Big Things

Our Gracious Hostess asked me for an explanation of the picture I posted a couple of weeks ago and I like to look after my readers, so I thought I would post about this peculiar phenomenon.

Believe it or not, this is a sculpture that is meant to depict a group of fruit in honour of Central Otago's reputation as the fruit bowl of the South Island. It is situated as you enter Cromwell, and was recently re-painted so the thing on the right of the picture would look more like a nectarine and less like a giant bum on a stick.

They like this sort of thing in New Zealand. When they want to draw attention to the 'main feature' of a town, they build a giant sculpture of it and stick it somewhere prominent. They are usually made of fibre glass but sometimes concrete, corrugated iron or other materials are used. Hence there are kiwi-fruit, carrots, paua shells, Wellington boots and, of course, sheep dotted around the countryside.

Once I was arranging to meet a friend in Gore and she suggested we meet at the old brown trout. Naturally, being English, I asked if this was a pub. 'No,' she replied laconically, 'It's an old brown trout.' It was, and still is I believe.

They also like these these maxi-ture sculptures in Australia. With their typical antipodean descriptive flair, they call them 'Big Things'. There are over 150 of them and some people take road trips to take photos in front of them and tick them all off their list. Yep, those Aussie larrikins... Among the Big Things are a variety of fruit and vegetables (mushrooms; avocados; bananas; pineapples; potatoes - you can bet that looks attractive), insects (mosquitoes; ants), household implements (taps; rolling pins; spanners) and - naturally - the odd bottle of rum or tinny.

So, that's the what, but as to the wherefore, your guess is as good as mine!

My newest favourite thing: cherries

Cherries are the heralds of summer. They are the rubies in the centre of the golden stone fruit bowl.

When children, and some adults, swing the ripe red pendulums from their ears and pretend to be wearing sumptuous earrings, you know the season has arrived.

Obviously, when they arrive depends on where you live. Here they arrive just in time for Christmas, but in the Northern Hemisphere I associate them with my sister’s birthday. The Weevil was born in July and we were often abroad in European orienteering countries for the event.

I have a childhood memory (of course, they are notoriously unreliable) of the Weevil skipping joyously along carrying a Black Forest gateaux (I suspect we may even have been in the Black Forest itself) and tripping; sending cream, cherries and chocolate shavings in all directions. The tears had nothing to do with the skimmed knees.

A stall in Arrowtown tempts you with luscious delights; the sellers have come from That Dam Fruit Stall in Cromwell. You can try varieties and pick a favourite punnet, if you are decisive.

Otherwise you struggle with your choice; red, white, pink or purple? Sweet or tart; ‘subacid’ or ‘bland’ – those last descriptions are not mine but come from the Horticultural Society. They probably provided the more prosaic number and letter naming system, while someone with a little more imagination came up with ‘Liberty Bell’, ‘Stardust’, ‘Columbia’ and ‘Staccato’.

Not only do they taste delicious, but apparently they are good for you. Cherries contain high quantities of the antioxidant anthocyanin, (also found in grapes and berries) so you can claim you are being healthy as you puff out your cheeks with the pips.

We would count them as children to see who we were going to marry; tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich-man, poor-man, beggar-man, thief. There was never any mention of electrical engineers so I can only assume their powers of prediction are equally as good as any other form of divination.

If you’re not counting the pips, you can always spit them out. My mother will be pleased to know that I haven’t entered (or even witnessed) the cherry pip spitting championships, but there is a hotly contested regional round of the competition in Cromwell at the start of the season. They make their own entertainment in this area, you know.

And when the cherries have all gone, it's not too long to wait for the blushing blossoms to appear. Symbolising the ephemeral nature of life, they are bashed and buffeted by the winds but some survive.

They are revered in Japan and in 1912 the Japanese gave a gift of some 3000 trees to America to symbolise their blossoming friendship between nations. Is it even more symbolic that these ornamental trees bear no fruit? Whatever, they look simply beautiful.

The Cromwell Races - doo-dah!

Having been to the Alexandra Blossom Festival, I thought I should also try out another Otago event – the Cromwell Races. Him Outdoors works for an outfit who were going as their Christmas do, so we trotted along with them. We were picked up by a coach as we stood at the side of the road at Arrow Junction and then the day began.

