I Wore Leg-Makeup & Got Cat-Called

Saturday night. Queenstown CBD. 7.20pm. I stepped out of the car outside Betty's Liquor. There was a chill in the air. I zipped up my leather jacket and set off, striding towards my destination. Japanese takeaways. At the same time, a guy, late 20s, charged out of Betty's. We looked at each other. For a cool five seconds.

Then he shouted, 'GOD! What a SEXY woman!'

I didn't look back at him. I kept striding. I found myself in a tight alleyway between a concrete wall and a building-site hoarding. Another man was walking towards me. I felt that feeling only women feel in a situation like this. Danger. Irrationally perhaps. But still. Danger. I looked straight ahead. Made no eye contact. My long navy blue shirt dress (worn a million times, Glassons) has two thigh-high splits. Over my thighs. Centre front. I had black platform boots on, sparkly socks and leg makeup (think water-soluble tan tights. Fragrance-free.) I started thinking about a comeback. What I would have said if I was the stunningly dressed, potty-mouthed Katherine Ryan in The Duchess, or the hilarious Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Fleabag. If I was right then, being filmed in a middle-aged version of Sex-in-the-City, Queenstown release. 

KR: 'Out of your league, cockwomble.' or 'I've seen your porn channel.'

PWB: 'Does your mum know you're out?' or 'I was in that movie.'

What I was really feeling. Was uncomfortable. And saying, 'You're pissed, mate. I'm 56.'

But his remark wasn’t really about the wrinkles and the silver hair, he clearly couldn't focus in his beer-tinted-goggles, it was aimed at the confidence. I was striding like a woman who looked like she knew where she was going and what she wanted when she got there. A Bento box. Salmon. I wasn't a young woman in an awkward-to-pee-in jumpsuit, teetering on uncomfortable sandals (that looked supportive on the leggy model on Asos) heading out on a night on Aperol Spritzes with my posse. Hoping to pull. Get pashed in a bar. Drop-it on the dance floor. Whatever the young and beautiful do on a Saturday night. In Queenstown.

But older women are sexy. I look at Helen Mirren and think, you sexy bad bitch. Owning that face, owning that body. In that cleavage revealing, haute couture gown. Owning that life. Aged: 75! 

However, I was also slightly unnerved at the time. Would the dude follow me? Down the narrow alley. The H had just dropped me off. We'd just been at our son's pre-formal get together at a hotel in town. And GOD that room was full of some sexy women. 16. 17. All dressed up in subtle tones of slinky stretch satin with spaghetti straps. Under a shroud of fake-tan and professional hair and makeup. Their rose petal corsages bruising each time they hugged their stunned, Hallenstein-clad beaus. All so sweet. All so stunning. The flesh of youth. Lightly encased. Innocent.

Stomping down that alley, I did not smirk to my self, and think, yeah still got it. That is not my station. I alighted at the one before. Station Invisible. Confusion was more my headspace. And hunger. 

More to the point, isn't cat-calling, wolf-whistling not a done thing these days? Or do men still think its okay for their dick-to-shout-a-*compliment* to women in public any old damn time they feel like it? Would a Gen-X have called this guy out? Or walked on to prevent a scene? I proceeded on to my destination. Ordered dinner. While I waited, a guy at a nearby table was retelling a story loudly into his phone. I'll save you from its contents. TMI. Jeesh. If I could have caught his attention, my eyes would have eyed him. Eyeingly. Shut up.

Earlier that day, I stood outside a cafe while my daughter ordered a coffee. In that ten minute-wait, I watched a cafe-worker place a freshly baked loaf of banana bread on a chopping board. Oooh that looks good. Steam rose. I could smell that sweet fruity dough. I watched her slice it. The knife was super sharp, it made no crumbs. She arranged half the loaf and the sliced pieces on a plate. But as she ferried them to the display counter a piece fell to the floor. She looked at her co-worker for advice. The advice must have been something like, 'Five-second rule! Just pick it up.' Because next thing, that slice was on a plate. Then that slice had a butter pat beside it. Then that slice and the butter was being served to an unsuspecting customer. I do not lie. Right then, I wanted to catch the cafe worker's eye. I wanted to give her the two-fingered, two-eyed wave. We live in a Covid world. Times are tough. But. Hygiene.

My Bento boxes arrived within 15 minutes, as advised. A slight drizzle had started. I strode up the street, passed the church and met my ride outside the cop-shop. We went home and watched Election 2020. I was thankful for the results. Humanity is key rn. I went to bed, and hoped, as I always do at the start of a new term of government that Aotearoa will be better. That the world will be better. The cake will be clean. And we will all be good humans. Even after a few beers.

On Writing - To Plot, To Pant, or To Plant

Sissy Spacek in the Carrie, 1976

I don’t usually write about the craft of writing, but after a long (book) publishing spell and only receiving back-pats for writing about my white-witch-hair (and the associated compliments from the general public) a writer begins to questions her methods. Seek a little yoga for the creative brain. Read up on the subject. Want inspo.

Ever since an author mate of mine said, this book made her feel very secure, I've had Stephen King’s ‘On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft’ on my must-read list. Also, he's a panster (like me) not a plotter. There must be no better way to feel positive about your approach to putting a narrative down, than reading pointers from your tribe! 

