Living in a small town and being know to the gay mafia has turned James and I into somewhat of a talking point. The jungle drums had sounded our arrival before we ever even in the country, every time we go out to roger and rosses more gay men appear, gay men introduce themselves to James at work and four or so have popped into the café to say hi or discuss job opportunities. Now we think we are fab but normally our arrival does not cause a stir. That said we are young (under 65), out and new her. A rarity we have found.
Café life is still fun. Every day I bake 8 different lines of cake and then spend the day working the till, serving customers and having fun. Most of the time the banter is fab. I have never worked somewhere where it’s ok to be rude and to take the piss! We have had comments about glory holes (they are all straight apparently), love life and mad customers. Most days it’s a fairly predictable day but with the rugby in Naper there are lots of French and Canadian people. Now the French are a pain in the acre. They take an age to order and then order off menu. I would like a green salad with feta cheese, tomato and onion. That is NOT a green salad and we don’t have the on the menu. That said I smile and nod. The day before and after the rugby was another matter altogether. We were busy from 8am till 5pm, sold out of all cakes, most of the mains and at the end of the day we had plates stacked up on every available surface including the floor. Madness but fun.
On the rugby front we went to see France Canada. WOW what a match. Ok it may have rained solidly for two hours before the match and I may have booked standing room only and it was cold but it was still fun. James nearly did kill me for booking the standing but we survived. The Christchurch earth-quake meant that Napier hosted two matches. Now the stadium resembles a club rugby stadium and as such were right on the action. Simply amazing!
During our time here we may become dipsomaniacs as its wine country. Everywhere we look there are grapes growing and wineries processing them into luscious wine? We will of course go on a vineyard tour which in my opinion is just an excuse to get pissed. In the mean time we have been to one vineyard to buy some wine. Oh my it’s good and so so cheap. We bought a crate of skins wine (wine without labels direct from the vineyard) and are currently working our way through this.
The wine is not all for us by the way as we are having a house warming next weekend. Within three weeks we have met about 25 people who we have invited to the house warming. The café in which I work are supplying some of the food and we need to borrow some plates etc. but apart from that we are set.
Before our house warming we have been meeting lots of new people. We have been out for dinner with the owners of the café and been to watch the rugby with people recommended by the local gay mafia. We have learned the Roger and Ross are referred to the queen bees of Napier and they have been putting us in touch with lots of nice people. That said if we had neighbours living as close to us as we did at home tongs would be wagging. Whilst we have not been hosing wild sex parties we have had a succession of men sitting on our veranda drinking wine. Well with a small town the pubs empty or close quite early and the New Zealand way is to return home and carry on the party and that’s what we have been doing.
In amongst all this enjoying ourselves James mum has been admitted to hospital and is not well. Never have we felt so far away from home. With 11 hours’ time difference and 12,000 miles separating us from the UK it’s not been easy. We have been on the phone to Paul, Emma and Hilary, a number of nurses and consultants secretary and hopefully in time a consultant himself! We have spoken to travel agents in the uk and NZ and have come within an inch of putting James on a plane. Fortunately carol is a little more stable and James has not jetted off but it’s been a close run thing. All we can say is get well soon carol!
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