Free Range Chickster

LIVING IN THE $2 SHOP

I’m staying in this astonishing incredible place; I’ve never seen anything like it.  It is a complete juxtaposition of cultures – the most incredible historic homestead with wide sweeping staircases and casement windows and a garden with ancient and protected trees. And inside this astoundingly elegant and graceful old house, the most incredible tacky furniture – it’s like they went down to the $2 and brought it all back here and then draped it all around.   If there is a furniture restorer’s heaven and Brian is in it, right now he will be looking down horrified.

And it’s Spartan - mean little towels as stiff as cardboard and a shower that can never be warm – just burn boiling or aching ice cold. The floor is lino – I mean lino??? in Dunedin! A few mismatched and cheap cups and a fridge that moves when you shut the door and I have to turn it off at night because it makes so much noise I cant sleep. Luckily its cold enough not to matter.

Get the picture?  – the cheapest coffee ever – Brian’s  old favourite that he used to buy for his long suffering staff – International Roast (guess he would approve of that) and heinous fake flowers on the plastic imitation inlay tables. And it’s huge, bigger than my house I think and I can walk from one weird room to another and wonder how this ever happened to me. I am boggled and love it – the weirdness is breathtaking and the heat pump is like a big hot-huffing dragon. It makes you challenge what you think about taste – there is something about this kind of “fuck-you-with-all-your-antiques” kind of statement that I adore.

I’m just a little writing machine now- inside my own head every day – it’s hot-wired and sometimes seems to burn right out and explode.  And then things happen, unusual little things; the moody misty view and the kereru who landed in the tree outside my window and looked right at me.  

Tomorrow I’m moving to the beach. I am moving every week to different places – then I get to see more of Dunedin – even if it’s just a walk to clear my head of all my fevered back stories swirling around in a sand storm kind of eddy.  And still no progress with the printer – I feel like a techno failure!!!

PS The table in the picture is totally made out of plastic.