Neighbours

Over the road is a little standalone white and faded-blue caravan. It’s practically hidden behind a leafy wall of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, herbs, and melons all grown in pots and buckets and lovingly tended by a lady, Patricia. Her second domain is the communal kitchen, which sits in a block next to her site. Almost every day she’s got something going; soup bubbles on the stove, bread browns to perfection in the oven, jars are sterilised for preserves, chutneys and pickles or the sounds of chopping and a blender echo out into the yard. As Patricia explains it, she’s a descendant of French-Canadians, and cooks for therapy, to relax and recover from 40-odd stressful years of working as a nurse in NY city hospitals. Everyone knows she’ll magically transform any bit of food into a meal, so before they leave for home they’ll drop off their eggs, potatoes, lettuce, un-carved watermelons, and let her create something delicious. All that she creates is passed around and shared with her neighbours, we’ve had coleslaw, country vegetable soup, avocado ice cream, banana cake and, last night, spicy beef and potato pie. She made it for us to celebrate my new job.

Next door are Ron and Liz, an older couple that periodically gets run off their feet by herds of grandkids. Both are always ready to offer a kind word of support or ask an interested question, and make us feel like we’re looked after. On the other side of their site live Paul and his 11 year old daughter, Alex. Under his bandana Paul’s got a shaved head. His arms are freckled with homemade tattoos and he sports a nose ring, and this is the generous guy who brought over our beloved beach chairs and table. When we first arrived Alex ran around with all of the other kids, but most of them have returned to their winter homes, and left her with only one playmate, Tioriori, a scrappy and silly Maori. Alex and “T” ride around on their bikes, make fun of each other, and come over to our site to be entertained. One night Chris had them run a race, and then he had to come up with about two dozen variations and pull out his stopwatch to keep them happy. The next day we ran into Alex and her dad at the supermarket, “can we please do more races tonight?” she asked, as if it were difficult for Chris and I to sit on our chairs and send them dashing off. Soon he made them wriggle under picnic tables, climb over trees, do push ups and star-jumps and sprint hither and yon in between. Snaking through the campgrounds are little gravel paths and roads, but even these feet-killers don’t slow the kids down. Alex navigates over them, skips the worst bits and leaps and stretches for the spits of grass. Tioriori in no way changes his stride, his little piston legs continue unabated and clouds of dust and gravel puff up under his barefeet.