Fabulous Art Deco Weekend

Well my dear friends I have not felt like posting a blog to you since we came back from art deco weekend at Napier because of the terrible news of the earthquake in Christchurch.  But life must go on for us, and we may be all feeling in need of a little escapism after the dreadful events and so I am going to share with you the wonderful time we experienced last weekend.  This is the 9th year Mr Shoestring and I have been going to art deco weekend and along the way we have made so many lovely friends.  It has become the highlight of our social calendar and we feel as if we are always waiting for the next wonderful art deco weekend in between times.  We might live in central Auckland, but we meet up with friends from Wellington, Raglan, Christchurch and indeed all around the country when we go to Napier for this wonderful nostalgic celebration.  We became enthusiastic about learning to swing dance and are still bowled over by the skills of those two people we first saw swing dancing, who demonstrated their skills to us at about 3am while we waited for taxis.  Sandra and Dave have become dear friends and were the inspiration for us to learn to "swing".  And this year two of our daughters travelled to Napier too, and were eager converts to the magic of art deco weekend.  In fact they are both trying to book accommodation for next year already and wondering if they might be able to stay in The Masonic with the wonderful views over the vintage cars to the sound shell where the bands will be playing and the crowd will be dancing. 

Getting In A Lather In The Bathroom

When we bought Shoestring Cottage I was quite happy with the bathroom.  It was light filled and spacious, it had a clawfoot bath for long soaks after sessions in the garden, and the shower seemed perfectly adequate.  There was a nice view out the window of a vine encrusted wall, complete with hydrangea blossoms.  The vanity unit was pretty ghastly but that was easily fixed.  At Habitat for Humanity we found a rimu vanity unit, very long and with lots of storage underneath, which was easily installed by clever Mr Shoestring.  And it only cost $185, so fitted in with the Shoestring spending philosophy. 

One of our friends, Lord Raglan, who came to stay declared that he liked the bathroom because it had a good arrangement of mirrors.  You could view your body from all angles when you got out of the shower and admire yourself.  (To me this seems like a manly thought rather than a womanly thought.  I suspect that most of the ladies of my acquaintance would probably find a plethora of mirrors rather disconcerting, and may in fact have to stop themselves from uttering little gasps of horror and dismay when first confronted by this mirror arrangement.  But perhaps that is just me.)

Anyway, things were going along quite smoothly I thought, but there I was wrong.  Mr Shoestring was secretly disappointed with the water pressure in the shower.  He eventually complained that only a mere trickle of water came out of the shower nozzle.    It didn't bother me in the least.  I thought it was plenty of water, after all you had enough of a flow to make a nice lather and wash yourself, what more did you need?  Were we so dirty that we had to be water blasted clean?  I think Mr Shoestring must like the sort of shower which pins you up against the shower stall wall and leaves you slightly panicky and breathless, as if you have been needled by the water jets.  I suggested that he should try remembering the camping holidays of his childhood.  Did he have those solar showers on them?  The ones where you put a bag in the sun to heat during the day and shower under the flow?  At least the water at Shoestring Cottage was not boiling hot after lying in the sun all day when you had a shower, he should count his blessings!  And the pressure was much more powerful than those solar camping showers too. 

Tenacious Mr Shoestring obviously put quite a lot of thought into this problem because he eventually took a trip to The Big Smoke and on his return triumphantly showed me a strange contraption designed to increase the water pressure.  I must say, he spent a lot of time and effort installing it.  I suspect its installation did not go as smoothly as he anticipated because I heard him say a few words which he does not usually say, there was a lot of crawling around under Shoestring Cottage, banging and crashing and using of noisy power tools.  Then he invited to sample the delights of the new increased water pressure. 

Well my dear friends, it was not an unqualified success.  The new pump device makes a loud roaring sound and that is when it actually does work.  Oftentimes it does not turn on when expected, then when you least expect it the pump suddenly kicks in and the loud noise starts up and the water pressure seems to increase marginally.  (But I am not sure about that, it may just be wishful thinking.)  Poor Mr Shoestring, I dare not tell him that I would rather have less water pressure and also less noise when I am showering. 

He has now discovered some mysterious bylaw and apparently the local council might be required to provide a certain level of water pressure where the water pipe enters a property.  So that is his next quest.  I hope we do not end up with a black mark against our names in the council offices, we don't want to get off to a bad start there.  At least it gives him something to occupy his mind.  And it is a fairly innocuous obsession, all things considered.   

There's Nowt So Queer As Folk

The people who live near Shoestring Cottage are friendly folk.  Often when I am in the front garden they stop and introduce themselves, and make flattering remarks about how pretty the garden is looking and how many improvements have been made in the short time since we moved in.  This is very gratifying, bearing in mind that I am usually ferociously ripping open bags of used coffee grounds and picking through them to remove the plastic milk bottle lids which are mixed in with the grounds.  I must look a trifle eccentric if not actually demented, usually having my spectacles all steamed up and being liberally coated in coffee grounds.    

Last weekend one gentleman stopped to chat.  He clambered up off the footpath and onto the little front garden so as to lean on the picket fence and make conversation easier.  (I wondered whether I might ask him to be careful of my baby plants, but thought that as I already had one probable black mark against me, being from Auckland and all, I should hold my tongue.)  My nana and grandad came from Yorkshire and I wondered if he might hail from that part of the world also; his accent seemed similar to theirs.  I seemed to remember that people from Yorkshire are famed for their desire to "Speak as you find."  He told me had lived here for about 12 years and when I waxed enthusiastic about the town he agreed wholeheartedly and said he had been very happy there.  Of course, I knew that it was a very high wind area?  No, I had not known that.  In fact I had often thought that even if the wind was howling ferociously in other areas, it was very sheltered around Shoestring Cottage.  No no no, that was quite wrong apparently!  It was a well known fact that it was very windy all around this area and that the wind funnelled down off the mountain.  Well how surprising, you learn something every day!  And then there were the earthquakes, it was very prone to earthquakes.  (I privately disregarded this information.  After all, the whole country is earthquake prone surely?  Nowhere is safe?  I knew people who had been born here and returned from other parts of New Zealand, and they had never mentioned being particularly worried about earthquakes.)  Then there was the flooding, oh dreadful flooding around the whole town.  I did know there had been extensive flooding once in the 1980s, but hadn't extensive remedial work been done up in the hills to ensure there would not be a repeat?  Oh, that was what they said but you never could tell.  Another similar flood could be just around the corner apparently.

Having imparted this alarming information my new acquaintance started telling me about his latest letter to the editor of the local newspaper.  We chatted for a while longer and then he stepped off my garden (I was relieved to see not too much damage had been done) and strode off up the road, radiating good cheer and optimism.

I put down my gardening tools and thought I had better go indoors.  Perhaps I should investigate what supplies we had on hand in the event of a natural disaster.  Maybe we should invest in some bottled water?  Where would be the safest place to shelter at Shoestring Cottage in the event of an earthquake, anyway?  Not much point spending too much effort and time on the garden, the plants would likely be washed away in a flood or whipped out of the ground by a tornado any day now from the sound of things.  I was glad I hadn't spent any money on rare and unusual trees though.  A nice cup of tea might be in order.  With some cheese and crackers too.  Perhaps some of that delicious chutney.  No reason to be obsessive about watching one's weight and so forth if we are not long for this world.

                                           Suzie must have known these sentiments would be appropriate when she gave me this doorstop as a housewarming present.  Thanks Suzie!

                                            At least I managed to harvest some tomatoes before it was all over too.