The Good Life
City dwellers venturing into rural New Zealand should expect the unexpected.
This is what we do for fun in the country: try making donkeys jump over hurdles at the donkey and mule competition at the A&P Show. This is not what donkeys regard as fun, and being donkeys, they mostly resist any attempt to go over the hurdles.
Sometimes, just to oblige the humans, a donkey will sigh heavily and walk over the jump. It is fair to say that donkeys are not naturals when it comes to showjumping. They prefer carrot-eating competitions.
Pru’s donkey Portia won a red ribbon, first prize, in the trotting.
She didn’t even trot; she didn’t even attempt to trot. “Pru relies on Portia’s good looks,” said a fellow competitor, hardly bitterly at all. We will consign to the shameful closet of best-forgotten cock-ups my attempt to get Lacey, another of Pru’s donkeys, to trot. One spectator compared it to watching an inept fisherwoman attempting to reel in a whale.
Lacey wasn’t supposed to be in the donkey show and neither was I. I just pinched her from the sideline and entered her. We won a yellow ribbon, third – Lacey’s first ribbon! – in best presented. The handler is supposed to dress up for this class. You are supposed to wear a hat. I was not wearing a hat. I was wearing daggy long shorts and a gingham top. Let us just say that the judge was a very charitable chap.
Pru, who is the chair of the Donkey and Mule Protection Trust and the caretaker of nine rescued donkeys, looked very fine in her hat and polkadot blouse with a pussycat bow. She will not be offended if I say she also looked unrecognisable.
She is a farmer and does not much go in for dressing up. On one memorable occasion, when we had a big outing to town to partake in yum cha at Betty’s, she made an effort: she dragged an old pair of sandals from the back of a cupboard. Said sandals exploded at the table, firing perished rubber all over. Pru’d had the sandals for only about 30 years. She should really have taken them back.
Some other things that could only have happened in the country: A kind reader sends a card addressed to: Michele Hewitson, Lush Places, Masterton, and it gets delivered.
I am in a taxi on our rural road and I spot a wandering dog. I ask the driver to stop so I can see whether the dog has a tag. If it does, I can phone the owner to let them know their dog is loose. I open my door and the dog gets in. I put the dog out – it appears to have no intention of paying its share – and we drive to the nearest property where the joker we buy our firewood from is chopping away.
Has he lost a nice shaggy black and white dog? He hasn’t, but he knows that dog. It lives on a farm across the way and is always wandering. “See that house over there?” he says, and points. “The woman who owns it came home one day and found that dog asleep on her bed.”
We are in Moore Wilson’s; we often are. It is only partially true to say that what made us settle in Masterton was the fact that Moore Wilson’s has about 10 varieties of bacon, but it was a factor. So, here we are at Moore Wilson’s buying yet more bacon when one of the staff says, “Hello Michele and Greg.” She says she has a gift for us from Graeme Moore, the owner. She peers into a bag, quizzically, and says she wasn’t sure why he had chosen this particular present: a bottle of an eco-friendly degreaser and deodoriser.
Did we, we wondered, smell of bacon fat and require degreasing and deodorising? After reading the accompanying card, we figured it out. Graeme, the third generation Moore to run the business, turns out to be a follower of this column. He had read Greg’s account of our septic-tank woes. In the bottle is a magic fix for stinky septic tanks. This may be the best surprise present we have ever received.
The fact that Moore Wilson’s has about 10 varieties of bacon is only partly why we settled in Masterton.