This book is a real tonic. For any writer. It's hugely entertaining. SK swears like a trooper. The book zooms around his childhood and his high school years. At age four, while his mum worked he was in the care of a string of babysitters. The one he remembers most is a 200 lb, teenager, Eulah-Bulah. He claims she prepared him for being reviewed by The Village Voice. Because she used to fart in his face while shouting, Pow! However, it was feeding Steve seven fried eggs and locking him in his mother’s wardrobe that eventually got her fired. 

In his sophomore year, bored with being the editor of the school mag, he created a satiric newspaper, The Village Vomit ... “filled with fictional titbits about the faculty”. Miss Raypach the study-hall-monitor becomes Miss Rat Pack, for example. Apparently, this rag was the “most useful writing lesson he ever got” and got him into a bunch of trouble. 

On the craft of writing, SK says he only needs a situation in order to get started on a story. He cites his debut novel Carrie as an example. In Carrie there is an unpopular girl (Carrie) taking a shower in a high school locker room. She gets her period for the first time. Her fellow students take tampons from an adjacent dispenser and start throwing them at her, along with cruel insults. Carrie thinks she's dying. All that blood! (BTW SK writes about this with all the casualness of a caretaker making a cup of tea. I blanched the first time I read it too.) Carrie's inconvenient first period just so happens to coincide with her telekinesis ability materialising. SK got this 'situation' while cleaning the girls' showers with a male friend who educated him on the uses of the contents of the wall dispenser. That coupled with an article in Life magazine he'd read years before. The article suggested, some reported poltergeist activity might actually be telekinetic phenomena. And that girls, around the time of their first period, might have the ability to move objects, just by thinking about them. Carrie was going to get her own back. And it was going to be messy. Red.

The movie Carrie came out in 1976. I was 11. I'm not sure how old I was when I watched it but I was absolutely terrified. I'd quite like to read the book now. There's a scene in the TV series Fleabag, when Phoebe Waller-Bridge is asked what her favourite 'period' movie is. She replies, Carrie! Should you want to revisit this classic-horror-zinger it's on Netflix. Halloween isn't far away ... 

SK "... stories and novels consist of three parts: narration, which moves the story from point A to point B ...; description, which creates a sensory reality for the reader; and dialogue, which brings the characters to life through their speech." And "I distrust plot for two reasons: first, because our lives are largely plotless, ... I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren't compatible."

More than once, when I've got stuck midway in a story I've thought not being a plotter is a curse. I always start with detailed bios of my characters. I created young Lily Max way before I had a story for her to tell. (I have a two new characters mucking about upstairs *raises eyebrows* rn in fact.) I do know where I want to start, and where I'll end (the middle comes when I sit down and get the hell off Twitter.) In book #1 Lily Max: satin, scissors, frock - I knew Lily Max would create a stunning outfit in order to win the Snow Queen crown (I also knew I couldn’t let her win.) In came my antagonist, the ghastly Violet Hughes. Once I had my large cast of kooky characters, and my setting in place the story wrote itself. Ahem. Keeping a sharp eye of course on pacing, dialogue, my underlying theme etc etc. 

Plotters please know I'm knocking plotting. It just doesn’t work for me. If I write a chapter by chapter plan I never stick to it. I get bored. I'm a panster. Such a terrible term. Someone who takes the-seat-of-their-pants approach. Novel writing, anyway you approach it is a lot of sitting on your pants, I mean on your backside in your tracky pants. It's hard graft. Hours and hours of hard graft. Putting word after word. Sentence after sentence. Until you become so obsessed with the characters you've created, you start to prefer their company over your family's. Those living-breathing humans for whom you tear yourself from your labours to prepare evening meals (albeit begrudgingly) when in full flight. Although, I'd say SK's lovely wife Tabby prepares his dinners while he writes at his desk in the corner.

"Life isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around." SK

I mentioned theme earlier; every writer has one or more themes whether they realise it or not. Mine covers underdogs and believing-in-yourself. SK has many recurring themes in his work, two interesting ones are "the fundamental differences between child and adults, and ... the healing power of the imagination". He says these are no big deal, and that all writers have unique interests that come from our experiences. Our lives.

This made me think. His whole book made me think. (Honestly get a copy from your library and get into it.) Whatever your a station ... I was a child. I am a daughter, a wife, a lover, a mother, a woman and a writer. All under the one umbrella. We all bring our own style to the page. Be we plotters. Pantsers. Or Plantsers - a bit of both.

"Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. //Drink and be filled up."  Stephen King

Girl Talk: Nails, Beauty, Love

Orchid snapped in Singapore Botanical Gardens

As we all readjust to the here-and-now while not going stark raving bonkers and spending too much of the day cleaning the skirting boards, I’ve found the ongoing, liberty-dashing curse of the cloud-covid doth bringeth several silver linings. Number one, eldest daughter currently on post-graduate-pre-career-sabbatical in her childhood bedroom. Another woman in da house! So. Beauty product testing. And nails. And mummy daughter LOVE.

