Tiny town brings back happy memories

Eris Boyack is an electrician. She's also a builder, a carpenter, plumber and a carpet layer - but not in the way most would think.
"While my friends love roaming chemists and clothes shops, I love hardware stores - and I'm looking around with a 'miniature' eye."
The Katikati woman has been making 1:12 scale houses for 22 years and is to show them to the public once again this Christmas.
The hobby began when she was living in Auckland and nursing her son who was in a full leg cast for eight weeks. To pass the time, they made a house from four biscuit boxes.
"It was amazing," Eris said.
"I would say, 'Why don't we do the wallpapering?' or 'How about we make the stairs?' It kept him occupied and he was so proud of it, he just loved it."
Eris loved it too and soon joined the Auckland Miniatures Club. She still belongs and goes to club meetings.
Today, Eris does the joinery and the wiring, the painting and the paperhanging in her small houses and even makes upholstered furniture and fine bedding.
"The only things I don't make are the china and metalware - but I love making the furniture."
Eris has mastered the fine arts of making tiny wicker furniture and Queen Anne table legs. Her petit-point pieces make perfect little rugs, and on the computer she can reproduce minute, and accurate, labels for things like Bycroft biscuit tins and Birds custard powder. Fimo moulding clay comes in handy for a lot of things, from bottled peaches to fresh vegetables.
One of her favourite projects was Mr Davis' grocery store, a faithful reproduction of the shop at Frankton Junction near her childhood home. On the counter are brown paper bags with the names of her mother and the neighbour on them, ready for delivery on Mr Davis' bicycle which waits outside.
The shop shelves are lined with tins (dowel) and bottles (Christmas lights) and dozens of other items, all as she remembers them.
She insists they are not dolls' houses but miniature homes with everything made and fitted for a normal home - even down to cobwebs - and calls her collection 'Miniature Magic'.
Her perfectly to scale recreations of houses, a school, a shop, even a gnome home, are for admiring, not play, she says.
Her favourite era of building is the Victorian-colonial period.
"A lot of people can relate to that. People always say 'Oh Grandma had one of those' and know of someone with a certain item."
She spends hours working on the houses. "You do have to have patience and sometimes if I can't make something, I have to walk away and come back later."
Ideas for the houses come out of her head. "It's an addiction," she admits.
Eris has not opened her display to the public for two years, so there will be some new additions - but mainly she wants to provide an attraction to tourists who may be at a loose end.
"I'll be at home over the Christmas and New Year period so I thought I'd provide something for people who want to spend a few hours in Katikati," she said.
"Maybe there will be some grannies with grandchildren who would to like to come to have a look."
Miniature Magic is on display at 37 Levley Lane, Katikati, from Christmas Day (December 25) to January 4. Open daily from 10am-4pm, entry a gold coin donation. For more information phone (07) 549 4575.