Rudderless

We still don’t have a government but I don’t think that is why Nicky’s handbag was stolen this week. The theft occurred on Friday morning while she was waiting for the train at New Lynn station. This disrupted her working day both because of the shock and the reporting of the incident as her work security pass, bank cards etc, were all in the bag. Fortunately her HOP card was in her hand, so she was still able to get to work and back home again. She only had a small amount of cash in her bag, it’s the inconvenience of having lost all the items and the replacing of bank cards etc, that’s the on-going issue.

The beginning of our week was much better as the weather turned out to be much more pleasant than we expected for our Heritage Festival event in Epsom. We thought this was to be three exhibitions located in three businesses on Manukau Road, but this wasn’t the case. We did see some photographs at our second stop, and there we met the proprietor of the first stop which explained why it was closed. All became clear as it was explained that at the time the programme was put together the events around the history of the trams in Epson had not been finalised, so just a general outline had been published (I discovered when we got home that all the “new” information was on the website). However, we were given a potted history and overview of the event planned for the evening and encouraged to continue onto the third stop, which was the Humble Villager café. This we did, enjoying our walk which was now in the sunshine. There was an exhibition of photographs at the café and we decided to stay for lunch, which turned out to be excellent. Nicky had a broccoli salad followed by a caramel slice and tea, and I had a smoked salmon bagel followed by toasted date and walnut loaf with coffee. The bagel came with some pesto the like of which I have never tasted before. I thought I was not a fan of pesto but this was just gorgeous (Nicky appropriated quite a bit of it inspite of her salad being excellent). The date and walnut loaf however was even better, and seemed to have a hint of golden syrup about it without being overtly sweet. The lunch cost $40 which we thought was very good value for the quality of food and service which we had received, and we departed in very good spirits.

On our walk back to the car on the other side of Manukau Road we encountered a ladies clothes shop, complete with “seating for husbands” which was most welcome. Nicky fell on a top in a gorgeous shade of green and a lightweight red coat and bought them both for $108! This is the coat being modelled by an “about to run out of the door” librarian:

Up until Friday the rest of the week has been quite normal. The library has been busy with the schools still being on holiday, and I have been negotiating with the weather to get the laundry dry outside. I haven’t had as much work on this week but I have had new front tyres fitted on Luna.

Yesterday was a gorgeous spring, almost summer day, which was just what I needed for my Heritage Festival Eat Auckland food history tour of Ponsonby. It was warm enough for us to be congregating in the shade at times. The tour was lead by a couple of freelance food writers, and along with interesting stories included tea tasting and concluded with drinks and petit fours at a bistro which occupies the old Post Office building (see below). One of the most interesting facts that I learnt on the tour is that in the early days of development of Ponsonby Road, the majority of the “food outlets” were retail operations, grocers, butchers, bakers and the like, whereas now they are nearly all cafés, restaurants and fast food outlets. The cusp of the change from one to the other seems to have been the 1980’s.

Stella collected Nicky from work and they arrived home just before me, and I was closely followed by Steve and Scrabble ensued. The fruit loaf which I had made in the morning was enjoyed.

Today has been our last Festival event (it finished today) and even though it was dry and sunny, the wind was much cooler and stronger than yesterday. We walked to Green Bay to be members of a party to “walk the portage” from the Manukau to the Whau River, which took us a couple of hours and was good. On our return we stopped for a reviving cuppa and had a quiet afternoon at home recuperating (though Nicky did mow the grass). Yet again we have enjoyed the Heritage Festival and are grateful to the Council for organising it and all the volunteers who deliver it.

Take care, Rick