I usually have a gel manicure once a year. At a push, twice. I eek out these manicures until my pale nail-beds are sometimes six weeks long. But sweet Lily and I have become nail bar regulars. Three weekers. For any visitors to Queenstown, we totally recommend Amore Day Spa for the best nails. And better gossip. You want to know where to get the best Martini Espresso lakeside, just ask the petite proprietor, Hanna.

Since May? I’ve done. Lilac. Sapphire Blue. Lemon yellow. I’m currently British Racing green. Nek week, I’m going for gold. With sparkles. Shape-wise I’ve done square, round, almond and now my nails are long enough to try stiletto. Stabby. 

Lordy love-a-duck will you look at some of these!

For the uninitiated, I liken a gel manicure to getting a few coats of boom-colour- *Timbacryl on your nails, with a top-coat of polyurethane. Because the wondrous thing with gel is that it’s dry and dent-proof, the moment your hand is retracted from the mini, UV light, nail-baking machine. After a quick slosh on of cuticle oil and a mini hand massage, you’re ready to plunge your hand into your handbag and scrag around for your credit card and car keys. No worries. No damage. Despite having to get gel salon-removed (you can purchase a bottle of acetone and do it yourself) your manicure is not wrecked by the time you unlock your automobile and start it. 

Radically, the total sum of my social outings over the last six months, have included a 19^th Birthday and a 70^th  Birthday. I danced at both. I was a happy Cinderella dressed in rags. Favourite old rags. I don’t know about anyone else but spending my life as an at-home-hermit has forced buying clothes totally off my radar. Manis and beauty products are my current nemesis. They bring the joy of a quick fix. And you can enjoy them. At home. Alone. 

A gel mani costs $69 (inc $10 removal.) This does seem extravagant for permanent pretty hands. But that’s less than a $5 coffee a day over three weeks. I share a daily brew with The H. We discovered a handy local coffee roaster Steve during #lockdown, when my horse decided to hoof it down the drive and graze his front lawn. Now, when the acrid smell of burnt toast fills the Dalefield air we know it’s time to nip over for a refill.

I’ve been reading Marian Keyes’ ‘Making It Up As You Go Along’, a sort of memoir and collection of previously published columns. (How famous do you have to be before you can repackage your writing and resell it?!) Anyhoo, it’s laugh-out-loud, Irish humour funny. She’s cute. Five foot with size 35 feet. Super eccentric. She’s also a beauty potions sluzzer. Friend! She writes very candidly about being a slave to many of the female beauty larks of our time. Fake tans. Eyelash extensions. Lasering (she slathered her entire legs in Emla cream and wrapped them in GladWrap hours prior to treatment with a potentially catastrophic outcome.) Hairdressers. Skincare. Teeth. Nails!

On the subject of skincare … I did some overzealous aging-be-gone attempts with The Ordinary’s Ascorbic Acid 8% + Alpha Arbutus 2% serum and found myself in need of a calming, random red spot evaporating system. Dr Lewinn’s Recoverederm cleanser, toner and day cream for sensitive skin soon calmed the unsightly blotches on my cheeks. Dr L’s boasts Bio-Active Marine Algae and Cehami(R). This range is around $30 per product. I like the gel cleanser and cellular defense rich replenishing cream, but the aerosol-canned toner has a meh fragrance-free, fragrance. Would not buy again. 

For a refreshing spritz over the face in the morning, I love Antipodes Ananda Antioxidant Rich Toner. Its raspberry scent is divine. 

Waiting in the pharmacy yesterday, for some repeat prescriptions (as us young folk do!) Marian Keyes spoke to me, ‘Be the Janeys!’ (Irish lexicon for ‘an expression of astonishment') she said. And I found myself, eyes glistening, in front of the Dr Lewinn’s range. An enormous, red shelf-talker was talking to me - Instantly Plumps & Boosts Advanced Pearl technology Ultra R4 Plumping Gel. Soon my hand was prizing open the seal on the yet unused tester and I was anointing the back of my free hand, wrist and lower arm with the gloriously silky rich concoction within. I marvelled at the luxe texture of my freshly plumped and boosted skin. I shuddered when I checked the price. $84.95. Shite, I thought. (Gobshite might be more appropriate here.) My name. Jane. Was called over the aisles of temptations. I went to the counter, hoping I had a Living Reward’s $10 voucher owing. I didn’t. I skipped home with my new purchase. Twitching to try it. Result. I love it. It's so hydrating and smoov. Would work well as a makeup primer.

Meanwhile. Spring. If you’re planning to get your knees out soon I recommend you get scrubbing with this magic. Weleda – Birch Body Scrub. $16.72, 150 ml. With carnauba and beeswax pearls, and the zingy essential oils of grapefruit and cypress it exfoliates like a dream and stimulates circulation thus helping to purge all that cursed crinkly sourdough that’s crept in since April and is taking a nap under your arse shelf. Use once a week in the shower, massaging in circular motions, while dreaming up the next bonkbuster and bring on the ath-leisure-shorts. 

This scrub is best paired with Birch Cellulite Oil. $29.52, 100 ml. I have been massaging like a dervish those needy, knee to navel trouble spots, post-shower daily. Briefly, I must call out its scandalous name. It’s the sort of bottle one does not want guests to view amongst the Aesop handwash in one’s bathroom. I guess it’s better than Subcutaneous Fat Dissolver or Orange Peel Thigh Eraser. But who wants to be reminded of this. Female. Affliction. Cellulite. 

