 
The Armchair Traveller

By Lynne Roberts

Published by Liberty Publications at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Lynne Roberts

ISBN 978-1-927241-22-6

Smashwords Edition, License Notes  
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author
Contents

Chapter 1. The Beginning

Chapter 2. Clothing

Chapter 3. Food

Chapter 4. Disasters

Chapter 5. Animals

Chapter 6. Games

Chapter 7. Cultural Differences

Chapter 8. Misunderstandings

Chapter 9. The End
**Chapter 1. The Beginning**

Picture a winter's evening. The rain drums on the roof competing with the television where a rugby game is in progress.

The phone rings.

A seductive husky voice coos 'My name is Helga from Sweden. I would like to come and stay with you.'

Another farm helper is about to come into our lives.

Friends used to ask us why we seldom travelled anywhere when our children were young. The main reasons for this were the four children themselves. Our car was a large Chrysler Valiant with bench seats front and back. This meant that one child had to sit in the front and the problem was which child to choose.

Number one son was, and is, of a mathematical turn of mind and consequently exhausting to his parent's brains. These were already struggling to cope with such minor details as the road, the map, and whether we had remembered to bring enough food, clothing and money plus sufficient games to entertain everyone for the duration of the car trip. The last thing we needed was a front seat passenger whose idea of a good time was to add up the numbers on the number plate of each approaching car, multiply them by the nearest prime number then find the square root of the total, all without using a calculator.

We tried number one daughter in the seat between us and fared no better. First we had to compromise on having only three of her seventeen Barbie dolls with us in the front seat. Next we had her complaints to put up with. She is an avid reader and kept up a constant moan about the bends and corners in the road which disturbed her concentration. Add to that her unhappy sobs or cries of joy depending on what she was reading and she too was soon banished to the back seat.

Next came number two daughter. She sat between us, mercifully silent and still. Unfortunately she was also a very poor traveller and soon turned an interesting shade of pale green. So she was duly installed in the back seat beside an open window, much to the annoyance of her brothers and sister. From there she could control the duration of every car trip, as her ability to throw up over, at worst a sibling and at best a parent as well, meant that our car trips were of necessity very brief. It is interesting to note that said daughter now has a car of her own in which she travels the country with all the flair and panache of a rally driver and with no consideration at all for the aged parent having a coronary in the seat beside her. I look forward to the day she has children of her own and hope they will be just as good at travelling as she was!

We were then forced to try son number two in the front seat. We didn't make this decision lightly as without his cheerful presence in the middle of the back seat nothing short of brick walls topped with armed guards could prevent the inevitable mayhem in the back as the remaining children tried to tear each other apart.

Number two son is an avid bird watcher and is keenly interested in the way the world works. (He was once keenly interested in his brother's calculator, something for which number one son will never forgive him, even though we told him it had gone to silicon heaven.)

You would be astonished at how many questions one small boy can ask before giving his parents up in disgust as ignorant and unco-operative. In our own defence, by that time we were having the sort of conversation involving shouting at the back seat passengers and trying to prevent actual bloodshed.

Number two son decided that his fingers were machine guns and he would shoot every bird he could see with loud 'ack ack' noises. I had never noticed before that time how many birds could be seen in the New Zealand landscape. Nothing from sparrows to shags escaped his keen eyes until finally in exhaustion we tossed him into the back seat and it was number one son's turn again.

After these traumatic experiences we felt that travel as such held no charms for us and instead of exploring the world we decided the world would have to come to us. To broaden our children's understanding of the world and other cultures we joined a scheme whereby we would host young people from other countries as farm helpers and they would work on the farm for a few hours each day for us in return. This decision was also motivated by finance as kiwifruit returns were going through a low patch and mortgage rates a correspondingly high patch, so the thought of free labour was a huge incentive. Those helpers who wished to work for longer were paid at the going rates provided they had a work permit.

Shelly and Lynette, two very sweet but naïve Canadian sisters, were the first of the farm helpers we took into our family. They were in their early twenties and had completed their university degrees and decided to spend a year exploring New Zealand and Australia. This, we were to find, was a common pattern with the people who came to stay with us. This meant we were getting bright motivated people who after years of academic study liked nothing better than to do some hard physical work for a change.

We have a small self-contained cabin adjacent to the house. This sleeps two or three comfortably and our guests can choose whether to stay there or with us in the house.

Shelly and Lynette were keen to pick oranges, which was the crop in season at the time. They were also determined to return to Canada with a suntan to show off to their friends. They stripped off to bras and shorts and shivered their way through the mild winter afternoons. Shelly and Lynette were a little disappointed that there were no eligible young men around, not realising that after one look at their working attire my husband, David, had promptly sent any young men to the far side of the farm to work at physically demanding jobs such as fencing or chopping wood.

Shelly begged to learn to drive the tractor so David gave in, though not without a qualm. A brief attempt to teach Lynette to drive our old car had led to screams of fear as she bravely launched out onto the State Highway on the right hand side of the road, and his shattered nerves would not allow another attempt.

In the event Shelly proved to be reasonably competent on the tractor although we only allowed her to drive in low ratio which is appropriately marked on our Ferrari tractor as 'turtle'.

One afternoon we left the girls to finish picking the last bin of oranges for the day. Lynette was to walk back while Shelly drove the tractor to the shed. Shelly duly arrived back at the house on foot, ran up to me and promptly burst into tears. I was a little taken aback by this but patted her back and made soothing noises until she was able to gasp out that she had 'done something terrible.'

'What is it?' I asked with trepidation.

'It's too awful, I can't tell you, it's about the tractor,' she wept.

'Have you run over my husband?' I asked in alarm – 'the children, the dogs, the cats..' To every question she moaned 'no' and continued to howl.

Finally when I was on the point of shaking her she admitted she had driven the tractor into a ditch and hit a shelter tree, then abandoned the tractor.

I laughed in relief and explained that I had done much worse than that (seven young mandarin trees in one sweep with the mower) and that putting the tractor into a ditch paled by comparison.

Shelly was still inconsolable so calling to David the three of us hopped into the truck and drove around the farm to view the damage, which turned out to be very minor. As it was getting dark David decided to leave the tractor there until the morning. We drove back to the house but took a detour next door to collect our milk, which at that time we were getting direct from the neighbour's cowshed. Inevitably this took a while as we leaned on the gate chatting to the neighbour as he finished washing down his yard. We eventually drove back to the house in complete darkness to find an hysterical Lynnette waiting for us.

Lynnette had wandered along behind Shelly and stopped to pick up some windfall apples. When she came upon the tractor she was convinced that somehow Shelly must have had an accident so she crawled through the electric fence, not a pleasant experience, and searched through the long grass for her sister's body. Half an hour's frantic search produced nothing so she ran back to the house only to find it deserted. By this time she had convinced herself that her sister must be seriously injured, if not dead, and that we must have taken her to the hospital. When we drove up she was on the verge of collapse herself and we ended up making soothing noises and producing cups of hot, sweet tea while the sisters wept in each other's arms.

After a couple of days the girls were able to see the funny side of this and were ready for a new challenge. They decided they would go for a few weeks cycling holiday around the North Island. They purchased second hand bicycles and started going for a ten minute ride each afternoon after work. At this time cycle helmets were not compulsory but being a safety freak I kept nagging them to buy helmets. They compromised by choosing the two largest saucepans from the kitchen and could be seen wobbling round the yard on their bicycles complete with saucepans on heads; with the handles worn at a rakish angle.

Shelly and Lynette were not sure what sort of provisions they would need for this journey and decided to try and find another cyclist with experience to tell them.

One afternoon they arrived at the house at teatime with a good-looking young American lad in tow. They had seen him riding past our gate and had literally dragged him off his bike to bring home for dinner. He was mildly amused by this and more than happy to tell us of his cycling experiences. The girls decided he had better stay the night so they could go for a trial ride with him the next day.

They suggested he could stay in the cabin with them and the American lad agreed to this with alacrity, showing all the signs of someone who had died and gone to heaven. He was brought back to earth with a bump with the unwelcome news that he would get a mattress on the living room floor instead. However he was a good sport and without complaint he stayed the night then took the girls for a cycle ride the next day. He was rather bemused at having to wait for forty minutes while they applied their make up then seriously discussed how much deodorant to take with them.

After their ride Shelly and Lynette waved him farewell and soon after set off on their own expedition where they quickly found that a helpless look and a big smile brought any amount of truck drivers to their aid. They viewed most of the North Island from the cab of a large truck with their bicycles squeezed in the back with whatever load the truck carried.

All good things come to an end and at last it was time for the sisters to leave. After weeping their way through a box of tissues they caught the bus to Auckland airport, assuring us they would never forget us. Over the passing years we have continued to keep in touch with them in Canada and have received photos of boyfriends, weddings and ultimately babies.

Our next farm helper introduced us to another culture and showed up some of the communication problems that can arise from hosting people whose first language was not English. Three proud Sikh warriors, escaping the persecution of their homeland, arrived to stay in our cabin, and quickly managed to pick up another two friends who moved in as well. At this stage my husband, with visions of the health department descending on us with the full force of the law for housing people in overcrowded conditions, put his foot firmly down and said 'No more.'

'Plenty room,' the Indians protested indignantly but we held firm.

Then followed a delightful few weeks as we tried to find some way of communicating. We never did manage to pronounce their names or were even sure which name referred to which man, as these appeared to change daily.

The Indians all said, 'Yes Boss,' to everything David asked or said. They said it often and very enthusiastically and it wasn't long before we realised that that was almost the sum total of their English and that they had no idea what we were saying. Fortunately the current job was picking mandarins which was fairly self-explanatory but there were still a few hair raising moments.

Calling to someone to 'watch out for the tractor,' brought no response and it wasn't until one man was unfortunate enough to get his foot run over by the bin trailer that they all learned they had to get out of the way. (His foot was undamaged, to our great relief, as it was simply pressed down into the soft mud.)

Getting the Indians to shut the gates could also be a problem, as we would call frantically, 'Shut the gate, quickly, before the cattle get out – too late!' This last in despair as our small herd of beasts took the opportunity to make a break for freedom onto the State Highway. There they tore down the dotted line until we could gather enough passing motorists to turn them and drive them home again.

The speed at which the Indians worked astonished us. In their culture it soon became apparent to us that they tried to involve as many people as possible in whatever work was going on. Time was obviously of no import and this was demonstrated to us one night. Three of the men by this stage had an evening job working in the kiwifruit packing shed next door and the other two were at a loose end. They asked if they could grade and pack the mandarins that they had picked that day. They said it would give them something to do while their friends were working. After agreeing on an hourly rate we settled them down with two bins of mandarins, about an hour's work, and David whipped up a piece of wood in the workshop with two holes cut in it to show the minimum size for each grade. He explained to them that they should try a couple of fruit in the holes to get an idea of the size, then continue to pack by eye, occasionally checking back to the wooden model to check the sizing.

'Yes Boss,' they chorused cheerfully as we left them to it. The next morning we were accosted by two unhappy gentlemen who told us we were not paying them enough to pack the mandarins as it had taken them until two o'clock in the morning to finish.

