Weekend away

A few years back I gave the rugby sevens weekend a miss to spend a couple of days at a tiny township about an hour’s train journey away, staying bed and breakfast at a private home that took paying guests.

My host, lets call him Alan, a lean man in upper middle age, was waiting for me at the station, though there was not very far to go and I had little luggage with me. His wife, we can call her Joan, as talkative as they come, welcomed me with tea in the garden and then offered to show me round the area.

Our first stop was the library, where she introduced me to the librarian. After that came the most chaotic bookshop I have ever seen, with books heaped higgledy piggledy on tables as well as lining the shelves. It was run by a friend of Joan’s, who offered to take me to the country fair in a township some twenty miles away the next day, a major biannual event in the local calender. We would leave at seven in the morning and be back by ten. There was a little discussion about breakfast. “We can have it when we get back,” the woman said.

Next was the art gallery and another introduction. Surprisingly, they had a number of impressive works by well-known New Zealand artists. We continued past the local Information Centre, which was closed. Joan said it was only open in the morning and manned by volunteers. The Heritage Museum was shut too, so we crossed the road and said hello to the local estate agent.

The township, Featherstone, has but one main road. Travelling by car I suppose you could be out of it almost before you knew you were in it. Many of the buildings are old, almost all are timber-built and it is evident that little has changed for decades. The hills are very close on one side of the wide valley, which is wine country, with tour operators offering wine-tasting trips to the vineyards.

We proceeded a little farther along the road before turning back, Joan talking all the time. By then I felt in need of more exercise than I’d got from our slow, stop-and-start stroll and decided to explore a little for myself. With unexpected consequences. This is what happened:

On the outskirts of town is a short bushwalk that I decided to investigate. I got there after taking some wrong turns and went just a little way along the path. It was rather steep, but I could already see that there was a good view to be had. Nearby was a timber-built house. A couple were sitting at a table outside it, drinking a glass of white wine, doubtless from one of the local vineyards.

I walked a little farther uphill. ‘I must take some pictures,’ I told myself. But I had to find the right spot for there were lots of trees and bushes in the way. Perhaps I had passed the best point. OK, I’d take the photos on the way down. The path was getting steeper and steeper. And darker. It was now five o’clock in the evening and the sun wasn’t sufficiently high to penetrate. I was also worried about my knee, which I’d hurt earlier in Auckland so I turned round and went back, now with camera in hand.

Reaching a point where there wasn’t much vegetation to hide the view, I took a few shots, continued almost to the starting point of the path, raised the camera, pressed the release, then repeated the process. The couple were still sitting at their table. I carried on.

“Have you taken any good pictures?” the man suddenly asks, and I realise they have been aware of my presence all the time. He is now standing up, looking towards me.

“I hope so,” I reply.

He says something else, which I don’t quite catch, so I take a few steps in his direction.

“You get a better view from here,” he says. “Go up behind the house. But be careful. It’s rather steep.”

So I walk onto their property, say hello to the man’s wife, and see that they have an enchanting view across the valley to the hills on the far side, now almost golden brown in the early evening sunlight. I see too, that there is also quite a large lake lower down the valley.

I explain that I hurt my knee a couple of months before and he tells me to go slowly and be very careful. Which I am. I take my photos and come down again.

“Have a seat,” he says, and offers me a glass of wine. I thank him, but explain that alcohol, coffee and dairy products are on my banned list. Whereupon his wife gets up, goes into the house and comes back with something both alcohol- and sugar-free. Which I drink, after we have introduced ourselves. He is Neal and she is Val.

We talk. After a while Val gets up again and returns with maps so that I can better see the lie of the land. They also hand me a rather large pair of binoculars. We stay at the table, and talk much more until Neal suggests we go in. He is a member of a threatened species in the modern communications world, an amateur radio operator, a HAM, and will try to contact Sweden.

They rise and I follow them into the house, admiring the view from the lounge and also Neal’s study, which is full of different kinds of apparatus. He looks up a catalogue of radio codes for cities around the world and we find some from Sweden, fail to make contact. It may be because of the time difference. It is seven in the evening here, seven in the morning in Sweden.

I see that Neal is somewhat disappointed. But just then Val comes in and puts a plate of freshly cooked fish, green beans, tomato and half a lemon in front of me. Neal gets a similar plate. I am almost embarrassed by their hospitality. They have grown the beans and tomatoes themselves, Val explains. She understands full well how I feel, but waves it aside.

When I eventually leave it is pitch dark outside and the air is much colder. I am wearing a short-sleeved shirt without a sweater, but decline the jacket they offer to lend me.

“I’ll walk fast,” I state and we say goodbye after exchanging e-mail addresses.

Back at the little guest house where I am staying I tell Alan where I have been and ask Joan if her friend is serious about going to the fair at seven in the morning.

“She wants us to be ready at half-past-six,” Joan replies. I wasn’t sure who the ‘us’ referred to. “But we don’t have to go then,” she adds. “We can go later. We’ll take you.”

Which they did. But that’s another story.

Postscript
I can add, however, that Alan phoned me in Wellington four or five days later. What are you doing at the weekend?” he asked.

A little taken aback, I told him I was busy on the Saturday but wasn’t doing anything on the Sunday.

“I’ll pick you up,” he said.

And he did, though it meant driving over a range of hills. But that too, is another story.

Wellington invasion

The city was invaded this past weekend by countless monks, nuns, bishops, nurses, native Americans, cowboys, aviators, polo players, jockeys, apparitions, braying beasts, bears, outsize birds, even walking talking cream cakes, beer bottles, wads of multi-coloured flounce and much else straight from the world of the weird and wonderful. Yes, it was the weekend of the annual Wellington leg of the international rugby sevens series, which here is always the signal for a fancy dress binge that brings in hordes of revellers and many warmly welcome dollars.

This time there were some differences, however. Never before has a section of the stadium been set aside for those actually interested in what goes on on the pitch. Special tickets were issued for aisles 24-28, called the ‘rugby zone’. Then those under 25, or looking under 25, had to offer proof of their age to get the wristband entitling them to buy beer. You never have been allowed to bring your own booze to the stadium, or any other drinks for that matter, hot or cold, but in the past it was primarily to maintain a monopoly on sales within. (Of course, the pubs in town have done excellent business. As usual.)

Why the sudden change? Well, the international rugby authorities have their eye on Wellington now that this form of the game has acquired Olympic status and is due to be included in the 2016 Games. They certainly don’t want it to gain a bacchanalian reputation and risk being kicked out. So Wellington was warned.

Costume restrictions are not so new. Complete or near-nudity is out - I don’t know whether a fig-leaf bedecked Adam and Eve got in but they did have quite a few leaves between them - so is anything that can be used as, or looks like, a weapon. Costumes that overlap the seat or obstruct the view of others are likewise banned, as are flagpoles more than a metre long, picnic baskets, commercially prepared food (not a mouthful may stand in the way of arena sales), prams and pushchairs. But you can bring an empty water bottle provided it doesn’t hold more than a litre, and fill it inside. Anything in it when you arrive will be tipped out.

There was clearly some improvement. The police say crowds were on the whole well-behaved. There were slightly fewer arrests than usual, fewer people ejected from the stadium, fewer helpless beings needing assistance, though much of the time thousands of seats remained empty while those who should have been keeping them warm were out on the town, where the party always continues after the last whistle has been blown.

So most people were happy.

Postscript. If you happen to care about the result of the 16-nation tournament, England won, edging past Kenya in the final, while a disappointed New Zealand side won the play-off for third place.