Moving on, I’m fine to smell like a citronella candle for a good cause. Ahem. Blended with wheat germ and jojoba oils it absorbs quickly. And after just three weeks of the Birch scrub/oil combo, daughter and I both believe. Winning. For me, the skin on ye olde sourdough is definitely looking more Bao bun. And the above-the-knee crepe looks finer. Roll on above-the-knee dress weather.

In celebration of the Spring Equinox, Weleda's current prices are 20% off. Available until 27/9/20. Sunday.

I love the whole biodynamic, organic philosophies of Weleda. I’d be filling cow horns with manure and burying them if I had access to some. I plan to visit their store, and gardens (if pos) when I’m in Havelock North this Xmas. Meanwhile, I’m ordering the Citrus Creamy Body Wash. $16.72, 200 ml. For darling daughter and I.  “Wake up, shower and add zest to your day … Gently cleanses your skin and makes you feel happy!” 

Why wouldn’t you? 

ps. I'm not a beautician. I'm not sponsored nor Insta famous. Opinions my own.

*Timbacryl is a long lasting exterior paint.

Aging & The Subtle Art of Giving A Lot of Phucks About It

I wrote a somewhat poignant line in a poem recently -

I prefer my hair turning white than paying into disguise

And I do. For the most part. I’m cool with being prematurely in silver-vixen-territory. But earlier this week, when a bank teller insisted to the point that I must have lost my marbles, along with the pigments from my hair that I was an old aged pensioner I wondered if it was time to hit the Clairol. I just couldn’t for the life of me think which colour would suit? Forever Blonde. Honey Honey Honey. Chesty Chestnut.

I forgave the poor child her mistake as she blushed and tried to back-track by saying that the qualifying age for a Super Gold card was 60. Only. I corrected her again. Thing is, to her it all added up. I hadn’t just breezed in with my freshly washed white hair after my injectables appointment. LOL. Oh no, I’d been stood at the counter for a cool ten minutes, trying to redeem my BonusBonds – the kiwi saving scheme for gambling addicts. Curiously I’d checked their website, I thought I knew what ID I needed. Clearly, I’d overlooked the third requisite. 

Anyhoo, there I was with my undone, white hair. My middle-aged face. My unknotted brow. It was an easy mistake for a young woman to make, (lack of general knowledge for a frontline job aside.) I would struggle to identify a twenty-five-year-old from a thirty-five-year-old in a line-up. But I’m 56, not 65. A cool, nine years of my life was obliterated right before my very eyes. Poof. All that lovely growing old, fast-forwarded in a puff of future-fairy-dust. I should add it was the previous customer, let's call her Brenda, who was the owner of the SuperGold Card. The teller had somehow flicked to her file.

My great grandmother, Mackie, had long white hair that she pinned into a donut-shaped-bun at the nape of her neck. She was 100. I’m not sure why my hair colour went west in my forties? The stress of having three children in my mid-thirties. 34. 36. 38. Perhaps. I recall my midwife, telling me that each one of them had given her grey hairs, and it wasn’t her birth canal they were stuck in at the time. 

My lovely friend Sue, texted me earlier this week, from the mall. She’d accompanied her daughter to her colour appointment. After four hours in the chair, daughter was not happy with the results. Four hours! That was one of the reasons I stopped colouring my hair. The money! The time! I would honestly be on the verge of a panic attack around the two-hour mark. Get me out of hair! It was such a relief to stop. 

I was asked to interview the wildly famous and fabulous UK Children’s Laureate author/illustrator, Lauren Child, soon after I took the au-natural-road. I had a moment beforehand. Well, quite a few moments actually. I thought I cannot interview the super gorgeous, super stylish Lauren Child while I’m growing out my hair. I. Need. Just. One. Last. Colour. One. 

During the interview, Lauren cutely asked me several questions. I’d been introduced to her the day before at Remarkables Primary, along with her UK publisher and PR assistant, Lozzle. Even so, when she said, “We were talking about your hair yesterday!” I laughed a startled laugh.

“You were? That’s so embarrassing. I stopped colouring it. I’m so white.” Then I leaned in and showed her my whitest locks. On my temples. OMG I still cannot believe I did that. “I kept ringing up salons to make an appointment but I couldn’t get in anywhere.”

Lauren said, “No, it’s lovely. It’s all the rage in the UK right now. To grow it out. It’s great.”

Mmmmm. Lauren’s blonde hair had subtle, baby pink highlights. “The key is putting the right amount in,” she told me. “It doesn't last long.”

Three years ago, only punks had pink hair. Not like nowadays when every rad gran you pass in PakNSave is rocking pink pastel, asymmetrical fringes and undercuts. But from that moment, I knew I’d dabble in a pinkaluscious-balayage-future. So I can’t tell you how thrilled I was when I discovered De Lorenzo Nova Fusion colour shampoos. $29.99. Salon only.