David was amazed at this and could not believe it had taken them so long. The next night he decided to watch them as they worked before he would agree to a higher rate of pay. As he watched with mounting incredulity, one man picked up a mandarin, tried it to see which hole in the piece of wood it fitted, then had a discussion with the second man who did the same thing with the same fruit. Having come to an agreement they then carefully laid the mandarin in a box and selected another one to repeat the whole slow process. With an impolite exclamation my husband showed them how to do it, filling a box in about four minutes. They watched him respectfully and said 'Yes Boss,' when asked if they understood. They copied his speed and movements and David left them to it, confident they would be finished within the hour. Wrong! They went back to the discussion and the piece of wood as soon as he was out of sight and again worked until two in the morning.

David refused to pay them for more than the hour's work it should have taken them and they agreed eventually, saying they liked the work as it gave them something to do at night.

The Indians, naturally enough, felt the cold very badly as they were used to a hot climate and even our subtropical winters were too cold for them. We put a heater in the cabin for them and they would sit around it whenever they weren't working. I told them not to put anything on top of the heater but to no avail. We drove into the yard one afternoon to find that the heater had set fire to their underwear which they had laid on top of the bars to dry. By the time we arrived they were standing in a circle watching the heater as the flames licked the walls and scorched and melted the fridge. Muttering under his breath about the Indians, who were probably feeling warm for the first time in weeks, David grabbed the heater and threw it out into the yard, the adrenaline rush overriding the pain as the hot metal seared his hands. I emptied the fire extinguisher on the heater and what remained of the fridge while the Indians stood in a row and watched us with interest. We then very unreasonably gave them extra blankets instead of a new heater and replaced the fridge with an old one, which was much smaller and didn't hold as much.

When all the mandarins had been picked it was time for the Indians to move on. They were very reluctant to go and begged to stay. One man in particular wanted to send for his wife and many children and proposed that they could all move into the cabin permanently. We turned him down as our work tends to be seasonal and we didn't want to tie ourselves down to one permanent worker. The poor man then threw himself to the ground and clutched David's knees, weeping and begging to stay. This was acutely embarrassing for a Kiwi bloke, particularly when he couldn't move away but was pinned to the ground by a lamenting Indian.

However I am happy to say that twelve months later this same gentleman drove in to visit us and thanked us in near perfect English for having had him to stay. He had been given refugee status and was in the process of bringing his large family over to the 'Promised Land'. He was as effusive with his thanks, as he was when he was asking to stay, so now if he calls in David stays firmly seated on the tractor to avoid emotional displays.

The next two visitors were Alexandra and Maria, two young girls from Argentina. Their families had reluctantly given them permission to travel the world for a short time provided they phoned home every second day. The girls spoke Spanish and a very little English and had been schooled in a convent, very protected and constrained. The freedom in New Zealand very quickly went to their heads. They learnt their first words of English, one of these being 'sexy', and proceeded to pout and sulk when I would not allow them to drive off with complete strangers to parties every night. I was horrified at what they might get up to, as they seemed to have no interest in anything other than young men, and as they were both only eighteen I felt a certain parental responsibility towards them. Preventing them from getting large black tattoos on their arms and legs was obviously the last straw for them as they decided to leave soon after that. I only hope they managed to survive the rest of their holiday without too many problems but we never heard from them again.

Important Phrases for Foreigners to Learn

Please pass the muffins

Why has the hot water run out? I have only been in the shower for forty minutes.

These boots are not fashionable

May I use your phone to call – Denmark, Hong Kong etc? I will pay for the call

I cannot afford to pay for the phone calls I have made.

Why do you have so few Television channels?

I am not tired.

Do all New Zealanders go to bed so early?

Please wake me up in the morning

Please do not wake me up in the morning

Where is the nearest Macdonald's?

In my country only madmen/peasants/women would do this

Please pass me some more muffins

My bed is too hard/soft/cold/hot/lonely

I can't possibly do that – I might chip a nail

My hairdryer has blown the fuses but my hair is still wet

Why do these sandflies bite me?

Where is the nearest bungy jump?

This is an emergency – I have run out of shampoo

I am not ready for work, as I have not yet waxed my legs

I have just broken the scissors/loppers/chainsaw/tractor

I have never seen such large kiwifruit before

Can I have your recipe for making muffins?

I will be back to stay with you again
**Chapter 2 Clothing**

One thing that always amazes me is the clothing some young people feel it necessary to take and wear on their travels. Our Canadian sisters had four suitcases full of clothes, most of which they abandoned when they left. They had foolishly brought clothes with them that were too small in the hope that they could diet while travelling but unfortunately the New Zealand chocolate and ice cream was their downfall and they were unable to fit into any of their clothes after three months. These clothes, and others discarded by our children, became the basis of our clothing box that we have available for our farm helpers. We find it useful to have complete sets of warm dry old clothes in various sizes, so we can completely outfit ors visitors if necessary.

Never was it more necessary than in the case of Yoko and Nori, two delightful Japanese girls who arrived by bus one winter's afternoon and who were looking forward enthusiastically to their stay on a real New Zealand farm. My doubts began as I collected them from the bus stop to find that instead of the usual backpack they each had a huge suitcase. These were too heavy for them to lift so they were accustomed to tow them along on wheels like large, well-behaved dogs. When we arrived at the house our rough concrete was more than a match for the wheels and it took a great deal of pushing and heaving before we eventually installed the girls in their bedroom. They exclaimed at how different (i.e. primitive) everything was compared to Japan, as they had only entered the country the day before. Unfortunately their arrival coincided with a power cut so the house was in darkness. They decided we obviously didn't have electricity yet, a view that was reinforced when we gave them candles to undress by. Their nervous giggles verged on hysteria as we said goodnight. Fortunately the power was on again in the morning and was greeted by the girls with huge relief, as both of them would rather have had their throats cut than be seen without their hair washed and blow dried every single day.

When Yoko and Nori came out to breakfast on their first day of work we realised that they had no idea of the reality of outside work. Both were dressed smartly in white sneakers, designer jeans and white sweatshirts, complete with matching white T-shirts underneath. Not only were they freezing cold in their thin cotton clothes (their fingers and faces were a delicate shade of blue) but they obviously had no intention of getting dirty. To their disgust I pulled out old jerseys and track pants and bullied them into changing. They came out resentfully to suffer the further indignity of being given old rubber boots to wear on their feet. After the initial shock they became quite fond of these outfits, Nori in particular taking a fancy to David's spare work hat which she wore constantly, despite it coming down nearly to her nose. The girls excitedly took pictures of each other as they stood beside various trees and farm implements then after being shown what to do amazed us by becoming the fastest mandarin pickers we have had before or since. Every evening they carefully showered and changed into a different outfit and by the time they had been with us for a month I don't think they had worn the same thing twice. They carefully washed their clothes by hand each day and were far too modest to allow me to hang them outside on the clothesline for the world to view. Instead they rigged up a complicated system of lines and pulleys in their bedroom and dried everything there.

Lynette and Shelly had quite a different attitude towards washing clothes. They proudly told me that they had each brought a month's supply of underwear with them that they presented for me to wash on the day they were each wearing their last clean set. Naturally it was raining at the time and the drier had decided to go on strike by first blowing all the fuses then sulking and only using cold air.

This habit of presenting all their washing at the last minute is not restricted to Canadians. Four young Swedish guys came to stay and despite my pleas for their clothes to wash while the weather was fine they brought in four plastic garbage bags of clothes on the day before they left. It was, of course, raining and this time the drier had broken down completely.

Harriet, a young French girl, arrived one summer in a spotless white T-shirt and shorts. We viewed her outfit with some trepidation and showed her some work clothes, which she resolutely declined to have anything to do with. We urged her to dress in something that wouldn't show the dirt. This she refused to do and went out to work each day in yet another of a series of white outfits. To our amazement she possessed the uncanny ability of someone who had obviously been Scotchguarded at birth to spend a day hauling avocado logs onto a greasy filthy trailer, then driving back along a dusty track, all without getting a speck of dirt on herself. She and David would arrive back at the house for lunch; he would be hot, sweaty and filthy while Harriet was a vision in cool, clean white. How she managed it was a mystery. I initially suspected that David had fallen for her not inconsiderable French charm and was doing all the hard work himself but he insisted that wasn't the case and had her help me in the garden for a few days so I could see it for myself – I was filthy and sweaty while Harriet looked as if she was fresh from a cool shower.

Marc was German, a young man who came to stay with us and enjoyed it so much he extended his visa and returned three more times. He, unlike the girls, travelled with the bare minimum and gladly wore our farm clothes as a change from his only two outfits. He took a particular fancy to my daughter's pink sweatshirt, which he wore each time he came and which I had to prise off him to wash. He asked if he could keep it and I never quite figured out if he was;

a. colour blind

b. didn't realise pink was unmanly

c. actually was unmanly

I'm afraid my refusal disappointed him and the pink sweatshirt remains and is still being worn although by now it is a little the worse for wear. So if you come back again Marc I will give it to you!

Marc gets the prize for the best sport. By the time he arrived for the fourth time all our accommodation was full as we had taken on four extra foster children for a year. He ended up sleeping in a small outside room, which holds the collection of dollshouses I have made and display. We squeezed in a stretcher and a table and he slept there for a month very happily. He said he enjoyed writing letters to his friends and family and telling them he was sleeping in a dollshouse.

Attitudes to clothing vary as much as attitudes to nudity. As it gets very hot here in summer we have our own swimming pool which is fenced off in a secluded private spot. As a family we don't bother with bathing costumes and it is David's habit to arrive back at the house for lunch and strip off for a quick swim first. We always warn visitors of this and tell them they are welcome to join us but if it worries them then they don't have to use the pool when we do.

The Japanese and Israelis we have found to be incredibly modest to the point where they will nearly expire from the heat rather than let anyone see them clothed other than head to toe.

The Europeans, on the other hand, are very different. Katy from Germany, who had a face and figure worthy of Miss World, announced that she always swam naked and thereafter hopped into the pool with us in all her glory – making David and I acutely aware of our middle aged bodies.

Katy has one bad experience in New Zealand when her car was broken into outside a youth hostel in one of the large cities. She had two large rubbish bags in the car; one was filled with gifts for friends and family back in Germany and the other with her dirty clothes that she was intending to take to a laundry. The thieves took only the dirty clothes, much to her delight, as she was then able to use her insurance money to go shopping for more.

My rather casual attitude towards clothing underwent a change one day. After coming into the house hot and sweaty from an afternoon spent in the garden, I stripped off my clothes and threw them in the laundry tub before walking into the kitchen en route to the bathroom for a shower. Much to my surprise, Henry, an elderly friend of the family, had arrived to see my husband and was sitting at the kitchen table reading a newspaper while he waited for him. Henry looked up and stared at me and I did the only thing possible. With all the confidence of the emperor in his new clothes I said hello and walked past him to the bathroom where I collapsed in nervous giggles at the pop-eyed look on his face. Henry, being a gentleman, has never referred to this incident and in order not to embarrass him, neither have I.

One of the experiences I treasure is of having four young Swedish lads to stay. They arrived in early summer and were given the job of cleaning and filling the swimming pool. This they did with a lot of enthusiasm and very little clothing. I recommend having four blond pool attendants to any woman as a means of brightening up her day. Sadly, David decided to weed the pool area, an activity he has never done either before or since and took away any reason I had for hanging around the swimming pool.

