An urban N.Z. baby-boomer and a Jack Russell terrier
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IN SEARCH OF THE AUTHENTIC TRAVEL EXPERIENCE

15/12/2014

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The National Cafe (est. 1928) was a dimly-lit narrow room with exhausted red carpeting, Formica tables and vinyl-upholstered chrome-legged chairs. A row of cylindrical glass lampshades dangled from the high ceiling, vinegar and Worcester sauce bottles stood in cruet sets on each table. The waiter was 89 years old. The menu offered steak and chips, egg and chips, sausages and chips, fish and chips and baked beans on toast. I ordered steak and chips.  
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Last week I spent time in Napier and Hastings, the places where I grew up. My mother is buried in Hastings; I am now exactly the same age as she was when she died, and so it was something of a pilgrimage. I had not anticipated sharing my journey into the past with thousands of others. 

In Napier, on the first day of my visit, 2000 passengers from the cruise ship “Dawn Princess” garbed in cruise-wear and dangling cameras wandered down the main street, or succumbed to the blandishments of touts dressed in striped blazers and boaters keen to sell them “an authentic Art Deco experience”. This seemed mostly to involve rides in open-top vintage cars or traipsing behind a tour guide like a gaggle of school children on a not very interesting field trip. 


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WHEEE! SCOOTING THROUGH LIFE!

3/12/2014

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A friend recently lent me a collection of Spectator columns written in the 1980’s by English novelist Alice Thomas Ellis. They were still very funny and I polished them off in a sitting. 

However the columnist in me was awfully envious of the raw material Alice had at her disposal. She had a publisher husband who was also a brilliant Oxford classicist, many children, a house in London (plus boa constrictor), a house in Wales, a faithful family retainer and lots of weather of the sleet and snow variety. She also had cigarettes, booze and Catholicism and was mates with Kingsley Amis, Oliver Sacks, Iris Murdoch, and Beryl Bainbridge (more of whom later).

All I’ve got is one ex-husband, one child, a small flat in Nelson (plus Fox Terrier), a benign climate and atheism. Not a faithful family retainer anywhere. A lesser person might have sunk into rue and envy of Alice’s literary life in London but an examination of my own small life soon turned up something uniquely mine. Poor Alice probably had to rely on black cabs and the Tube to get around. But I have a scooter.

There's such pleasure in standing upright while sailing along with the wind blowing through your hair. My hair may be turning fifty shades of gray, but when I’m scooting about I feel like a kid again. Transported back to when the days were full skating and skipping and hopscotching, of climbing trees and dangling off the jungle gym. Or belly-flopping into the school pool so often that the chlorinated water fizzed up your nose and the water made slap marks on your skin. 

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    THE GREY URBANIST
    Ro Cambridge, is a freelance writer, 
    arts worker & columnist Here she reports on the oddities & serendipities of  urban life.  She roams Nelson city , NZ 
    with a tan & white Jack Russell. (Her original canine side-kick, Pete, who features in many of these posts died in 2015.

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