Believe me, I have tress-tested these babies and will happily pass on my knowledge. I do pretty much have a blank palette to start with, which helps as results depend on your base colour. But you can’t go too wrong. ** 

Jane says:

Beige Blonde - adds a certain blonde-creaminess and goldy highlights. My fave.

Rose Gold - adds soft, baby pink tones. You will be pink!

Coral Peach NEW - adds odd orange-pink tones. (I was so excited when I found this. But after several washes, I felt like a fruit salad. And when people told me things like my hair matched my shoes I was outta there right back to Beige Blonde. Don’t be fooled by the name. This colour would also tide you over between salon colours if you have blonde highlights. I believe.)

On this Hi-Ho-silver journey, I discovered a few Instagram feeds of women pushing the greying-gracefully mood. But most of them were ex-models with goddess-like cheekbones, soft-filtered tanned faces and thick, long luscious locks. And after reading how they maintained that youthful glow: “I brush myself with a stiff-bristled dry brush before showering, twice a day! I don’t touch red meat, sugar or alcohol.” This old cardholder left them to their namastes and their nettle tea.

(Parts of this post also appear on Stuff NZ. Bubbly brunettes wanting to enhance their greys might find Nadine Rubin Nathan's dye tips helpful.)

** Directions. Do a quick first wash. Towel dry. Apply a generous amount of shampoo. Go about the business of shaving your legs or dreaming up a new novel. (I still can’t get the image of naked writers coming up with their best ideas while wet 'n soapy. Melinda? Sue?) Anyhoo, leave the shampoo on for 5-10 mins. Rinse. Condition with Nova Fusion Colour Care conditioner. Next time you wash, repeat above to maintain colour. Or if you don’t like it, use normal shampoo to wash it out. I sometimes do a lucky-dye and mix the colours. 

ps. Three days later, my Bonusbonds savings have not been transferred. They say, Allow 10 days.

pps. I interviewed Lauren Child during the Auckland Writer’s Festival May 2017, for The Sapling

Author with Lauren Child. Photo by Lozzle

A (very) YA Fairytale - The Wolf & The Girl in the Red Hoodie


Once upon a time, there lived a wolf, a very strange wolf.


‘Look Mr Wolf, do you really expect me to hand over a muffin every Saturday. Just because you stand on two legs and bare your yellow fangs at me. You really need to use whitening toothpaste BTW,’ said Little Red Riding Hood. 

‘Give me one,’ said Mr Wolf. 


‘Nope.’ 


‘Give me a muffin.’ 


‘Doubt it.’ 


‘I’ll tear that awful red hoodie of yours if you don’t.’ 


‘What evs.’ 


‘I’ll bite you.’ 


‘I’ll bite you back! Well, I wouldn’t actually; I’d get a gob full of fur. You really need to brush yourself. Your fur coat is manky as.’ 


‘Look, I was kicked out of home as a young whelp. No one taught me to hunt. I’m starving. I live off nuts and berries and roots.’ 


‘How can you? You must have those things…wha da ya call em? Oh yeah - instincts. You’re a meat-eater.’ 


‘My meat-eating-gene must have mutated. I’m a vegetarian.’ 


‘Aww hun that really stuffs up this fairy tale doesn’t it. You don’t even want to eat me?’ 
‘Please Little-hood-red-riding.’ 


‘Doh. My name is Little-Red-Riding-Hood. Red for short.’ 


‘Red. Sorry. You’re right - I don’t want to eat you. But I’d KILL you just to get one of your muffins.’ 

The wolf sprang towards Red and knocked her flat to the ground. She lay there stunned for a moment, then she kicked and squirmed with all her might and eventually managed to crawl out from under the skinny wolf. 

Jumping to her feet, she shouted, ‘Totes inappropes, Mr Wolf.’ Before he could respond, she grabbed her basket of muffins, thankfully still intact, and ran off singing. ‘Jingle bells wolf-y smells, girly got away.’ 


Slowly, Mr Wolf, now hungry and humiliated, brushed leaf litter from his coat. At least he could follow his prey, even if he had no desire to eat it. With his tail between his legs and his nose close to the damp path, he tracked Red’s scent through the woods.  


Red was so happy she’d slipped the smelly Mr Wolf. He really ponged. The sun was peeking through the high tree canopy, dappling speckly light over the ground. Red began to pick bluebells beside the path. But the pretty flowers were sparsely dotted about and she soon found herself deep in the woods ... 

Problem! Her Dad (the local firewood supplier), told her never to go deep-into-the-woods. She sat down cross-legged beside a fern, and plucked a thin frond and tied it around her posy. Then she lay back and studied the filigree of branches making a beautiful paisley-ceiling above her. Very soon she dozed off. Bad move. Because guess who rocked up? 

The now starving Mr Wolf. While Red dozed he helped himself to a muffin. Red shuddered involuntarily. His smell was so wolf-y. So disgusting. But she hoped he’d be in a better mood after he’d eaten. She pretend-snored and kept her eyes shut. Mr Wolf gobbled down one muffin after another. Strands of drool and crumbs hung from his huge toothy jaws. Urghh. 

By and by, he let out an enormous wet belch. Then he flopped down beside Red. His stomach bulged. ‘Sorry Red,’ he mumbled, and hiccupped. ‘I’ve scoffed all the muffins. I was famished. They were delicious, BTW.’ 


