So, with all this wet weather and after seeing girls wearing gumboots in New York, I’ve been wearing mine around Wellington a bit lately. On the outside of my jeans. I get lots of curious looks, and comments from people in clothing stores. I can tell people think it’s odd to be wearing gumboots in the city – until they realise it’s wet and rainy and actually quite sensible.

I guess the fact that they’re bright orange draws attention.

Which leads me to this story.

Our Short Dark Friend now works for a Big Bank on the main street. In a big glass tower. However it came about, she and her work mates were discussing strange things, or strange clothes or something …

Boy who sits next to her: “Speaking of strange … I was looking out the window down to the street yesterday lunchtime and I saw this chick walking along in bright orange gumboots.”

Short Dark Friend quizzed him: “Really? What did she look like?”

Boy: “I don’t know, couldn’t see from this height. The boots were really orange and I think she had on an orange hat as well.”

Short Dark Friend taps away on her keyboard and goes to my blog, finds a picture of me in my gumboots somewhere: “Do you think this was her?”

Boy: “Ommigod yes I think so, do you know her?”

So she makes a phone call on the spot to me: “Hi, were you walking down Lambton Quay in your gumboots on Tuesday lunchtime?” Yep, mystery solved. And now someone else in the world things I’m strange and orange!!

Another happy customer! Donna was complaining of cold hands and arms when working and said she needed some long gloves – so I offered up hand crafted arm warmers. She was very excited – especially when they could be tailor made in her company colours!

Now onto some for my Short Dark Friend … have started and unpicked twice. She’s not so keen on the ribbing but stocking stitch just curls up … she’s given in so attempt number 3 begins tonight!

Mojo Bond Street might be missing their mojo … not that I go there much, in fact only twice since they opened perhaps a year ago. When my parents were here they wanted to go out to lunch, for me to take them to some ‘trendy city cafe’ but not somewhere with ‘great big meals, just counter food or muffins’. The weather was dreadful, were in that part of town, so I chose there. I mean what do I know about going out to lunch? As I tried to explain to Mother, lunch time for me is a homemade sandwich in one hand while typing or scrolling with the other. I don’t even have to leave my chair, let alone go out!

Anyway, I need to report that the food was GOOD. I had avocado and tomato on toast, which was just that, no extra fluff or ingredients. Father had a lamb and kumara pie and Mother had a cream cheese spread on toast. All very tasty. However, after it took them 20 minutes to ‘be back with some water’ and much fuss at the next table over a wrong order and some finger snapping from the table on the other side of us when they had to wait more than 10 minutes for their coffees, I began to wonder what our experience would be. Well, my toast came out first, and I’d almost finished it before the other 2 dishes came out. Black mark. They remembered that Father didn’t want his coffee until the meals were served, that was good, but ‘I’ll just get it made for you now’ turned out to be a complete no-show. We decided to leave before it arrived and I’d watched many many coffees ordered after Father’s, being made and delivered so I knew they’d forgotten it. The guy seemed most put out when we said we didn’t want to wait for it and made a fuss that he was just doing it … whatever, the machine had no cups and no orders up and no coffee partway through being made.

So nice food, but haphazard service.