In the money: Like shopping with the Queen

By MICHELE HEWITSON

At 9.30am on Wednesday Rosie Horton pulls up outside Zucchero Cafe on Parnell Rd in her nifty blue VW Golf shopping cart. Like magic, a parking space materialises. Always does.

She always comes to Zucchero. Every morning. No money changes hands. There is an arrangement.

It is like going for coffee with the Queen. Although, it must be said, the Queen does not dress so nicely for a day out at the shops.

Horton is wearing an electric-blue pants suit from Saks with a jacket with bands of tasteful lurex. And a matching scarf (she lives in fear of doing an Isadora Duncan), Italian shoes with little black bows and heels she calls "granny heels".

Zucchero is one of Horton's offices away from home. Her other office is designer Adrienne Winkelmann's store in town, where she pops in for coffee and sits around selling tickets for this charity cause or that, "until I'm kicked out".

She stores her tickets in her Louis Vuitton bag, which she treats, over a day's shopping, like a sort of wayward child who belongs to somebody else and who she has agreed to keep half an eye on.

She leaves it, wide open, on tables while she wanders away from tables and on shop counters while she wanders around shops.

First stop on a shopping trip with Rosie Horton is Zenophile in Remmers, her local shopping centre.

She needs to pick up an engagement present for a friend's daughter. The daughter has put aside three things she fancies because Horton has "more traditional taste. It's hard to choose for young people."

She rejects the glass vases as lovely but too heavy to take back to London where the engaged couple will live. She is a practical sort of shopper.

The young woman has picked out a lacquered vase. Horton takes two: one in silver leaf, the other in gold. A snip at $59 each.

The owner wanders in. He says to me: "Can I help you?"

"I'm with Rosie."

He says to Rosie: "Thank you for coming into the shop."

She says: "Oh, well. The shop's looking lovely."

He says: "Well, we try."

Across the road to the toy shop. The grandchildren have broken a doll she had as a child. She'd like to get it fixed. She trails across the road, scarf trailing far behind. It's her road; traffic slows to let her go by.

Then off to Mt Eden Rd, to Absorba French Childrenswear. She's picking up a little set of jumper and cords for a grandchild. Made in France, on sale for $86. She is quite excited about this shopping. "I can't be left in a babies' shop. This is where the grannies come."



She won't tell me how much she spends on clothes a season. Or how much she spent on a recent trip to Italy. "That wouldn't be politic." She did buy, oh, four or five pairs of shoes. She tells me she gets an allowance. This may be a joke. She does deadpan terribly well.

A quick stop at the alteration shop in Parnell. A little black velvet skirt needs its elastic replaced. She wore it last week and it kept falling down. She had to stand around with her hand on her stomach. "It looked like I had a stomach ache."

Downstairs to Muse: "Are you all on sale?" Horton can peruse, and reject, a sale rack in seconds.

Over to Cavit & Co, to pick up a "towel rail thingy", pre-ordered for the beach house at Whitianga.

"I was just going to send out a little invoice," says the saleswoman.

"I've just had a little invoice," says Horton.

She shows me Tribeca, where she'll be having lunch at 1pm. "Divine-O," she says. This is how she speaks Italian. She says it drives her husband, Michael, mad. He is rather good at speaking Italian.

"Now, do you want me to buy something? Shall I buy a jumper?"

I have nagged her into this: "You need a jumper."

She laughs immoderately. "Oh, yes, I really need a jumper."

So, back to Parnell, where, again like magic, a parking space appears outside the Tolaga Bay Cashmere Company. A sale is on. "I just want something to keep at the beach. What goes with brown?"

Horton's cashmere collection is committed to memory. She seems to already own half the shop. Offerings are swiftly rejected: "No, I don't like that colour. No, I don't like that colour, either."

She picks up a carmine jumper. The price tag is $535. "Oh, is that the usual price? I'm not paying that."

She settles for a pale yellow cardigan to go over the pale yellow V-neck she already owns. The sale price is $195.

She puts this on and trots out into the street wearing it - to retrieve the bag, which this time has been left in the car.

"I think," says Horton after writing one of her cheques for which nobody ever seeks ID, "we need to get another coffee. This is traumatic."

Coffee. Chat. It's half past 12 and she needs to be at Divine-O at one.

A quick stop at the Victoria Ave Fruit Supply. She has an interesting way of shopping for fruit and vege. She takes handfuls to the counter.

Most people, I tell her, put the fruit in things called plastic bags before taking them to the counter. "Oh, do they darling?" she says, looking amazed.

I hold a bag open for her to show her how it's done.

"Oh, good. A bag-holder. I've never had one before."

You can just tell this little lesson isn't going to take, so I don't bother to tell her off for her casual treatment of the Louis Vuitton number. But I really do think somebody should buy her a bag-holder for Christmas.