Most of our farm helper ladies place great store on personal appearance, particularly when it comes to hair and make up. Our daughters watched with incredulous delight as a succession of young women carefully applied make up and styled their hair before going out to work on the farm. They were initiated into these mysteries themselves by some of the willing teachers, who after one look at me were quick to offer their services. They felt I was letting the side down somewhat by never bothering with make up and tying my hair back with a rubber band before jamming a shapeless hat on top. I confess I could not see the point in spending hours each day in all these rituals, which to them were essential. We wax our oranges, not our legs! There are always constant complaints about the hot water running out when they have 'only been in the shower for fifteen minutes.'

On one memorable occasion David gave a mimed demonstration of how to take a shower in two minutes to a couple of female visitors, who were helpless with laughter at the end of it. One other idiosyncrasy of the shower in the cabin is that it will suddenly run cold. Loud shrieks and the sight of a naked body leaping into the passageway are fairly common until they get used to it.

The Japanese are very proud of their skin and it is apparently considered very beautiful to be pale. One poor lass, when asked to weed the garden, went out in the full heat of the summer sun in boots, trackpants, long-sleeved sweater, gloves and a hat. She was determined not to get a tan and had to be continually revived with glasses of cold water. This made a complete contrast to two Irish girls who were so desperate to get a tan to show off that they resisted all my efforts to slap sunscreen on them and would roast in the sun until their skin was the colour of a beetroot. Their only complaint was that as soon as they laid blankets out on the grass they had to fight off the dogs and cats for the privilege of lying on them.

It is not uncommon for our foreign visitors to come to New Zealand with the wrong clothing for the climate. Because our country is a Pacific Island they see this as a place of sun, surf and palm trees and expect the weather to be hot all year round. How wrong they are. Some poor souls arrive in winter and confront us in righteous indignation when they find it cold and wet, particularly if they have only brought summer clothing with them. The clever ones from the Northern Hemisphere time their six month holiday to get three summers in a row, the unlucky one suffer miserably through three winters.

One foolish Canadian arrived at the airport on a very unseasonably hot winter's day and promptly shipped all her warm clothing back to Canada – and was then forced to spend all her available cash the next day on replacing it all.
**Chapter 3. Food**

Dreams of Lamingtons

In recent years I've daydreamed

Of those childhood party treats

Lamingtons stuffed full of cream

The first and best to eat

Those culinary masterpieces

Floated past my lips

Alas, today their legacy

Remains upon my hips!

When the children were young we decided that we would only bother with dessert after the evening meal if we had visitors. It didn't take our children long to see the benefits of this and visitors were constantly overwhelmed by our friendly, welcoming offspring, urging them to stay for meals.

Number one daughter once invited the entire playcentre, adults and children, for lunch. I was very surprised when they arrived! Now she restricts herself to phoning thirty minutes beforehand to tell me she is arriving with six hungry student friends, and 'they would like to be fed please.'

Growing up in a large family with constant visitors, our children quickly learned to count heads at the table and take only their share of the food. (Fortunately they are all good at maths, a skill they inherit from their father.) Unfortunately our guests were not always so considerate. Most of them arrive after having lived in tents or hostels and existed mainly on instant noodles and alcohol, so they appreciate home cooked meals. (Marc could cook and prepare instant noodles in twenty-four different ways.)

The children found that they didn't have to eat their dreaded vegetables if there wasn't sufficient meat left to go with them – a habit, I regret to say, they also inherited from their father. This meant that they were still hungry as they piteously informed me and so were entitled to extra dessert.

All our farm helpers seem to have an enormous appetite and interest in food. The girls in particular are keen to know how I prepare various dishes and we frequently have cooking sessions on wet days when it is too wet to work outside. I teach them how to make homemade pizza, kiwi style, apple crumble, shortbread or scones and muffins. One lovely Chinese lady was overcome by picking and eating an apple straight from the tree and listed that as her most momentous experience in New Zealand. I taught her to make pizza and later received a photo of her back in China holding up a pizza she had made with her nieces.

Hiroshi, a Japanese boy, was horrified at the amount of food I cooked as he said his mother would only cook a little at a time. I pointed out that I never knew how many people would turn up for any one meal and as I spoke a car load of hungry children and friends arrived and we all moved around the table to make more room.

One particular day we had a party to celebrate my young son's birthday. The weather was too cold to eat outside – my usual remedy for feeding large numbers of people – so we set up two tables in the dining room and circulated each dish. Andreas, from Sweden, was at one end and managed to help himself both at the beginning and the end of the food chain. After the meal he announced with great satisfaction that he had found the best place to sit, then spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping it all off.

It is always interesting to give Marmite to our foreign guests. Kiwi kids are all brought up on it and are used to its strong salty flavour but the visitors think it must be some sort of chocolate and spread it thickly on bread before choking on the first mouthful. Others, like Katrina from East Germany, eat it by the spoonful from the jar, a feat that was observed with awe and wonder by the family.

Some visitors are very suspicious of anything they don't recognise. Our younger son once went through a stage of producing hand made paper. He would use my food processor to grind up various revolting ingredients. One afternoon he had the kitchen bench covered in these preparations when Joe, an Israeli visitor, came in. He took one look at the food processor and recoiled telling me that he wasn't very hungry so he wouldn't bother with dinner, thank you. He resisted all attempts to get him into the kitchen again that night and spent the evening in his bedroom eating chocolates instead.

Our winter visitors love eating the oranges we grow and when told they can help themselves to the windfalls can be seen staggering back to the cabin with buckets of oranges. The juicer runs hot and vast quantities of juice are consumed. The record for the most juice drunk would have to go to Sven and Eric. These two Norwegians had had a dream to visit New Zealand ever since they were children and to eat oranges, not kiwifruit, as you would expect. These young men drank two litres of juice at a sitting, several times a day. They appeared to have cast iron digestive tracts, as they certainly suffered no ill effects from this.

When they left us to fly home they stuffed oranges into every bag they possessed and were determined to smuggle them into Norway. We waved them off, calling out that we would write to them in prison but still have not heard if they were caught or not.

An English couple, who arrived shortly afterwards, made sure that every job on the farm involved a detour past the orange trees. They, too, carted buckets of fruit for juicing but were a lot more realistic about their capacity when it came to drinking it.

We grow three main crops; kiwifruit, oranges and avocados, with two small blocks of mandarins and a few assorted fruit and nut trees. Our usual pattern when a visitor arrives is to go for a walk around the farm, sampling a fruit from each new variety we come to. Three Californian ladies came one day and asked about each fruit with great interest as we came to it. When we walked past the fenced off swampy area they asked what grew there.

'That's the gully,' my husband answered.

There was silence for a few minutes while they thought about this, then one of the ladies asked,

'What does a Gully fruit taste like?'

Some of our farm helpers are keen cooks. One French lass, Dominique, loved to make rich cakes and desserts and thought nothing of using half a kilogram of butter in each one, in addition to vast quantities of cream and sugar. She would wolf down these incredibly rich delicacies while we could only manage a tiny amount. She was very petit and never seemed to take any exercise so will no doubt always be the envy of some of her more generously endowed friends.

One memorable visitor was Jennifer from England. She rang, one year, just before Christmas to ask if she could come and stay for a week. At that time there was no orchard work suitable for her to do so I asked her if she would be prepared to come and spend the week making jam and doing some Christmas baking. She agreed to this with alacrity and duly arrived by bus. To my surprise I found she had never done any cooking at all before as her mother would not let her help in the kitchen. She had a wonderful week learning to cook, as I patiently showed her the recipes and explained the procedures, then spent hours chipping burnt jam from the bottom of my saucepans! The pig had a great week as well as he feasted on all the results of Jennifer's attempt to cook edible food. It was hard to believe that my recipes, which up until then I had considered idiot proof, could go so disastrously wrong. The plum jam had the texture and consistency of concrete and resisted all efforts to remove it from the jars. We still have a few jars left in the pantry and even our starving student children turn them down, usually with the excuse that they don't possess a hammer and chisel.

All was not lost with the cakes, as despite them raising unevenly with sunken middles, we managed to break them into pieces and after soaking in cherry brandy, topped them with cream and served them up as trifle for dessert.

Desserts are always a favourite with our farm helpers and even girls who normally are meticulous about counting their calorie intake find they can eat a lot more food after a day's hard physical work.

Another visitor, Tracey, made batches of biscuits, which our children still talk of with wonder. She accidentally doubled the butter in the recipe and the biscuits dripped and spread in glorious golden lumps all over the oven from where they were prised out and eaten. The flavour was magnificent, despite their appearance, and much to the children's disappointment I have never been able to achieve the same results myself.

It is always a challenge cooking for a large group of people, particularly when they come from different cultures and have differing food requirements. My main triumph was organising and cooking the food when we had eight farm helpers staying, all of different nationalities, two of whom were strictly kosher and one vegetarian. Add to that two family members who cannot eat dairy products and you get some idea of the problems involved. I managed, as always, by having plenty of variety and explaining at length what was in each dish. I must have done too well as all the eight returned over the next two months for another stay and confessed that the main reason they came back was because they had been so well fed. Our policy is always to give visitors plenty of good food as that way they are more inclined to work well for us.

Most visitors adapt to our meal hours and eating habits happily although the Americans persist in eating with only a fork and feel deprived if they are not issued with a separate salad before each meal.

One poor Japanese girl, Fuki, had a very upsetting experience at the table one evening. As she went to pour tomato sauce on her steak, the lid came off the bottle. The entire contents of the bottle cascaded onto her plate. She was overcome with mortification but I whipped the plate away and scraped it into the pig bucket, making encouraging noises about how the pig would appreciate tomato sauce on his dinner. Equipped with a new plate and piece of steak Fuki decided not to risk the sauce again but by this time she was so flustered that she managed to knock the coffee cup and spill David's coffee over him. We assured her there was no harm done but every meal became a torture for her after this. Poor Fuki! David persisted in teasing her by offering her sauce, orange juice and every other spillable commodity on the table. She shrank away from them and choked her food down dry so as not to risk another accident. When she left us she wrote a long and agonised apology in the visitors book, thus setting an unfortunate precedent, as each subsequent Japanese visitor felt they had to do the same. Until we explained the situation to new visitors it must have seemed that we were running some sort of prison camp.

I make my own bread. I used to do it by hand the old-fashioned way but now my most indispensable kitchen appliance is the breadmaker. We have worn out two of them and are currently on the third model. I wish I had bought the rights to sell the things or else shares in the company as most of our visitors purchase one while in New Zealand to take back to whichever part of the world they came from. It is not unusual to get an anguished e-mail from France asking for my spicy loaf recipe, so my recipes are now worldwide.

Sometimes guests cook for us. One Indian gentleman, Mahid, decided to make us a curry. He over rode our polite protests as we both loathe curry, even though David is a lot better mannered than I am and will choke it down if it is served up. So Mahid went to it – hours of slicing obscure vegetables and herbs led first to the kitchen then the entire house reeking of strong spices. I took the coward's way out and 'remembered' a previous dinner engagement while David heroically ate the smallest portion of the stuff he could decently get away with. He complained that the taste was still in his mouth three days later. When Mahid left it only took a week for the smell to dissipate and on the bright side, it was time the curtains had a wash anyway! Now I give guests my own recipe books to choose from if they have an urge to cook – poor spirited I know, but then I'm like that.