Let’s talk about the horses first – that is (in theory) what we were there for – although the free food and booze seemed to be an equally big hit. I like horses – they are amazingly powerful beasts and I love to see them run. They paraded around the paddock before they hit the race course and you could see their glossy flanks and noble faces.

Horses are sociable beasts and also highly sensitive – picking up vibes from others around them. There were a couple of smartly dressed blokes on calm steeds who walked around excluding serenity for the racehorses to assimilate. These horses were friendly and liked the attention of being stroked and patted – well, who wouldn’t? – and between the races they stalked along the course by the railings charming the crowd.

I don’t really bet. The last bet I placed was on the final of the 2003 Rugby World Cup. ‘How many points is a drop goal worth?’ I asked, and was reliably informed that it was worth three. I knew that Johnny would kick us to victory in the last minute of the game – I just knew it. So I placed my bet for England to win by three points and as I screamed at the television and my premonition eventuated, I was indescribably smug.

When I went to collect my winnings, however, I was told that I had bet on the outcome of 80 minutes and not 100. They didn’t pay out. I was gutted (although England had won the World Cup after all, which sort of made up for it) and lost all faith in the TAB system, vowing never to bet again.

So, I sent Him Outdoors up to the little ticket window to hand over our five dollars to place (he has all the lingo) while I ‘studied the form’ – this consisted of finding a name of a horse that I liked or colours that the jockey was sporting (pink armbands were a favourite – I thought this might mean they were going swimming as well) and going ‘I’ll have that one’. This began with ‘Sweet About Me’, ‘Ratsandall’ and ‘Tiddley Pom’.

It turned out to be not the best method of picking a winner. I’ve since been told that the way to do it is to watch them come out into the birdcage and pick the one which does the biggest pre-race constitutional as this will make him lighter. It’s all about weight, apparently.

In fact, we soon realised that the best guarantee of success was to choose the horse that Chris Johnson was riding. He may be just a wee jockey (they’re all just tiny but very angry for some reason – they remind me of Rumplestiltskin) but he seems to know his stuff and we soon started betting on him rather than the horse.

In the last race he was down in the programme to ride ‘Illicit’ but he didn’t – someone else did and the horse plodded across the line in eighth place while the one that Chris Johnson did actually ride won the event. We tried to cry foul but the TAB people didn’t care – they really are heartless, that lot. As I said, I don’t trust them enough to bet with them.

The horses were great though and I loved watching and hearing them come thundering past. A vet's vehicle sped after each race, going a fair clip and still being well out-paced, but fortunately it wasn't needed at all and break-neck speed was merely a metaphor.

So there was horse racing and betting, but mainly there was drinking and leching. We were in a marquee where a barbecue service turned up, cooked steaks, sausages and kebabs, accompanied by heaps of bread and salad, and, after we had eaten it, they carted it all away again. There were bottles of wine and crates of beer – it was all kept cool in those chilly bins and everyone seemed to have sufficient.

At one point we went for a walk to see what the poor people did. It seems they went to the general bar (hastily established in an old shed), spread rugs on the grass and held impromptu picnics.

They sheltered from the wind and the sun as best as they could while some bought bag of the season’s first cherries from the back of vans. The army were there trying to recruit – although I wouldn’t have thought sunburned drunken hoodlums are exactly what you want in your armed forces – and in fact, the people we saw were wearing camouflage and eating ice creams.

There were a lot of well-dressed women. They go for the fashion and the occasion to wear jaunty hats or fascinators – what a great word for a few flimsy feathers.

A lot of them had made an effort and were tripping daintily around hanging onto their floaty dresses and sinking into the turf with their stilettos. To be fair, as the day wore on and the sun cream wore off many changed from swanky to skanky, but at least they all seemed to be having a good time – alcohol and inhibitions simply don’t mix.

The men let the side down somewhat. True, a couple had worn their best shirts, but most looked like your average Kiwi bloke – jeans, polar fleece, baseball cap with folded arms a bottle of Speights in one hand. Despite their lack of sartorial (or indeed any) elegance, they appraised the women like they were the horse flesh – standing and grunting as attractive young fillies walked by, while leaning against the railings with their backs to the races. You know what I mean, and if you don’t, this picture should tell the story.