​​There’s nary a corgi or a Union Jack to be seen in central Nelson at ten o’clock on the morning of the royal visit. There are hardly any people either. Although Trafalgar Street isn’t exactly Dead Man’s Gulch, it’s certainly quieter than usual. “Don’t quote me” says a shopkeeper, “but town is dead”. 

In downtown Auckland, McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy’s, Dunkin' Donuts and Subway are lost in the scrum of sushi, noodle, and kebab joints with names like Spicy Food Expert, Spicy Joint, or Fashion Pot Spicy. They don’t always serve what you might expect. 

I’m not sure I knew that art galleries even existed until I left home at sixteen and went to Teachers’ College. Mind you, back then I thought that spaghetti always came from a tin. But that’s another story.

Now that we can turn day into night with a blasé flick of a light switch , we have mostly forgotten the actual, and metaphorical implications which light – and its absence – once held. But on Saturday night the procession of human beings towards the lights in Queen’s Garden suggested a rekindling of the primeval association of light with warmth, protection and wonder. 

All creative people are delighted and thrilled if their work moves, excites or inspires, but would be even more thrilled if they also got a bit of hard cash in exchange for all the imagining, practicing, experimenting, physical labour and materials that go into their art.                                                  SLIDESHOW NELSON STREET ART

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.