Some of our farm helpers arrive at our place having left home for the first time and consequently leaving very anxious parents behind them. Barbara was a Canadian girl of twenty-two who had led a very sheltered life. She arrived here with a long list of instructions from her mother, designed to cover every aspect of life. Her mother was convinced that Barbara was not going to be fed properly in such a primitive country as New Zealand, although Barbara herself tried every new food with enthusiasm and could put away quantities of food that would have earned her respect from a Sumo wrestler. Her mother decided to send a food parcel over to her and would ring from Canada every few days to see whether it had arrived. Unfortunately in her enthusiasm to send a lot of food to her starving child she made the box so heavy she could only afford to send it by sea so the parcel eventually arrived the day Barbara left for the airport to fly home. Barbara was delighted to be able to distribute the food to us and we were the happy recipients of such vital essentials as ketchup and candy.

How to Make Chocolate Muffins

You will need;

3 cups flour

2 cups sugar

2 cups yoghurt

3 teaspoons baking powder

½ cup cocoa

200 grams melted butter

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup milk

2 eggs

What you do;

1. First find a large mixing bowl. Check what this has last been used for. If found in the bedroom it has probably been used to wash Barbie, if outside it has probably been used to wash the dog or to collect snails or tadpoles.

2. Assemble the ingredients. At this point you will discover that the ants have found the sugar and you forgot to buy cocoa last time you shopped

3. Sieve sugar to remove ants. Use Milo instead of cocoa. This gives a grey, gritty texture but will disguise any ants you missed.

4. Go to the chocolate chip container where you will find that one of the children has eaten them all. Substitute sultanas instead (no-one likes these so there is a good chance there will still be some in the pantry)

5. Find that someone used the last of the plain yoghurt for breakfast. Use strawberry yoghurt instead and ignore the colour.

6. Find a teaspoon that hasn't been accidentally dropped down the waste disposal and open the baking soda. This was last used as snow on a model village for a social studies project but the glue is probably not too toxic.

7. Crack eggs carefully into a cup one by one. Make note to collect eggs quicker in future before hen has time to start hatching them. Make further note to get rid of rooster.

8. Mix everything up with a fork, as the large spoon was lost during a tadpoling expedition.

9. Pour mixture into muffin tins and place in oven to cook for 20 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius. Answer phone. Answer doorbell. Separate fighting children.

10. Cut charred pieces off the tops of the muffins and hastily cover in whipped cream instead. Accept congratulations modestly during the thirty seconds it takes for them to be consumed.
**Chapter 4 Disasters**

By the time we had been hosting farm helpers for a few years we were convinced there must be some sort of secret gypsy sign at our gate as we seemed to have a constant stream of visitors coming to stay. I'm sure a lot of people think we must sit on the verandah all day, nibbling the odd grape and supervising the workers but nothing could be further from the truth. Often having people to stay means a lot more work for us, as we have to explain the job and supervise it constantly when sometimes it would be quicker to do it ourselves.

However there are times when help is gratefully received. One such time happened last year when I was on crutches for a few weeks. Now I must stress here that I am not actually afraid of mice, but when one ran across my kitchen bench, despite the presence of seven well-fed cats, I naturally jumped. As I jumped I twisted and tore my calf muscle and not unlike Justin Marshall, I hopped at top speed on one foot down the hallway to the study. There I collapsed, not across a try line for a glorious try, but at my husband's feet where he sat at his computer. His sympathy was tinged with exasperation when he realised he was expected to be chief cook and bottle washer for the next few weeks, so when a friendly German couple phoned that night he leapt at the offer of assistance.

I lay on the couch in state surrounded by books and magazines, courtesy of my mother and sister, with the telephone and TV remote close at hand. When Willy and Greta asked what they could do to help I sent them out into the garden with instructions to trim back a forty metre hedge line by about half a metre. By the time I was able to hobble on crutches and get outside to see then I found they had cut everything to a depth of six metres in the entire hedge line. This left a huge bare patch, which was growing weeds even as I watched. With an inward groan I thanked them politely and collapsed back on the couch in despair. Meanwhile, encouraged by my response, Willy and Greta wandered around the garden pruning every tree and shrub they could find with all the flair and finesse of a Sherman tank.

Fortunately trees do grow, particularly in Katikati, and I was able to get the next two farm helpers, two keen English lasses, to lay out weedmat and cover it with bark before planting it out in ferns and other shade loving plants. So now we have a secret shady garden with a meandering pathway leading to an aviary – but it does mean we have to keep trimming the hedge!

We made work for ourselves one wet winter when Marty, a Bavarian boy, came to stay.

As wet day after wet day passed with no farm work able to be done he became rather frustrated and suggested that as his job in Bavaria had been a painter he could paint the inside of the house for us. I leapt at this offer as we had been intending to redecorate the house for a long time and here was the excuse I had been waiting for. A young French couple, Dominic and Marianne, arrived as well and were given the job of painting the doors into the hallway – all sixteen of them – while Marty concentrated on windows and skirting boards. Imagine, if you will, trying to negotiate your way around a house with active children where enthusiastic adults have painted every visible surface in slow drying enamel paint.

As Marty finished the painting in each room David set up the wallpapering table to paper the walls – a job he loathes. I restricted myself to supervising and making helpful suggestions. We found a friendly wallpaper shop in a neighbouring town where the owners patiently offered us books of wallpaper samples, cups of coffee and the phone number of a good divorce lawyer. Eventually we managed to decide on a colour scheme, no mean feat for a large five bedroomed house, and I decided to repaint our old cracked wooden fire surround. Full of confidence and artistic endeavour I began my first attempt at a marbled finish. Two hours later I had finished .By this time everything in the vicinity was covered in streaks of blue and black paint but I was feeling very proud of my efforts. I called to David who took one look at the fire surround, told me it looked terrible, and walked out. I painted it all blue then spent another two hours streaking it and myself with black paint to get a marbled look. Again I called David and his comments this time were even ruder. In a fit of temper I threw the bottle of turpentine at the fireplace then watched in horror as the paint trickled and sheered off in sheets. Shutting the door I abandoned it until the next morning when I opened the door and cautiously peeped inside. I stood in awe as I saw what a great marble effect I had created. David made congratulatory noises telling me he knew I could do it. However I don't think I'll try another, as I doubt I could get the same effect twice.

It is important to make sure our farm helpers know the reason they are doing something to avoid mistakes. David instructed one Japanese boy, Takishi, to walk through the kiwifruit blocks and kick out the large dead canes lying on the ground so they could be ground up by the mulching mower. He started this job on a Friday then we gave him the weekend off, as we were busy doing the usual taxi service to sports venues with our children while David refereed soccer games. Takishi borrowed one of the children's bicycles and rode off down town coming back some hours later with a lot of wire. He informed us he was going to make us a gift. We them only saw him for meals for the next two days as clippers, bamboo poles and wire all disappeared into the cabin, leaving us extremely puzzled. On Monday morning he appeared with a beaming smile and his 'gift'; a bamboo rake he had made entirely from scratch.

'This is what we use in Japan' he proudly informed us. He then proceeded to rake out the canes from under the vines. Unfortunately he raked out the leaves which prevent weed and grass growth, the fertiliser for helping the vines grow and most of the irrigation system as well. We gently explained to a crestfallen Takishi that we actually do posses rakes in New Zealand and that wasn't the way we wanted the job done. It was no use. He persisted with his rake until we found him another job to do where his enthusiasm would not be such a liability.

We should have been warned of these enthusiastic tendencies by his arrival. He rang to inform us he would travel to Katikati by bus as most of our farm helpers do. When he asked which bus to get I asked him to come on the afternoon bus, as I was busy in the morning that day. When I went down to the bus stop I saw a very forlorn Japanese boy sitting by the bus stop. He had decided to come on the morning bus so he could explore the 'city' but found our small country town a bit of a shock. He explored the town for all of an hour then spent the next five hours sitting on the side of the street watching the traffic go past. Needless to say he was extremely happy to be finally collected and driven to the farm.

Another disaster was narrowly averted when we had two gorgeous blonde Dutch girls to stay. Margaret and Freda stripped off into bikinis to paint the decking and painted themselves into a corner where they became increasingly Dutch in their language until David organised planks for them to escape over.

Margaret and Freda were a very decorative addition to the landscape that summer as they painstakingly painted all the exterior windows of the house in their bikinis. David found he had a lot of office work to do the day they were due to paint the study windows!

Getting help in weeding the garden is something I always appreciate although I do have to be careful to explain what weeds are. One enthusiastic Canadian, Tammy, weeded all the alyssum, which I had carefully planted to be in flower for our elder daughter's wedding. She also decided one of my good ground cover succulents was a weed and meticulously eradicated every last shred of it from the garden. The rubbish pile in the gully is now a flowering picture, or will be until the next bonfire.

One year on my birthday my husband gave me a Frenchman for the day! Jacque had arrived for a week and stayed for four months, becoming part of the family. He was in New Zealand for a year and had found the tourist life beginning to pall. Jacque was from a small country area in France and accustomed to working every day. He saw no reason to change the habits of a lifetime, even though he was on holiday, so he did an enormous lot of work for us. He mainly worked at picking the citrus crop. He was a skilled and experienced tractor driver and was worth his weight in gold. On my birthday he said he would work for me in the garden for a day so I asked him to dig me a fishpond. We gave him a spade, pointed out a likely spot and left him to it. Two hours later all that could be seen was the top of his head from behind a rampart of soil as he dug a veritable grave in the garden.

David, Jacque and I lined the hole with polythene then drove the truck to the quarry to get some stones. We were issued with hard hats and picked our way around a mountain of quarry stone, placing the slabs we selected onto the truck. Despite David's complaints that someone (with a hard look at me) was only loading small pieces of rock (well, they were heavy!) we had a good truckload with which we landscaped the sides of the pond. We stocked the pond with fantail goldfish and every morning when we feed them I am reminded of Jacque. Incidentally he is now managing a hotel in France and no doubt having a lot of fun doing it. Perhaps one day we'll visit him although to be fair we would have to do some work for him and the thought of being a chambermaid in a hotel, albeit a French one, doesn't appeal.

Sometimes the unexpected happens and the farm helpers enjoy the break from routine as much as we do. Last summer my parents went on holiday secure in the knowledge that their house was protected by a state of the art alarm system. As their house is also on the farm they know that we will wander over to keep an eye on things for them. At this time we had three farm helpers – two shy Scots girls, Suzy and Fiona, and a brash young cockney named Arnold. Unlike his hero, Arnold Schwartzenegger, young Arnold was very small in stature but large in attitude. Our farm was his first experience of country life and he was determined not to be found wanting. David taught him to ride the motorbike and he could be seen proudly roaring up to the house to stop with a skid of metal in front of his giggling friends. Fortunately they hadn't seen his wobbly attempts to turn corners and the inevitable prang as he failed to make the bend by the avocado trees.

One morning the three of them set out to thin fruit from the mandarin trees beside my parent's house. As they arrived, two would-be burglars ran away. They had obviously spotted the alarm system and decided to scarper. Arnold leapt onto the motorbike and gave chase. This lasted for a glorious three minutes before the intruders ducked through a line of shelter trees and Arnold tried to do the same only to find, too late, that the motorbike would not fit between the trees. He picked himself up and zoomed back to our house where the police were called and a police dog and handler soon arrived. The police dog ran off hot on the scent until he came in sight of our house where our simple minded but very loyal boxer dog saw this as a threat to his territory and attacked him. The police dog felt honour bound to reply to this indignity and the next few minutes were fairly frantic until the policeman and David managed to separate them.

