Episode 2: Two Turtle Doves, and a Mantis on a Cointreau
Kia Ora all.
I write to you now from Auckland, sitting on a balcony, the surreal but wonderful lilt of communal Tongan singing drifting from next door through my hungover ears. It’s been an eventful week, but without many moments that felt like events as they were happening? What a beautiful country New Zealand is, and I’ve yet to explore the bucolic countryside. I’ve been staying in Orewa, a suburb of Auckland, with David Purchas, who in the space of five days has been friend, father, boss, agent, administrator, chef, laundrette and advisor to me. Nicola, Tom and Stella are living with the grandparents - Oma and Opa - whilst David and I move boxes around to prepare their house for extension. All of the named above have been hospitable and welcoming like you wouldn’t believe. They feel like home, on the other side of the planet.
The weather has been biblical - the worst flooding New Zealand has seen in a living memory- but it’s also been very warm. On Tuesday, I went for a walk in Orewa during a brief dry spell. A lady I got chatting to warned me I was liable to burn. I patiently dismissed her forecast, explaining my olive skin complexion and the overcast conditions. Not dissimilar to the manner in which I dismissed David’s warning about NZ bio-security’s severe sense of humour failure about mud on traveller’s shoes. I very nearly didn’t make it into the country. After my walk, I very nearly got skin cancer. Lessons were learned, although of course they weren’t.
I took the below picture of a praying mantis atop a bottle of Cointreau. I love it: firstly because it looks like an album cover; secondly because I relate to it very strongly. The mantis doesn’t know why it’s on top of the Cointreau. But the Cointreau is beautiful and brilliant, and during its time atop the Cointreau the mantis will learn lessons. He will have to navigate the bottle, and it may not go well for him. I am the mantis. New Zealand is the Cointreau. Also, alcohol. So the metaphor works.
The nature in this country is overawing. The human architecture - and indeed public transport - comprehensively underwhelming. This is a country of drivers and cars, with modern houses that are simultaneously mismatched yet very monotonous. Peculiar. The people are mint though. So welcoming and extroverted.
The Word of the Week is Tui. Tuis are obstreperous little bastard birds, with shouty plumage and a call identical to the sound of a squeaky gate opening. They’re great.
It concerns me that I’m publishing all my tales of endeavour, so that I won’t have any to tell you when I get back. But oh well, as Xandi might say. After finding my feet and overcoming jetlag for a while in Orewa, I decided to push on to Auckland proper. I found a little paid work painting a fence and a children’s playhouse for a day, in the employ of Nicola’s brother. Then something happened.
I met Agnes, the au pair of the children whose house I was painting, feeling like a bit of a spanner. Picture, dear readers, an 18 year old Swedish girl. You are picturing a stunner, with whitest blonde hair and bluest blue eyes. You are picturing Agnes. Agnes is very pretty. I have a crush on Agnes. Agnes tells me she is going out in Auckland that night with friends, and that I may accompany them. If you had to guess, what would you hazard my answer was?
I have dinner with the fascinatingly liberal and hospitable Amy West (a distant friend of mum’s) her intellectual son, his girlfriend, and Amy’s characterful boyfriend Sean. Sean will play an important role next episode, beeteedubs. All four are brimming with intelligent conversation, quick humour and political insight, which will also have to wait until next entry. Then I surge out into the balmy evening, Auckland’s saturday nightlife burbling into life.
I meet Agnes in a bar, where she is drinking with her friends. Her friends comprise of two South Africans, two Germans, and an Italian. All six are female. Not one is any less than gorgeous. I am, as you can imagine, chuffed to bits.
We while away the evening, until one says she’s booked an Uber and we’re going clubbing. I pathetically acquiesce without a second’s hesitation. It’s a long drive, but I’m having such a great time I don’t notice. The club is bouncing. The young and beautiful abound. We meet an abandoned trollied Scotsman on his stag night. One of the girls puts her cigarette out on my palm for a laugh. I buy everyone a round of tequila for 70 bucks. Without warning, the bouncers eject me. Perhaps they know my daily budget is 50. More lessons are learned, although of course they weren’t. On the long walk back to Amy’s, I am able to reflect; a singed palm, a wounded ego, physical maladies, and a gaping chasm in my bank account haunt me like Scrooge’s ghosts. The mantis has fallen in the Cointreau.
I’m off now to check into a drab hostel and climb mount Eden. I shall attach pictures of that too. Here, I meet the outgoing American Corey, who is a top geezer and very agreeable bunkmate. Postscript; I’ve just noticed Agnes put her number in my second phone without my noticing. Perhaps the mantis has worked up a thirst again…