‘Great!’ said Red, sitting up. ‘This isn’t the story of the big-fat-pig, you know. What am I going to take to Granny now?’ 

 
The wolf shrugged. 
‘I’m outta here.’ 
‘See ya. Same time, same place,’ said Mr Wolf, rubbing his tummy and licking his chops. 


‘In your dreams, fur-ball,’ muttered Red. She backtracked through the woods, and after a few wrong turns, finally arrived at Granny’s house. ‘Granny you won’t believe what happened.’ 


‘Try me,’ said Granny, peering into Red’s empty basket. 


Red told her story. 

‘A vegetarian wolf!’ said Granny, raising her eyebrows. ‘Now I know who’s been raiding my veggie patch. And I thought it was Peter Rabbit. Don’t panic, I have the perfect solution for bullies who help themselves to fresh goods.’ 

‘Not your …’ said Red. Granny nodded. 

 --- 

The following Saturday Red set off as usual through the woods, with her basket of freshly baked blueberry muffins. Only, the top layer of muffins contained Granny’s secret ingredient. 


‘Sup, Red?’ said Mr Wolf, suddenly appearing from behind a tall tree. A startled Red tried to act cool. 

‘Hey! You shouldn’t sneak up on people. And don’t try and be all young and hip. It’s tragic. Seriously.’ She added a squeaky laugh. 


‘Mmmm, my, my those muffins smell good! Blueberry?’ 


‘Yeah! With white chocolate buttons. Want one? Mr Sir Hungry Wolf?’ She took a muffin from the basket and holding it under her nose she took a deep breath. ‘Mmmm, here you go.’ 

‘What. Really,’ said Mr Wolf, suddenly hesitating. ‘I don’t have to follow you to your granny’s house and dress up in your granny’s nightie?’ said Mr Wolf. 


Ewwww. ‘Nope.’ 


‘I smell a rat.’ 


‘Why? Do my ears look big?’ 


‘No.’ 


‘Do my eyes look big?’ 


‘No bigger than usual.’ 


‘Does my mouth look big?’ 


‘Just pouty.’ 

‘Do you want a muffin or not?’ 


‘I still smell a rat.’ 


‘No, you don’t. You smell sweet chocolate fruit muffins. Come on, Mr Wolf, you know you want one.’ 

Red waved a warm muffin under his snout. A spider web of silvery strands of saliva now hung from his jagged jaw. His stomach howled. He ran his long pink tongue over his yellow fangs. Next thing, he chomped the muffin down whole. 


‘Here have another,’ said Red. ‘Knock yourself out. Have heaps.’ 

 Chomp. Chomp. Chomp. Soon all the six, special muffins were gone.
 The wolf rubbed his swollen tummy. ‘They’re very filling. I’m totally bloated. I’ll just lie down for a bit.’ He slumped onto a soft fern. 


‘Toodle-poodle, Mr Wolf. I’m off. See ya round. Not.’ Red skipped off down the path till she was out of sight, then she sprinted to Granny’s cottage. It wouldn’t take long for the special salts to take effect. ‘Jingle bells, wolf-y swells, girly ran away.’ 


The minute Red arrived, Granny asked, ‘Did he eat them?’  


‘Yep. All six of them.’ 
‘He’ll probably go Paleo after that.’

They both got the giggles and were soon rolling around on the rug holding their stomachs. Until a fantail flitted into the cottage and dipped and dived and chirped above them. Was the little bird warning them of trouble on its way? 


‘Oh dear, I hope we haven’t taken things too far?’ said Granny. 


Just then, Red’s dad appeared at the cottage door. ‘Did that pesky old wolf leave me a muffin for morning tea?’ he asked. 


‘Have you seen the wolf this morning?’ asked Granny. 
‘Yes. He was hopping from tree to tree like a wood-chopper with a missing toe,’ said Dad. 


‘That’s a relief,’ said Granny. 


Granny, Red and her dad were enjoying fresh mint tea and muffins on the porch when Mr Wolf appeared. 


‘I wouldn’t eat those if I were you,’ said Mr Wolf. ‘Gave me more than a stomach ache.’ Then the wolf’s yellow eyes flickered, and his stomach whined like ancient plumbing in a boarding school. He stared at Red. Then at granny (who might have been looking a little guilty.) 

Mr Wold continued, ‘Unless that was some kind of payback? It if was, I think we can call it quits now. I won’t ever be greedy again.’ His eyes glinted with what could only be - wolf-tears.  


‘Quits,’ said Granny and Red together. 


‘Hey, I have an idea,’ said Red. ‘How bout you drop the creepy stalking-in-the-woods act and be Granny’s guard-wolf. Someone’s been stealing her vegetables.’  


The following day, the old wolf took up residence in Granny’s woodshed. He dutifully guarded her garden day and night in exchange for vegetables (and the occasional veg frittata.) Mostly he looked forward to Red’s muffins on Saturdays. Some days, he took a stroll in the woods, but he made sure he never crept up on anyone, ever again. 

So strange as it may seem, Red, her Dad, Granny and Mr Wolf did all live happily ever after.