Suzy, Fiona and Arnold then had the glorious importance of being interviewed and asked for descriptions of the burglars and even as they left us to fly to Australia were hoping to be called back to New Zealand to identify the intruders in a line up. They were, however, disappointed in this but thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience.

This wasn't the first time that we had surprised burglars on the property. A few years earlier two young men came down our driveway one night and were bailed up by our young Labrador dog, Cody. At this time we also had a very timid Dalmatian named Jet who would bare his teeth and smile ingratiatingly at visitors, thereby terrifying them with the sight of his teeth. This particular night Cody stood his ground as Jet cowered behind the bushes and barked nervously. As soon as he barked he became fearful that someone might chase him so he ran to another bush and barked from there. The two burglars decided we must have a whole pack of dogs surrounding them and turned tail and fled. Unfortunately they went through the electric fence into the donkey paddock where first the donkeys and then the geese attacked them. By the time they reached their car they were no doubt regretting their night's actions and we went back to bed sound in the knowledge that they were unlikely to come back. Police later that night caught these same two men attempting to burgle a neighbour's shed. Not only did the neighbour's alarm go off but the burglars became stuck in the window while attempting to escape. Not a good night for them!

Mishaps do happen from time to time despite all due care. Some things are narrowly prevented such as the time a sweet young thing from Switzerland dumped a load of clothes on top of the heater and went to bed. Fortunately David smelt the smoke and managed to discover the pile of smouldering garments in time to prevent the entire house going up in flames.

One winter's evening my parents were coming over to do some babysitting for us so we could have a much-needed night out. My father took a short cut through the garden and dived headfirst into the fishpond. As it was pitch black my mother had no idea where he was until a wet hand grasped her ankle, whereon her yells were enough to wake the dead. My father was a bit scraped and bloody but laughed it off through chattering teeth and went home to shower and change. The first thing we did the next morning was to install motion sensitive lights to prevent it happening again.

This was a most exciting event for the children who talked about it for weeks. This incident received almost as much attention as the dead cat that was seen one morning squashed on the road outside the farm. I was worried that the children might have found this a traumatic sight but the reverse was the case as they invited all their friends to come and look and had to be discouraged from selling tickets for the privilege.

Another mishap occurred when we slaughtered a beast for the freezer. As the butcher shot the beast it collapsed on top of David. The young German lad, Max, who was helping us at the time, rushed back to the house to get me and was so upset he lost the little English he had on the way. I drove down to see what was happening but Max had beaten me to it and kept lifting my poor husband to his feet and then watching in bewilderment as David moaned that his leg was broken and passed out. This comedy of errors continued with me managing to get the truck stuck in the mandarin block from where the neighbour kindly managed to extricate it. On arrival at the medical centre the doctor wheeled David into the surgery, accidentally hitting David's broken leg on the side of the door as they went through. Next the ambulance arrived with two tiny women paramedics who struggled to lift my husband into the van. All ended well but it was not an experience that any of us involved in would like to repeat. The good side of all this was that the meat was the best we have ever tasted.

A Man's Guide - How to Wallpaper a Room in Ten Easy Steps

_You will need_ ;

a. Wallpaper, preferably pre-pasted. Also with no pattern, either diagonal or vertical, for ease of matching. If patterned, simply treat as plain and ignore any seam matches

b. scissors

c. water trough and buckets of water

d. ruler

e. large radio with volume on high (essential)

f. the best three bath towels usually reserved for visiting in-laws

g. continual cups of coffee and muffins (chain wife to stove. She probably won't like the wallpaper when she sees it on the wall anyway)

h. one child to pass you the wallpaper while you stand on top of the ladder and shout.

What to do;

1. Throw away any instructions that come with the wallpaper, real men don't need these.

2. Listen to the radio. Hum, whistle and sing along with all the tunes and criticise loudly any music that didn't originate in the late 60's or early 70's.

3. Cut wallpaper and hang on wall. Cover any holes at this point, particularly if they show where a towel rail or other essential has to hang. It is much more fun to create a whole pattern of new holes on the wall later in an attempt to find the stud.

4. Throw any used or wrongly measured paper onto the floor, preferably paste side down.

5. Mop up spilled water with towels then bellow for more.

6. Discover the scissors have been used to cut;

a. The donkey's hair

b. Barbie's hair

c. a piece from the middle of a roll of fencing wire

7. Discover that the ladder is;

a. too short

b. too big to fit into the house

c. in need of repair

8. Complete hanging the paper. Leave mess for wife to clean up.

9. Assure everyone the wrinkles will go after a few days and if they don't, well, you can hang a picture over them. Not you personally, you understand. After this the only thing you will consider hanging is the person who next suggests redecorating.

10.Finally – take a well-earned break and go fishing.
**Chapter 5 Animals**

David and I have had animals since shortly after we married. We started with a boxer dog, Ginny, just before our first son was born, and after a few in between we now have Roy. Roy is unfortunately not very bright. He has a small scar on his head from being bitten as a puppy and we explain to visitors that it is where he had his brains removed. He makes up for his dimness with a keen enthusiasm for life, particularly in chasing Toyota cars, no other make, that drive into our farm. He has perfected the skill of hanging onto the plastic bumpers with his teeth and running alongside the car at anything up to forty kilometres per hour. This has proved to be a very expensive habit and most Toyota drivers only visit us once.

Cody is a large friendly Labrador retriever who likes to carry things in his mouth. He adopted one of the cats when it was a kitten and would carry it around with its whole head inside his mouth. Visitors would be appalled to be met at the gate by what appeared to be a dead cat dangling from the dog's mouth. Fortunately the cat eventually grew too fat for this and now curls up to sleep with the dogs instead. Cody has resorted to carrying an avocado in his mouth through which he makes sinister growling sounds which are meant to be welcoming but have the effect of sending anxious visitors scuttling to the safety of their cars. Roy merely attempts to lick people's ears.

Number two son was once inspired by a television programme on dogs to train ours to follow an obstacle course. He set up a fearsome array of obstacles on the front lawn using sacks, planks of wood and tin drums then set about training the dogs to follow it. He went on the principle of learning by demonstrating and despite the heat of the day he began the training session. The dogs joined in with great enthusiasm at the start, lured by the biscuits in his pockets, but as the biscuits disappeared so did their interest. Number two son determinedly spent a good hour showing the dogs how to jump, crawl, and roll, demonstrating these skills with constant encouraging cries to the unresponsive audience. This intrigued the dogs who lay in the shade with a grandstand view congratulating themselves on how well they had trained one small boy, giving him the odd bark of encouragement whenever it looked as if his energy might be flagging.

We have seven cats – too many at times but badly needed come winter when the mouse population tries to move indoors. The boss of the cats and dogs is Cameo. He is pink in colour and he has developed a compensating macho attitude. When he was young, the girls would hitch him to a small cart and watch him tow their Barbie dolls around but nowadays no one would venture to suggest such a thing. His favourite hobby is to lie invitingly on his back until the unsuspecting victim rubs him lovingly on the tummy. He then sinks his teeth firmly into the hand before running off with a satisfied smirk.

The dogs steer well clear of Cameo. One day David and the children were standing around the cherry tree sampling the fruit when one of the dogs had the misfortune to relieve itself on the clump of grass in which Cameo was asleep. There was a snarl as Cameo sprang out. Discretion being the greater part of valour, David and the children either ran or hastily climbed the cherry tree. Cameo stood on his hind legs with claws outstretched and ran at the dogs. The dogs promptly took off with their tails firmly tucked between their legs and hid in the back of the kennel. Cameo prowled in front of the kennel hurling insults for twenty minutes before stalking off. From that day they have given him a wide berth.

Another cat, Blackie, used to come and walk along the rim of the spa pool where David and I would be relaxing after a hard day's work. He rubbed his head across the back of David's neck until one day, patience exhausted, we nudged him into the water. Blackie wasn't seen for two days after that. On the third night when we sat in the spa pool, he leapt from the bushes with an eldricht howl then walked calmly away leaving us gibbering in fright. Honour was obviously satisfied, as he never bothered us in the spa pool again.

We have had a succession of donkeys. The first was Penelope who we bought as a foal. We travelled to see her with the children, a friend, and two cheerful American girls Lucy and Diana. We fell in love with her on the spot and decide that as we were driving the large stationwagon we would take her home in it. Younger son sacrificed his sweatshirt to tie over her eyes so she wouldn't be frightened then we lifted her in before piling in ourselves. Lucy kept saying, 'My Mom is never going to believe this! Nine people and a donkey in a car!' and she phoned her mother in the States as soon as we arrived back at the farm to tell her.

We eventually sold Penelope to someone who wanted to use her for breeding purposes and purchased Benson. Benson had been the baby of an elderly couple who had trained him to pull a small chariot with two to three children riding on it. The chariot was very safe as if anyone was worried about the speed he or she could simply step off the back. Not that speed is ever much of a worry with donkeys – getting them to start at all is an art in itself. They love to follow but if worried will stop dead and are very reluctant to start moving again. Benson usually moved if offered peppermints but that was not always guaranteed.

Sophie came along as company for Benson. She was old and placid and fairly short. Our foreign visitors would get great excitement from riding on her back even though their legs practically touched the ground on either side.

The children played all sorts of games involving the donkeys, as they were very safe to be around. I treasure the memory of a determined three year old trying to get Sophie to drink the mixture he had made of sand and water. Putting the bowl in front of her head he would run to each of her back legs in turn to push – only to no avail. Sophie waited until he stopped pushing then stepped away whereon the angry child would shift the bowl and go through the whole process again.

We currently have Topsy, another elderly Jenny, whose bray has the heart breaking sound of a jilted lover. She lives happily in the company of up to a dozen cattle beasts and is very agreeable to be ridden or patted by anyone.

Most of our farm helpers like to get photos of themselves riding or patting the donkeys. One shy girl was afraid to go too close but I gave her a piece of bread so her companion could photograph her feeding the donkey. She leaned over the fence with her ample bosom and Benson reached out towards the bread. At the exact moment the photograph was taken he ignored the bread and planted his lips firmly on her breast instead – much to her chagrin and the hysterical laughter of her companion.

We have a flock of geese that wander the gully until some moment, known only to them, is reached. At this time they split into two groups – 'White Power' and the 'Filthy Few', and hurl abuse at each other from opposite sides of the gully. We have a wild goose chase every couple of years to keep the numbers down but as it is a case of boiling them up with an old boot and eating the boot, we don't bother eating them very often. They make a picturesque addition to the farm as they walk in a line down the hillside to the lake or when in full flight they land on the water.

Most of our Asian farm helpers have never handled animals and it takes a lot of courage for them to stroke a dog or a calf. They are nearly all terrified of the cattle even when we assure them that the beasts only want to suck their fingers, having grown from handreared spoilt babies.

