Keeping ourselves amused
Bet on our getting sick of our new life and you’re going to do your dough.
Achap called Larry from Puhoi wrote a letter to the editor, saying he thought I was whistling to keep my spirits up. He gave me “another 12 months in the sticks”.
Whistling in the wind? It is true that there is so little to do in the country that we spend hours watching the weathervane on the chook-house roof whirling in the wind.
Larry is quite right. It is terribly boring in the country. Nothing exciting ever
happens. Not like in Auckland, where you can experience the hair-tearing excitements of traffic jams and road rage any day of the week (and at the weekend, too). We don’t even have the thrill of sitting in traffic at red lights here in the wops: Masterton does not have a traffic light.
Larry should put money on my moving back to Auckland within 12 months, because I doubt that I’ll last that long. I cannot wait to move back to Auckland where the conversation is scintillating, if rather monotopical. How about those house prices, eh?
Actually, the idea of hearing firsthand the wailing and teeth-gnashing over the crashing is almost enough to tempt me back for a smug visit. But I don’t need to. We can hear it from here in the Wairarapa.
We have to make our own fun in the country. One guaranteed way of having a spot of fun is to tell Dave, the dag of a cabbie, apocalyptic tales of what is happening in Auckland. Once, when there was terrible wind in the City of Sails, there was talk of having to close the Harbour Bridge. When I told Dave this, he said, “Good.” This is his stock answer to hearing about anything that is going badly in Auckland. If you told him the place had somehow self-combusted and vanished in a giant puff of smoke, he’d say: “Good.”
Every “good” is followed by that impersonation of a drunken kea that he does when properly amused. It is worth the price of a cab fare to town to hear that, I can tell you. It is also worth the price to hear him grumble, should another couple of cars have the temerity to be on the road at the same time as him, that “town’s chaos”.
Dave popped in to say hello and was introduced to the cat. He said: “That cat’s fat.” The first time I met Dave was on our second night in the country and Greg had been put in the hospital. Dave gave me his personal cellphone number and told me to call, at any hour, if I needed to. Dave is taking us surfcasting in the summer. He has promised blue cod.
Country life is such yawn that people are reduced to being nice. The person who fills our online grocery shopping order (yes, we have online grocery shopping. Fancy!) never fails to write a personal note of thanks with a smiley face. The rural postie carries doggy treats in her pocket, which is both clever – all the dogs love her – and sweet. John, the firewood chap, delivered the wood and returned with a sack of walnuts.
We even have the odd real spot of excitement. Why, just the other day two enormous horned cattle beasts came galloping up the drive. These are (or were) the nearest neighbour’s cattle beasts (I called them Crazy and Daisy), and had escaped from their paddock. Hot on their heels came the other neighbour’s dogs, Luck and Sky, overjoyed at such a glorious caper, followed by Tony, who is the other neighbour, in his ute.
It was all too much for us and we had to have a little lie-down. (So, alas, did Crazy and Daisy, who after their great escape, are no more.)
Larry from Puhoi sent me another note confessing that he too was a refugee from Auckland and that he loved the column. Wasn’t that nice? It is also, given that I intend to go on whistling for years to come, just as well for both of us.
Two enormous horned cattle beasts came galloping up the drive.