Old Things

It's my last day so I take Lionel for a drive. At Miller's Flat the old general store, Faigan's, is a cafe with a collection of old stuff at the back. I bartered my Auntie Marie's teapot for falafels. Bright orange and yellow, the teapot shouts from beside rusty tins and cracked plates. Marie lived 50 years on Mount Oakden Station, in the high country beside the confluence of the Rakaia and Wilberforce Rivers. In the late 1950's there was no electricity and dirt road access meant trips to town were few and far between. Having grown up in the Depression Marie reused, recycled and repurposed. Nothing was thrown away and when she moved out a treasure trove of old household items, magazines, ornaments and random bits and bobs emerged from the shelves and cupboards of the homestead. I took away an eclectic pile of odds and sods nobody else wanted. The orange and yellow teapot adorned my top kitchen shelf for years and the notebooks sat beside the phone. They were more decorative than useful but intrinsically valuable because of their age. Next door to Faigan's the community is setting up a display of household items in the old baker's shop so I drop off the shopping pads, printed with Colgate general store info and issued in 1964 and 1968. When I packed up I couldn't throw either of them out.
On the way home we drive through Roxburgh which has the most intriguing public toilets in the country. A local metal work artist has made an artwork to set them off and the toilets themselves are a push button mystery. They used to play Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head once you got in, and issue instructions on what to do. There's silence now and you have to work out the buttons yourself.
By the time we get home, Lionel's worn out. He's always liked being in the thick of things and enjoys sitting in the car in the supermarket carpark or at Wastebusters watching people go about their daily business, something he's isolated since he lost his licence. The heat knocks him out today and he gets in the door and crashes on the couch.
Back at Lynette's there's an old Chevvy on the front lawn. I just have to get behind the wheel.

Roxburgh Toilets