We normally have a pig or two in residence, mainly to eat up the scraps and provide the Christmas ham. Visitors are usually surprised to find that pigs don't smell and are actually very clean in their habits. For a time we had a wonderful natured sow named Dolores who was an excellent mother. As we were rather new to the pig-keeping bit we rather underestimated the ability of pigs to get through fences. It took an early morning visit to the vegetable garden by Dolores to motivate us into fixing the fences to a better standard. Unfortunately when Dolores had babies we discovered that even though she was securely fenced, her offspring felt it their mission in life to search for holes in the fence and wriggle through to explore the wide world outside.

David had a phone call one day from an irate neighbour complaining that our little pigs were playing on his lawn tennis court. David's response of 'Take their balls off them and send them home' did nothing to improve neighbourly relations although the resulting fence we built has been pig proof to this day.

Not everyone understands the need for fences. We had two young Swedish surfers, Carl and Michael, working for us one summer. They were staying in a youth hostel and doing paid work for us. They had an unfortunate tendency to call in sick whenever the surf was up. One Friday afternoon we left them trimming tree branches beside the gully while we went to town. They had been instructed to turn the electric fence off before they started so that the branches could easily be picked off it and stacked. Unfortunately the wind came up, the surf came up and Carl and Michael leapt into their car with a cry of joy and headed for the beach. They left the fence not only turned off but also pushed to the ground by heavy branches in at least three places. It wasn't until the next day that we found all our stock wandering around feasting on kiwifruit buds and young avocado trees. A few hours mad panic ensued before we managed to round them up, muttering curses on surfers in general to anyone who would listen.

I once expressed the desire to have a pair of white doves looking picturesque in the garden. David was a little less enthusiastic as he had kept homing pigeons as a young lad, and knew their habits, but he eventually gave in to my pleading and built a wonderful rustic dovecote in the middle of the garden. We purchased two pair of white pigeons and after keeping them shut in for a few weeks to make sure they would stay, we released them. They treated the dovecote with loathing and disdain and to this day not one pigeon has even sat on the thing, despite my leaving quantities of food up there. The local sparrows on the other hand, regard it as a dream come true and are pathetically grateful for any crumbs placed there. The cats have not been slow to spot this and tend to sleep there in wait for some unfortunate bird to alight into their waiting jaws.

Soon the pigeons started breeding as if there was no tomorrow. Walking around the garden became a frightening experience as pigeons perched on the branches of every tree like vultures, glaring at anyone who dared disturb them by entering their territory. Every morning we were woken by flocks of them quarrelling and stamping on the iron roof above our bedroom. Occasionally there would be a loud bang as one of them misjudged the wires of the TV aerial and we would see a little pile of white feathers floating to the earth. When the cost of feeding all these pigeons became too great we sold a lot, gave a lot away then began a contraceptive regime where we meanly destroyed the eggs as they were laid. It has helped somewhat but there are still too many of the wretched things. They won't even oblige us by looking attractive and friendly and co-operating for photographs. As soon as anyone produces a camera the pigeons fly to the roof of the house where they lurk behind the chimney, muttering, until the coast is clear.
**Chapter 6 Games**

Living by the harbour and close to the beach means there are many lovely places nearby for our farm helpers to explore. David normally tries to take each visitor out fishing from the boat and so far these expeditions have been thoroughly enjoyed by all participants. He possesses a sixth sense when it comes to fish and can be relied on to catch at least one each time he goes out.

Hiro was a Japanese lad who came to us for a few weeks and he was a keen fisherman. He was not a particularly masculine man, despite telling us that he had played a lot of rugby in Japan. After one look at his physique and lack of muscles we decided the All Blacks were unlikely to have anything to fear from Japan. Hiro also made quite an impact by coming in after one night in the cabin and asking if we could please get another Japanese man to stay so that he would have someone to sleep with! When we recovered our breath to ask why he informed us he was scared of the dark. He didn't like the noises the refrigerator made when it turned on and off and thought he would feel safer with someone else sleeping in the same room. Forestalling my husband's inevitable rude comments I soothingly explained to Hiro that he was quite safe although we are still mystified at how a twenty-nine year old man could be afraid of sleeping alone.

Hiro said he had done a lot of fishing in Japan and was confident he could catch fish here. He was only out in the boat for a few minutes when he hooked and landed a small snapper. He exclaimed in excitement, which soon turned to horror as David smartly dropped the fish back in the water with one word – 'undersize.'

Hiro indignantly protested that it was the biggest fish he had ever caught and that it would have been considered large back in his country. Fortunately they soon caught more fish of acceptable size but Hiro still muttered darkly about crazy New Zealanders throwing fish away. On arrival back at the house he stood and watched as David filleted the fish, tossing the scraps to the cats. He keenly took his turn and began filleting the fish while David went inside to prepare the frying pan. When David came back to collect the fillets for frying he found Hiro standing on the lawn, surrounded by cats, all of them eating the pieces of fish raw with great enjoyment.

Katy was another farm helper who was keen to go fishing. She was a young medical student from East Germany with very strong opinions on everything. She firmly announced when invited on a fishing trip that she intended to catch a big fish. She had looked through the photograph album the previous night and been scornful of the size of fish in the photographs we had of other farm helpers holding up their catch. She was still insisting that she would only catch a big fish as David and his mate took her off in the boat. A few hours later they returned with huge smiles and even larger fish. They had caught the kingfish running and Katy had caught not just one but two fish of fifteen and twenty kilograms respectively. She could not even lift one of them unaided for her photograph to be taken and much to her annoyance had been forced to ask for help to get them onto the boat. Consequently the photos we have of her instead of showing a joyful fisherman show her grimacing under the strain as she tries to heave up the head of one of these fish for the camera. The fish box in the boat had smashed apart under the size and strength of the fish. Katy was not satisfied with this effort however and insisted in going fishing again the next night with the intention of catching an even larger fish. She arrived back cross and empty-handed after having lost the fifty dollar spinner off the end of the line and contented herself with describing yet again to anyone who would listen how she caught her two monster fish.

We often string a net across the front yard and play a loosely organised game of volleyball. Some people take this very seriously, particularly when the teams are divided by nationalities and they feel the honour of their country is at stake.

Soccer is another favourite and occasionally farm helpers get taken down to play with the social soccer team that David used to run. One young lad, Alex, was asked if he would like a game of soccer. He agreed with alacrity and showed us his boots, which he carried with him around the world since leaving Germany six months earlier. It turned out that he had represented Berlin in his age group and was a very skilled player. He found New Zealand social soccer a bit of a shock as a lot of the players had grown up playing rugby and weren't averse to using more physical force than you would expect to see on a soccer pitch. Alex did, however, thoroughly enjoy himself especially at the beer drinking session at the end of the match where he demonstrated his talents in that direction as well.

Matthew was a fit young Englishmen who had cycled for his country in the Commonwealth games and who was keen to try any sport. He and his travelling companion Georgina were keen starters one summer day when we suggested water skiing, despite never having tried it before. They eagerly jumped into the car with David and went off with the boat in tow to the boat ramp on the harbour. I waited for their triumphant return but it was not to be. Two very woebegone figures came to tea that night. Matthew had lost his brand new expensive watch overboard as they motored into deep water, and then Georgina fell off her skis but forgot to let go of the tow rope. That in itself was bad enough but she screamed for help and consequently swallowed most of the harbour before they pulled her up coughing and spluttering onto the boat. To add insult to injury the two timid Irish girls who were also staying with us at the time had proved to be naturals and had managed to ski all over the harbour on their first attempt as if they had been born to it.

Rugby puzzles most of our farm helpers, as they cannot understand our national passion for it. The Japanese in particular sit politely watching us as we cheer on our favourite team, Canterbury, and giggle nervously at our moans if defeat looks imminent.

Absolutely Super

It was cold and it was windy

There was wind and freezing rain

When the powerful Crusaders

Won the Super 12 again

Their foe the lusty Brumbies

Passed the ball from hand to hand

Each man in turn was tackled

Cries of sorrow rent the stands

Young Mehrtens was magnificent

When putting boot to ball

Success proclaimed with waving flags

His skill acclaimed by all

With Somerville down in the scrum

And Cribb's triumphant try

MacDonald shining in defence

And Maxwell leaping high

Beneath the Brumbies onslaught

They stood firm, this mighty squad

All hail to Robbie Deans

And to the leadership of Todd

Most foreign visitors are keen to explore the New Zealand bush and there is a favourite loop walk we take them to a short distance away. We issue them with map, food, drink and warm jackets and so far all have walked back in the expected time with no mishaps. Most of them complain bitterly about our definition of 'easy' but it is a good introduction to tramping for them, particularly if some of them have plans to do more venturesome routes such as the Milford Track later on.

It is rather shaming to find that when a lot of our guests visit us for the second time at the end of their New Zealand stay they have seen more of the country than we have. And believe me we have seen all the photographs to prove it.

We had one Englishman, Eric, who was fanatical about cricket. Much to his joy he arrived at our place in time to watch all the five-day international matches. Of course, being summer, it was too hot to work in the afternoons so Eric and David spent many happy hours sitting in front of the TV screen ignoring the groans of the rest of the household.

We had a real bonus one winter with the arrival of Rachael, a lovely young Israeli woman. She had worked in her kibbutz as the chief child minder – it was her job to get the children ready for school and entertain them afterwards until their parents arrived home from work. She possessed an apparently inexhaustible supply of games and activities, which she was keen to share with our children. Many a happy hour was spent colouring pictures and cutting out shapes for craft projects.

Most of our Japanese girls are well versed in the art of origami or paper folding. They have made us over the years some beautifully crafted creations with which they present us with due ceremony.

Pia from Denmark was an art teacher and was also good value with the children. She taught them how to make home made books with hand made paper covers and during her stay there was a permanent paper trail from one end of the house to the other.

It is just as well I have a lot of kitchen bench space as there is usually some sort of art or craft project being worked on at one end while someone, usually me, works at the other end on the more mundane jobs of preparing food and washing dishes
**Chapter 7 Cultural Differences**

It sometimes bothers me that our farm helpers base their opinion of New Zealand and New Zealanders on their experiences at our place. It is a worrying responsibility!

One French couple, Dominic and Fleur, came to New Zealand during the time there was a lot of ill feeling about the French Nuclear tests in the Pacific. They were so worried about discrimination (needlessly, we felt) that they told everyone they came from Belgium and stayed their entire time in the country at our place. They said they thought we must be a typical New Zealand family, which made us feel rather important.

We did lots of typical New Zealand things with them such as going fishing, on bush walks, having barbecues and scrounging round the local flea market for bargains on a Saturday morning. Their English was not good so we dredged up our long forgotten school French to communicate with. Now they send us long and enthusiastic letters and e-mails all in French, which we struggle through then cravenly reply to in English.

The Japanese are very respectful and tend to walk three paces behind us as a matter of course. David was walking around the orchard one day with Yoko when he decided it was ridiculous trying to have a conversation by turning and shouting over his left shoulder. He slowed down so she could catch up but she slowed down as well, still staying the requisite three paces behind. David decided to be cunning and walked faster and faster while Yoko pattered along behind, running to keep up. Suddenly he stopped but she stopped instantly as well, still keeping her distance so he gave up the attempts to walk together.

I found it embarrassing to go shopping with the Japanese girls. They would insist on carrying my bags for me and I felt most uncomfortable walking around the streets of Katikati with up to three Japanese girls walking a few paces behind me as they struggled along carrying bags of groceries.

