Apparently, something like 100,000 thoughts pass through the human mind each day. That’s a lot of through-traffic even if 90% of the thoughts are pedestrian in the extreme. Where’s my other sock? What’s the time? I’m dying for a cup of tea. Must put toothpaste on the shopping list. That kind of thing. Over and over and over.

The clock is ticking ominously. It’s eleven thirty on Sunday night. This column is due first thing Monday morning and all I have on the screen in front of me is an unruly assemblage of paragraphs gasping for C.P.R. I’ve just polished off a bowl of apple crumble with whipped cream in an attempt to soothe my ragged nerves. They remain ragged.  I know how this sounds. You think it’s the result of lazy procrastination don’t you? It’s not. Honestly. This is what happened.

My kind ex-husband came to my place late this afternoon to install a door to my toilet. I suspect that the absence of a door to this particular room has disconcerted some of my guests. It may also have made me the subject of appalled gossip all over town. If so, I remain blissfully ignorant of the fact.  However, as I am not entirely unaware of the social niceties I have been looking forward to having a door on my toilet just like everybody else.

In 1936 women are mostly employed applauding their men or demonstrating domestic bliss. “Oh Tom!” swoons one ecstatic wife “I’m so proud of you, you've gone ahead so fast in Radio!” Another kneels helpfully at her husband’s feet demonstrating the effectiveness of a purse-sized trouser press. 

Steve Braunias couldn’t have devised a more Braunian setting into which to invite 23 hopeful scribblers for a workshop on writing nonfiction. The man specialises in writing “fascinating - and sometimes disturbing – stories … about people … their lives, loves, aspirations, and dark secrets” in small-town New Zealand. The Motueka Municipal Band Hall is so quintessentially Braunain that it’s hard to escape the feeling that it’s all a sly joke which he’s playing at our expense. 

Each year thousands of pilgrims, or “People of the Book” as they are known, join the pilgrimage to  place called Founders Park,  where under the welcoming arms of a giant windmill, they come in search of books, relics of an almost bygone age. Some come hoping to find enlightenment, succour, and revelation within the relics. Others wish merely for some hints on growing roses or the autograph of an All Black scribbled on a flyleaf.