(This is a re-edited version of a story I submitted to the Goethe Institute, Wellington, back in 2013)

The Green Birds & The Apple Tree - pictures without words

A Parody: Pop God Harry Styles Slips Into Queenstown

Harry wears Gucci

The prettiest prince-of-pop, since, well, Prince, slipped into Queenstown on Saturday in his Gulf Stream 550. Harry Styles, the charming Gucci clad kid from Redditch, now 26, and worth a cool sixty-three million quid, is here to film the music video for his latest single.

“Psychedelic Mushroom Pie”, penned during quarantine, in his London pad after a meditative tequila massage is already No. One on UK pop charts, and destined to make this popular solo artist a whole lot more doh-ray-me.

Harry has rocked up in the adventure-playground-for-the-bored-and-famous with a heady-sized entourage of fifteen. This includes hip hop dancers, film crew, sound techs, eyebrow stylist, Gucci stylist (also named Harry.) Plus the ironer of his bellbottom trouser collection, and his Siamese cat, Sweetcorn.

The postponement of his European summer tour can only be a boost to New Zealand’s current domestic tourism drive, which is taking off very slowly in the picturesque lakeside mountain town. On Wednesday morning at 11 am, the only visitors in Queenstown Bay were one hundred mallard ducks escaping duck shooting while searching for breadcrumbs. Along with one lone female in a grey hoodie skulling a bottle of wine.

fuck a duck where is everyone?

Janice Bloomfield (niece of NZ’s newest GQ coverboy Ashley) was lucky enough to catch up with the gorgeous Harry. While it was hard for her twenty-seven-year-old-soul not to see unicorns and rainbow sprinkles every time Harry opened his pretty mouth, her fifty-six- year-old-self kept it together (just) enough to ask a few deep and meaningful questions.

JB: Harry! Our borders are closed! How did you get in? Are you featuring in a new Air New Zealand video or something? Do tell.

HS:  Nah. Spoiler alert. I’m the new face of your domestic tourism campaign - ‘You Cannot Leave! Please See The Country!’ Naw, but seriously I sold my Hollywood mansion earlier this year. I was cool to pay your government's boa-constrictor-sized International Visitor levy. No worries mate! Kamate! Kamate! Kia Ora!

JB: Hey Harry you know a bit of Te Reo. How come?

HES:  After refuelling Gulfy GHES in Auckland, we picked up Cindy and Neve. Cute kid. Then we zipped into to rotten-roo-ah (laughs) sorry, I mean Rotorua. Cindy had hooked up a famil for us at the Te Puia Cultural centre. OMG. I loved it. I wanted to hongi everyone but you know, Covid. My hip hop dancers learned to spin pois. I bought this greenstone tiki.

Harry pulls the tiki, attached to a Gucci gold chain from his beneath his pale pink v-low-v-neck cashmere jumper. JB notices he has no chest hairs, but a very pretty tattoo of a butterfly just below his, urm, pecs. His nails are painted alternately pink and purple.

JB: Beautiful! Harry!

HS: When I heard that tikis are symbols of fertility I bought one. Apparently, I’ve tried to have a baby with a kiwi before now, you might have heard. A Victoria Secret model. Called G... Georgia. I wrote a song about it. It’s weird how lyrics and poems just come to you sometimes when you’re not really thinking about anything. I called the song “Kiwi”.

JB: (I bet a lot of kiwis women (and men) would want to have your baby, Harry.)

It’s a great rock song. ‘I’m having a baby, it’s none of your business.’ Ha ha. Did you see a kiwi? The bird kiwi? Feathery. Short. Long beak. Shuffly. Snuffly.

HES: Yeah! Wee, little fluffballs. Way sexier than the lil British robin red-breast, our national bird. But we legged it to Queenstown (such a great name!) from Rotorua after we’d done the ad campaign biz. With Cindy.

JB: Now with your domestic tourism job out of the way, you’re down here to film the music video for your new hit single. “Psychedelic Mushroom Pie”? Interesting title. Tell me about it. 

HES: (Laughs) Yeah, well, ahem, it’s old news that I like to nibble a handful of magic mushrooms occasionally. Hell, it’s been written about in Rolling Stone magazine! There is nothing like a spot of psilocybin shrooming to get the creative juices flowing. Really. And my sources tell me there used to be a bountiful supply at the head of lake Wha-kah-tee-poo. Blue meanies. Gold tops. Or do you call them gold caps?

JB: Crikey dick, I wouldn’t know. I’m your mum’s age. Past, urm, shrooming. How is your mum, Anne? Did she come on this trip?

HES: No, she stayed home. We detoured to Broome, Australia to buy her a present. I’ve always wanted to buy Paspaley pearls, The Most Beautiful Pearls in The World direct from the source. I got a string for me and one for me Mum. (Harry beamed, showing his trademark dimple. Now the most asked for cosmetic procedure in the US. Source The Sun.)

JB: I dropped my notes. I didn’t know what question to ask next. I felt like I was chairing an interview for a live audience. And not very well. I wished I could give darling Harry some help re forests-of-psilocybe-cubensis, when his eyebrow-stylist popped his head in and said:

ES: Harry me old guv. Times up sorry, luv. Gotta get these badgers waxed and trimmed before the shoot. Your convoy of Landrovers arrive in half . The dancers look brill in those crocheted romper suits you chose, Haz. We’ve peroxided their hair. Gonna look wild when they’re running through the dark fairy forest in the vid.