Three English lads who stayed here for a few months showed one of the best examples of cultural differences. On arrival they asked if we had many foreigners to stay. We replied that we did, after all, hadn't they just arrived? This was greeted with the horrified comment, 'But we are not foreigners, we're British!'

Humour varies between cultures. Owen, a young friend of one of our sons, was with us at the dinner table one night. Not that that was at all unusual as he came to most meals. In fact a lot of people assumed he was one of our children until we explained that he didn't live with us but only ate here. Owen proceeded to entertain us with the latest joke he had heard.

'Have you heard about the two cows in a paddock.

One said to the other,

'Are you worried about Mad Cow Disease'

To which the other cow replied,

'It won't worry me – I'm an aeroplane.'

This joke was so bad we laughed and the French Canadian Betty, who was staying with us at the time along with a Japanese girl Juko, wanted us to explain the joke. This we duly did, finding that it lost a good deal of its humour in the process, but Betty's efforts to understand and her anxious questions were so funny that we continued to laugh. Juko wanted to know the joke so we had the hilarious situation of Betty, whose first language was French, earnestly trying to explain a bad English joke to a Japanese. By the time she had done this we were all helpless with laughter except for Juko. She still didn't understand the joke and was sure we must be laughing at something really funny if she could only work it out.

Not only does humour obviously vary from race to race but some people seem to be devoid of any. Karl from Sweden took everything very seriously and could never tell when we were joking. He noted things down in a little notebook, which he constantly carried. On one occasion he reduced us to hysterics when he seriously wrote down 'joke' after a remark one of us had made. He was a very earnest young man and was horrified when we said we had heard that Swedish girls were in general very beautiful. He denied this saying that if they were he would have noticed and he hadn't – and then wondered why we laughed.

Karl gets the prize for the best letter writer ever. He disappeared to his room every night to write letters by the bundle which he gave to me to post. I was tremendously impressed at how good how was to write to all his friends and family but rather taken aback when he told me he was writing to ask them all for money. With Christmas approaching he had decided he would like more money to enjoy himself with in New Zealand. As his main enjoyment in life appeared to be doing jig saw puzzles, a vast quantity of which we have collected over the years and stored in the games cupboard, it appeared he would not require much money to keep him happy. I don't believe we ever saw him smile but he assured us when he eventually left that he had enjoyed himself tremendously.

A young German boy, Klaus, was another with very little sense of humour. It was his first overseas experience and he arrived at our place fresh from school. He was fanatical about his country and determined to prove to us that everything from Germany was better than New Zealand. We disconcerted him by laughing and refusing to enter into the argument – after all, we do drive an Audi! Klaus argued his way through every meal instructing me on how much better the food would be if it was grown in Germany and cooked by a German. After a few weeks of him continually putting down everything Kiwi our patience was wearing a little thin. We asked him why he was so sure that everything in Germany was the best. He replied that it said so in the German newspapers, which were always correct. At that point we figured he would grow up one day and hoped he would then be able to appreciate and enjoy the differences in cultures without one having to be the 'best'.

I once had a delightful conversation with a Japanese couple who stayed with us. Jumo and Hiroshi asked me if was going to rain that day. I looked out the window towards the Kaimai range and told them that if they could see the Kaimais it meant it was going to rain and if they couldn't see the Kaimais then it must already be raining. The blank looks I received in response to this led me to explain weakly that it was a joke. They looked up their dictionary before giving what was obviously the expected response of 'ha ha' with no expression and serious faces. Hiroshi then asked me if I thought the joke was funny. By this time as far as I was concerned it was totally devoid of humour so I asked them to think of a Japanese joke and translate it for me. This led to a rapid exchange of Japanese and a lot of recourse to the dictionary. They then went to their room, still talking earnestly to each other, only to emerge three hours later to tell me that they had not been able to think of any Japanese jokes I would enjoy.

Sometimes I am sure our customs can be rather alarming to foreigners. One Swiss girl told me that it was customary in her country for the hosts to give their bed to the guests and sleep on the floor themselves. As we had provided her with a perfectly good bed in a room of her own we were never sure whether she was suggesting a swap or just trying to train us better. She was shocked at what she considered the filthy condition of New Zealand homes and housekeeping standards. I hasten to add here, before my housekeeper resigns in a fit of righteous indignation, that she had stayed in several places before she came to us and that her impressions were from these places. It did however have the effect of making me pay more attention to sweeping the kitchen floor for a few days.

Another sweet young thing form the States rang her mother to tell her there were bugs in the bed. She had retired to her room every afternoon to eat biscuits and read magazines. The local ant population was not slow to discover this and as their idea of heaven is a warm spot close to a source of food wasted no time in moving in.

Young people appear to need a lot of sleep. Most of our newly arrived farm helpers express polite disbelief when we tell them we go to bed at nine thirty at night, and assure us they are used to staying up well past midnight. This usually only lasts for one or two nights by which time they are so worn out with the unaccustomed physical exercise that they crawl off to bed as soon after the evening meal as they can. We are very used to knocking on bedroom doors in the mornings to wake people up for breakfast – at the cruel and unreasonable time of seven thirty!

Various bodies appear in various stages of sleep - some can function right through breakfast and the first few hours of the day with their eyes still shut - and the working day begins as everyone searches for their respective boots at the back door.

We take our shoes off at the front or back doors before entering the house and leave them on the verandah. Sometimes it looks like a gigantic second hand shoe sale with boots ranging from new to old and from large to small. Our Labrador occasionally takes a fancy to one particular boot and will carry it around for a while before losing interest and dropping it in some obscure corner of the farm. He then wags his tale earnestly at the owner who is usually hopping around on one foot in the cool morning, swearing about his missing footwear. Fortunately as a now elderly dog he seems to have outgrown this habit although he is quick to curl up and sleep on any coat or sweater left outside. His air of injured innocence when unceremoniously dumped off this clothing has to be seen to be appreciated.

We had a guest at one time who arrived through a series of misunderstandings. I'm not sure where he found our address and phone number but he had obviously formed the impression that we were running some form of small luxury hotel. When David went to collect him from the bus stop he found a sweet white haired old gentleman, so frail he could not lift let alone carry his expensive leather suitcases. He thanked us for a lovely dinner and promptly fell asleep in front of the television. When we explained the farm helper set up to him the next day he looked a bit taken aback and suggested rather doubtfully that perhaps he could rake the path for us. We took him to a local motel where he found the standard of service he was accustomed to before moving on to one of the larger tourist towns. We never did find out where he was from or how he ended up at our place but as he was meeting up with his wife the following week she was no doubt able to sort him out.

As guests stay longer they quickly become part of the family and share their problems with us. Many a car or bicycle has been repaired by David and we have given lots of advice, probably largely ignored, on relationship and financial problems.

We often seem to have young men looking for girlfriends and young women looking for a man but seldom at the same time. We once made the mistake of having a handsome young man stay with two single girls. They spent their time trying to outdo each other in their efforts to gain his attention; the house reeked of perfume and deodorant and the hot water cylinder ran cold to the accompaniment of the constant buzz of hairdryers. Their efforts were in vain as he had left a girlfriend back in Canada and spent his spare time and money phoning her and writing her letters.

Two delightful British ladies were another case. Both on the wrong side of thirty they each carried a small notebook in which they had listed their requirements for an ideal mate. No one was safe. Any man they met was discussed and matched up against the entries in their book and invariably found wanting. The heroes they were looking for had to be rich, dark haired, over six feet tall and preferably play tennis as well as owning a farm. I felt quite safe here, as my husband would have to stand on a box to meet at least one of these requirements.

Bronwyn and Betty carried on their man hunting campaign all around New Zealand and Australia then rang us in delight to say that Bronwyn had finally met the man of her dreams and would we please come to the wedding. Oddly enough Prince Charming looked nothing like the requirements on the list, being short, sandy haired and a builder to boot. That's true love for you! I guess Betty is still travelling around with her notebook – after all, she caught the bouquet.

New Zealand, unlike some other countries, does not have a history of employing other races to do the menial tasks. This was demonstrated very clearly when we had Avi, an Israeli man come to stay with us. The first three days were rainy so Avi had a wonderful time playing snooker and computer games. The fourth day dawned warm and sunny so David took Avi out to the orchard to show him the work he would be doing. This consisted of walking along the rows of kiwifruit and pulling off any small or misshapen fruit prior to picking. This Avi began happily enough but once he had the hang of it David left him to it to go and do some tractor work. At lunchtime Avi came in with a scowl on his face but didn't say much. At dinnertime he told us that in his country they employed Arabs to do the job he was doing. He felt that he should not be expected to do Arab work and demanded a job driving the tractor instead. When we not unreasonably pointed out that this was David's job and that we needed Avi to do the kiwifruit thinning he became angry and said he would leave the next morning to look for a job where he would not be treated like a peasant. I feel he was not going to have a very happy time of it in New Zealand as it is highly unlikely he would meet a farmer who would give him the plum jobs while doing the 'Arab work' himself!

Bronwyn and Betty

Bronwyn and Betty were travellers two

They came to New Zealand to try something new

Mandarin picking was hard work and so

They loaded their car and off they did go

Alas it was winter and down came the rain

It washed all their plans and ideas down the drain

Too wet to go caving

Too wet for the beach

Their dreams of adventures splashed on out of reach

But these girls were determined their stay would be fun

They learned how to load, shoot and handle a gun

'This will be handy' they said 'if we ever

Get sunshine instead of this awful wet weather'

They said with a smile as they batted their eyes

'Our plan is to hunt down and grab two strong guys

We're practicing running each morning in case

We spot some, they run, then it's on with the chase

Pursuit, shoot and capture's the way we will go

With best foot put forward, we're off, tally ho!'

Bronwyn and Betty those travellers bold

Had a birthday when Bronwyn turned thirty, I'm told

They toasted her beauty with glasses of wine

Then Betty said 'Bronwyn, my dear, it is time

We sought some direction to head with our lives

Are we going to be rich business women or wives?'

Consulting a gypsy they held out their palms

For a sum quite substantial, and not without qualms,

Prosperity, happiness, all were foretold

In the very near future before they grew old

Encouraged they left with a lot to discuss

At last inspiration struck - they said 'Let us

Start a shop selling muffins, we know that's a winner

We're not getting either much younger or thinner

The way to a man's heart, the proverbs all say

Is first through his stomach, so that is the way!

We're the ones who can do it, if anyone can

All we need now is our own muffin man'

To sunny Fiji our brave travellers flew

Still trying to capture a strong man or two

With her man-spotting telescope held to her eye

Bronwyn looked round and at last gave a cry

'There's one' she exclaimed, 'over there on the sand'

'Show me,' said Betty and grabbed at her hand

That poor bemused fellow did not stand a chance

As Bronwyn and Betty began their advance

Shoulder to shoulder they slunk to their prey

Who backed off in terror and sprinted away

'Another one gone,' Betty said 'Dearie me

There are plenty more fish to be had in the sea

Pass me the telescope, I'll have a go

If we don't spot some soon then it's home we will go'

It happened to Bronwyn and Betty one day

That they turned to each other and said in dismay

'We've travelled together, good friends from the start

Alas, though it's sad it is time now to part'

While Betty to England flew off in a plane

Bronwyn set out on her travels again

Still in search of a man she to Canada flew

Hoping to find at least one, if not two

She travelled round Canada, saw Montreal

And then to the Rockies, steep, craggy and tall

Still hopefully searching she cried 'What the heck

I'll try for a Frenchman' and flew to Quebec

Admiring the waiters, she found a cafe

Where they plied her with croissants and cafe au lait

She lingered all day with her dreams of l'amour

While they crooned to her 'Would ma'mselle care for some more?'

