fish and chip shop that called to me everytime I walked past (I didn't often answer that call because, you know, my so-called diet, but just knowing the shop was there soothed my nerves).
I like window-prowling shops that sell pretty clothes and I'm still searching for the perfect casual-come-visiting jacket that i can scrunch up when not in use and hide it in my bag when out hiking, but, no, so many clothing shops have closed. Sigh, I guess I'll never find that elusive jacket. Oh well - bright moment here - I am going to Melbourne to see "Moulin Rouge". Maybe my jacket will call to me from there?
^^^^^^
*Radio? It's a box with dials, and music and talking comes out though a speaker on the front. Will technology wonders never cease????
Hi there.
Since my second glaucoma operation my eyesight has been annoying me. It's not that good.
Last week I went to an Asian buffet place, just off Cable Car Lane.
I got a Diet Coke (yes, yes, everyone knows that I'm an addict; I can't quit).
"May I have a straw please." I smiled to the lady behind the counter.
" We don't have any, " said the lady. There was no returning smile. She thrust a glass at me.
I shuffled alongside the serve-yourself counter. But then I saw something -
Ah-ha, there were straws!
Gotcha! "You do have straws," I proclaimed loudly and with what, I imagined, was somewhat of a triumphant smirk. I pointed to the jar holding the straws.
The lady and half-a-dozen customers burst out into hysterical laughter.
Huh?
" They're not straws, said the lady. "They're chopsticks."
I was so embarrassed. I blame my eye surgeon.
Hi there
I had decided to go and see "Moulin Rouge - the Musical" in Melbourne. It meant I would have to book on-line.
Oh dear, I always have trouble booking theatre seats on-line. Only once did I get it right with just one attempt: it was for "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child". When I got into the pre-book wait room, there were over 1000 people before me trying to also book. With 19,000 behind me. I ended up fourth row from the front. Great show.
But last week....
I went into the official booking site for "Moulin Rouge - the Musical" armed with the website password that I'd had for a few years. Hey, but wait, there was a message telling me I had to put in a special registration-y code. I could only do this by leaving the website, and checking my emails for the code. With about five minutes of time to do everything.
This took half-a- dozen attempts.
Then I had to change my password. I had to go out again to look at my emails.
Four more attempts.
I finally got into the actual site but by the time I'd chosen my seat, I got timed out. I had to start the whole process again.
And again. And again. And again. Oh, that timed-out thingee. It's not good for dyed-in-the-wool checkers of everything they ever type. I got blocked out so many times from the seating I had chosen because of this timing-out. I was furious.
Other times the website wouldnt accept my NZ phone number.
Or my country zone. Or my area zone.
Then my new credit card was a no-no.
Each time I had to restart the whole thing again. And again. And again...
It all took 19 attempts.
In the end I rang up the booking office in Melbourne. This only took three attempts.
I played The Old Lady Card. And ...
Success!!!!
above: a stock photo of a typical interior of a theatre showing "Moulin Rouge - the Musical".
Hi there
I was in the bus a few days ago, during a Friday, lunchhour, and going to town. Oops, Lambton Quay was blocked off, from Stewart Dawson's jewellery store down past Farmers department store and further along. I had to hop off the bus...
Apparently, the transport blockage is for five days - grrrrrhhh - whilst a whole lot of gigantic cranes and whatnots block Wellington's main shopping street. No transport at all allowed. Whaaat!!??
I believe some huge cooling unit is being installed in a building. Honestly, I've never been so close to such a big crane. And what are all the other .... immense contraptions..... So big, in fact, that my camera couldn't get in all equipment, specially the top half of the crane.