At that point, Harry is taking off his cashmere jumper, while I’m stashing my dictaphone. All he had on underneath was a mesh bodysuit with Stevie Nicks’ face stencilled on.

HS: ‘Janice it’s been so nice meeting you. A local. Here take my jumper. I always give my interviewers something. And you can’t have my tiki. It’s new! You and my mum would get along great. Hey, maybe we could have a cup of tea when I get back to town. We’re going to stay at a rug bay … no Blanket Bay for a few days. Some sort of resort with horse trekking and degustation grub and wine pairing and that.

I was clutching his jumper, still warm and reeking of the unisex scent, which he is the signature face of - Gucci’s Mémoire d’une Odeur, speechless, when Harry-2, his Gucci stylist walked in singing “Old Town Road.”

H2: Mate! Let’s throw on your new pearls with this 70’s crocheted, multi-coloured, bell-bottomed onesie. White Gucci snakeskin boots. You’ll be matchy matchy with the dancers. (Hums) Psychedelic Mushroom high! (H2’s pupils were the size of a Clydesdale’s hooves.) You can add a velvet beret or a corduroy cheese cutter. Plus a fur stole. It’s going to be cold and damp up there our scout, Neil, tells me. Choff these down and you’ll be toastie as a crumpet. (H2 hands HS a small pouch.)

I took that as my queue to leave. I was dying to ask for a backstage pass for Harry’s NZ tour. Harry Styles plays Auckland’s Spark Arena Monday 23^rd November, 2020. (Source: Ticketmaster.) I opened the door to leave. The Harry’s waved. Smiling. They both had dimples.

HS: Janice! This guy told me in the pub last night that there is this gigantic eagle here that you can take on a scenic flight to Milford Sound. Where do I book?

I had to break it to him that no trekking operator had managed to tame an extinct Haast eagle and get a saddle on it. But that adventure tourism operators were having to get really creative to urn a crust. I guess it’s as likely as that rumoured 2020 One Direction reunion, taking place in Queenstown later in the year.

As they say in the movie biz – watch this space.

Or better still, watch Harry eating watermelon!

Janice xo

The Possibilities Project - A #lockdown #poem

Possibilities      by Jane Bloomfield

I prefer bubble baths

to lockdown bubbles

I prefer wholemeal sourdough

toasted the next day

I prefer butter cold and sliceable

I prefer to stew apples I have grown

I prefer autumn’s gold leaves to summer’s brown grasses

I prefer loose leaf tea brewed strong in a small silver pot

I prefer my hair turning white than paying in to disguise

I prefer all my three children at home

even though two have left home already

I prefer walks alone with my thoughts and my dog by the river

I prefer getting puffed walking up hill than doing squats in a gym

I prefer native bird song to weedblowers, chainsaws or diggers

I prefer reading the book before seeing the movie

I prefer having an appetite before I cook dinner

I prefer sleeping long and deep than being disturbed

I prefer dreams vivid enough to remember

even those that unsettle

I prefer being kind and receiving kindness back

I prefer referring to sales assistants’ name badges, ‘Thank you, Casey.’

I prefer not to walk under ladders or stand on the crack

I prefer candles when the dusk falls to night

I prefer the definition of winter evenings to the endless southern summer nights

I prefer weeding to mulching

I prefer hanging out the washing to folding it

I prefer galloping my horse uphill than down

I prefer being on the bottom than being on top

I prefer tomato soup fresh from a can

I prefer that we all be good humans

I prefer to hope

Thanks to Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature for this video of yours truly reading the above!

The Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature Possibilities Project was run during the 2020 #lockdown with Otago poet, Liz Breslin (inspired by her Krakow residency.) It invited local writers to pen their response to Polish poet, Wislawa Szymborksa's poem 'Possibilities' :

Possibilities 

I prefer movies. 

I prefer cats. 

I prefer the oaks along the Warta. 

I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky. 

I prefer myself liking people 

to myself loving mankind. 

I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case. 

I prefer the colour green. 

I prefer not to maintain 

that reason is to blame for everything. 

I prefer exceptions. 

I prefer to leave early. 

I prefer talking to doctors about something else. 

I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations. 

I prefer the absurdity of writing poems 

to the absurdity of not writing poems. 

I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries 

that can be celebrated every day. 

I prefer moralists 

who promise me nothing. 

I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind. 

I prefer the earth in civvies. 

I prefer conquered to conquering countries. 

I prefer having some reservations. 

I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order. 

I prefer Grimms’ fairy tales to the newspapers’ front pages. 

I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves. 

I prefer dogs with uncropped tails. 

I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark. 

I prefer desk drawers. 

I prefer many things that I haven’t mentioned here 

to many things I’ve also left unsaid. 

I prefer zeroes on the loose 

to those lined up behind a cipher. 

I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars. 

I prefer to knock on wood. 

I prefer not to ask how much longer and when. 

I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility 

that existence has its own reason for being.       (c) Wisława Szymborska, 1997