But all good things pass and with one last au' voir

She continued her journey to view Ottawa

There were men there in plenty, she felt her palms tingle

Unfortunately they were none of them single

Said Bronwyn to Betty 'It's nigh on a year

Since we had our New Zealand vacation, my dear

What an adventure that turned out to be'

Bronwyn said 'Look at what happened to me

The man of my dreams has appeared and I know

That from now on together our pathways will go

Our relationship started when we were just friends

But now I feel marriage is how it will end'

Betty was envious 'What about me?

My best friend only likes guys, don't you see

I'm working so hard now from morning till late

It doesn't leave much time to search for a mate'

'Take my telescope dear', Bronwyn said with a smile

'Look through and you'll find that within a short while

The man of your dreams will come up into view

You will know in your heart he's the right man for you

It worked for me - let's hope it works for you too!'
**Chapter 8 Misunderstandings**

There is always a great risk of misunderstandings when two people of different cultures meet, particularly if there is a language difference. Our children are not slow to take advantage of the earnest desire to learn that most of our farm helpers have. One poor lad had his toenails painted pink by my outrageous elder daughter who seriously told him that all New Zealand men wore nail varnish.

One common misunderstanding held by city dwellers is that everything on a farm is free. We have free eggs from our own hens – they don't consider the cost of purchasing the birds, the feed and the materials to build their houses.

We have free fruit on the trees – we buy the land, purchase and plant the trees, fertilise them prune them and spray them.

One guest Brian, a Canadian, obviously thought our phone was free as well, a fact we didn't discover until he had left the country with no forwarding address, leaving us with a bill for over one hundred dollars in toll calls. The next lot of farm helpers was not even allowed near the phone after that.

Use of the phone is always a tricky problem. It is unreasonable to expect someone with no transport to walk four kilometres to the nearest public phone box so we generally allow our farm helpers to make and receive calls on our telephone. This can get very frustrating when their family lives in the opposite time zone and we are jarred awake at two or three in the morning with someone ringing up for a chat. We keep a list of responses to make in various languages as a lot of our guests have family and friends who do not speak English. One Japanese girl had an admirer who for some reason had access to free international calls in Japan. Unfortunately he spoke no English. We attempted to explain to him in halting Japanese that his girlfriend was working on the farm and would be back later, but to no avail. He would phone at ten-minute intervals until in sheer self-defence we would disconnect the phone. He must have worked for a phone company otherwise the phone bill would have bankrupted them after the first month.

Sometimes misunderstandings arise between guests. One pair of American ladies, Patty and Jean, were very good friends and travelling companions until one fatal night. They had both gone out to dinner with a fellow countryman who they had met a few days before, and then Patty came home with a headache while Jean went to the movies with their gentleman friend. I was woken by talking at 2am and went out to the kitchen to find Patty on the phone to the local constabulary frantically trying to organise a search for her friend who had not yet returned home. I calmed her down and explained to the police that it was probably nothing to worry about as Jean had almost certainly decided to spend the night with her new friend. Patty was horrified by this and was sure that Jean would never do such a thing – then refused to speak to a shamefaced Jean who arrived back for breakfast looking rather the worse for wear after a night on the town.

E-mail has made a big saving to the phone bill as it becomes the preferred means of communication around the world. It has the benefit of not waking us in the middle of the night although it does have one major drawback. Whoever is checking and sending their e-mail tends to spend hours at the computer and this can cause quite a queue to build up. When we rather unreasonably point out that we use the computer for office work and accounting (David) and writing and music composing (Myself) our guests restrict themselves to heaving great sighs and as they wonder out loud who is trying to contact them, and make wistful remarks such as;

'I said I would write to my mother every single day!'

If they see the study empty they are likely to make a mad dash for the computer to dial up their mailbox. One helpful young thing rearranged a lot of our computer files for us. We thanked her through clenched teeth and told the next arrival that the computer was out of bounds until our rage had simmered down.

We are a very musical family. David conducts the local town band, while the rest of us play sax, drums, trombone and trumpet. We have a lot of instruments around the house but seldom seem to get farm helpers with a musical background. They will come with us to any concerts we put on while they are here and some of them are keen enough to come down to band practice on a Thursday night.

There they have the rather disconcerting habit of clapping whenever we pause for breath. Whether this is in genuine appreciation of our music or thankfulness that we have stopped I am not sure, and haven't liked to ask. Occasionally they will join in if David tosses them a percussion instrument. Hiroshi sat with bated breath throughout one very long musical arrangement until his big moment came and he was allowed to ding the triangle on the final beat.

A lack of lighting at night has fooled more than one guest, accustomed as they are to well lit city streets. Years ago when number one son was the only child in residence we had friends come to stay for a weekend. We assured them it would be no trouble having them to stay in the small house we lived in at that time, as we would put our son's cot in our bedroom. This lasted a brief twenty minutes by which time we had both got up six times to see if he was still breathing so we pushed the cot into a corner of the hallway and went to sleep. One friend, Trevor, wandered out to find the bathroom – a necessary activity after an evening spent drinking beer. Much to his horror he bumped into the cot. Imagining himself to be in our bedroom Trevor turned in the other direction and found himself in his own room again. He blundered around for the next fifteen minutes, blind in the pitch dark and coming across the cot time and time again, convinced he was going into our bedroom. We slept on unaware of this nocturnal activity but he told us all about it the next morning. Eventually with a sigh of relief Trevor found his way to the kitchen from where he was able to go outside and avail himself of the bushes. He then spent the rest of the night on the living room couch, unable to find his way back to his own room.

A cousin of mine had a similar experience when staying with us and climbed into our bed under the mistaken impression that it was her own. Fortunately she chose my side of the bed to David's evident disappointment as she was and is a very attractive lady.

Another guest also had problems with the deep country darkness. He decided to walk down to the local tavern after dinner and after an evening spent drinking started walking home. He was given a lift by a friendly couple who offered to drop him off at our gateway. Alas, he had by that time forgotten not only our surname but also the number of the house. After driving round fruitlessly for nearly half an hour he apologised and said he would rather they dropped him back at the tavern, as he was sure he would be able to find his way on foot. This they duly did and he set off to walk home again. Arriving at the next door neighbours' driveway he was sure he had found the right place and started the long lonely walk into the darkness. After ten minutes of this during which time he kept blundering into the kiwifruit vines on either side of the driveway he realised he must be in the wrong place. Retracing his steps he made it back to the road and eventually found our entrance. He staggered into bed at around 3.a.m. and decided he would invest in a torch before he next visited the tavern.

Our farm helpers came from a variety of backgrounds; some from small country villages and others from large cities. We used to envy those from large cities, thinking of all the entertainment and employment opportunities they had. I guess it isn't too surprising that they in turn envied our laid back and unspoilt lifestyle, so much in fact that a number of them changed their goals in life and vowed to become farmers. I suspect that the climate and whatever fruit was in season had a lot to do with this. As our policy is not to work on wet days they didn't experience any unpleasant working experiences and no doubt thought our life was one big holiday.

Country Life

Andy from the city came

He rubbed his hands with glee

He discovered avocados

Ripe and fallen from the tree

'I'll pick these up and take them home

My friends will envy me.'

Andy from the city came

It was his dearest wish

To go out boating on the sea

And try to catch a fish

'When lightly crumbed and gently fried

It makes a tasty dish.'

Andy from the city came

The country life to see

Decided he would try to find

A lifestyle property

'Now I'm here I know that this

Is where I want to be.'
**Chapter 9. The End**

As our children grew up, our lifestyle changed somewhat. No longer a taxi service on twenty four hour duty, David and I waved our children off to university and their own independent lives with a sigh of relief mingled with sadness. It seemed no time at all before our daughters married and started having children of their own. They even came to us for advice, which was a flattering experience and one we were happy to fulfill.

How to Grow up to be a Man

One of the basic requirements for manhood is a refusal to shop. This can be started as early as three or four months of age. Tolerate the supermarket - after all, those bananas have to come from somewhere – but leave no illusions as to your objections if your mother should dare to take you into any other kinds of shop. Use every weapon at your disposal; crying – poor little thing, is he hungry?

Screaming – poor little thing, is he hurt?

Whimpering pathetically – are you mistreating him? and if that does not work fall back on the extensive range of bodily functions at your command. No mother feels at her best when her front is adorned with regurgitated milk, and developing the capacity for releasing appalling smells will further increase her discomfort.

As you grow, other weapons can be added to your range.

As a toddler, demand to go to the toilet instantly – preferably in very exclusive shops with floor coverings that don't wash easily. Never walk but run, and if you can knock over expensive items and damage or break them so much the better.

Learn to vomit at will and practice this technique when the word shop is mentioned. Soon you will be able to control the duration and direction of every car journey with a few judiciously timed retches.

Asthma attacks are a guaranteed weapon in the fight against being taken shopping.

With a little training you should be able to develop an allergy to almost anything – carpets, counters, shelving and particularly any form of textiles.

As a young child it is inevitable that despite your best intentions you will be taken shopping by your parents. Now you bring a new range of tactics into use. Develop a high pitched irritating whine. Demand the most expensive item in the shop and keep demanding it loudly. When given it lose interest in it immediately and demand something else.

Wait until a suitable moment to regale interested spectators with intimate details of your parents' life, particularly overheard conversations and events which they are unaware you know about. Asking penetrating questions about reproduction is always a good crowd puller at this point.

Never shop for clothes. As a youth, get into the habit of putting on each day the clothes you took off the night before. Never learn how to colour co-ordinate and refuse to have anything to do with fashion. If you can, insist that you will only wear one type of garment and no other, preferably one that was made by a factory in Eketahuna that went bankrupt in the 1950's.

Do not develop a colour sense and learn to be totally indifferent about what you or others are wearing.

In particular never notice what a female is wearing, regardless of her pleas for attention.

Don't remember birthdays, anniversaries or other special occasions.

Affect deafness when broad hints about money are dropped.

If possible beg sisters to do these chores for you which in a fit of misplaced sympathy they can often be relied upon to do.

As an adult, never carry money – this gives you the perfect excuse to never enter a shop. Develop the skill of consuming what other people purchase without the desire to know its origin.

An exception can be made here for going to exciting adult 'male only' places such as timber yards and electronic shops. Here you will be warmly welcomed and will be able to spend many happy hours in the company of other men without actually being expected to purchase something. Insist that these are the only retail outlets you will go to.

Ultimately , look for a woman to share your life with. She will not only do all the shopping for you but will even enjoy doing it.

Quite suddenly we discovered that being grandparents took all our time and attention and we no longer had the energy to spare for our farm helpers. The cabin was requisitioned by our younger daughter and her husband as they spent their first years of married life there and our son-in-law began to work for us on the farm, making the need for farm helpers superfluous. We regretfully decided to withdraw from the farm helper scheme but continue to correspond with a number of the friends we have made from all over the world. Not only has it broadened our family's understanding of other cultures, it has also been a whole heap of fun.

