I’m here right now, and it’s pretty nice, I have to say.
Balmy evenings, endless, benign sunshine (no ozone hole), Marina’s new album blasting on my speaker on the banks of the Danube, Aperol spritzes till I’m sick of the fake-orange sight of ’em.
And even so – must be a grass-is-always-greener kind of thing – I’d rather be in Napier.
I can’t help it: I have this thing about that little city. It’s a love affair, and I’m still in the honeymoon phase.
I grew up in Havelock North, and Napier being “my” town still feels new.
I can’t get enough of her; she drives me crazy; I can’t get her out of my head.
The stunning Napier Hill from Westshore Beach. Photo / Daisy Coles
Even sitting here on a terrace dotted with geraniums and oleanders, with a tiny bitter coffee on a red-checked table cloth beside me, sweating in a caftan and gold sandals, I miss the hell out of her.
And so, I daydream. And I’m indulging my obsession, imagining my perfect Napier day.
I close my eyes, tune out the Hungarians around me discussing the football and their doomed politics, and I’m there ...
I drive in to town early, and my first stop is Uncle, where I chat to Ryan about school because our kids are in the same class, and he makes me a perfect little flat white.
I take it with me as I drive through Ahuriri – hello, sleepy little village – and over the hill on Shakespeare Rd, where I’m lucky enough to find a free park on the town side (this is a daydream, remember).
I walk down through the old telephone exchange and past the cathedral. Everything in this wee quarter seems somehow too big for its boots, in the most endearing way (“You call it a ‘cathedral‘? Really?" the Europeans would laugh).
I dump my stuff at my desk. But this is my dream – I’m not going to work today. I just wanted to say hi to the Folkl team and the gang of likeminded souls who share their co-working space. I pat Juno, listen to Henry rant about one social issue with a hot take that’s impossible to argue with, stay to the end of one of Will’s carefully selected tracks, and I’m off.
I go to Georgia, and Ella yells out my name before I’m even through the door.
Benny makes me an even more perfect little flat white. It’s a heart, its borders ever-expanding, and it seems to me to be a picture of my own heart, ever-expanding too, from this point in Tennyson Street at the centre to Waipātiki Beach at the edges.
Benny’s wearing his red beanie, so I know it’s going to be a good day.
I sit in the sun with my coffee. Mark Sweet, the best writer I ever worked with, is here, so I have to stay until he’s definitively set the world to rights for me plus given me some advice on how to organise my love life.
Then I’m off down Tennyson St towards Wardini. I like the traffic lights at this intersection because while you wait, you can cast a surreptitious glance into Tennyson Gallery to see what Lizzie is wearing today, and it’s always amazing.
Whatever colour it is, it somehow always goes with her hair, her lipstick and her shoes. God, she’s fabulous.
Daisy Coles might live in Hungary at present, but she yearns for Napier's delights.
In the bookshop, I spend some luxurious time browsing, after I’ve done the obligatory rifling-through of books that I know have my name in them (“Thank you to my editor ... “).
Not only can Ro tell me the plot of every single book I’m interested in, she also gives a pithy, reliable summary of each one, because she’s some sort of walking, talking book wiki with crazy shoes and a cute dog. I buy the latest Catherine Chidgey.
I head to the library next, where I check out the second-latest Catherine Chidgey and three semi-current Vogues.
Libraries are the best. (Napier deserves better than this pokey, temporary one, but it’s charming all the same, with its Narnia feel of walking from one wardrobe into the next and its reliable cast of friendly librarians. There’s even a hot one – the mark of a good library is a hot librarian, right?)
Back down the road to my favourite block again; I pop into Chantal.
Because this is my dream, all the organic produce I like best is in season and luscious; I buy heirloom tomatoes and those glorious Japanese grapes and as many blueberries as I can carry.
I continue on to Vinci’s for lunch because where else would I go?
The special is somehow always delicious even though it’s an insane combination of foods.
It’s, like, venison sausage, roasted kūmara puree, watercress pesto, crushed-up Hands Down tortillas and Japanese mayo with Vinci’s famous hot honey. (I’m making this up. But it could work?) Always get the special.
Everyone who works here is 57 times cooler than me and the miracle of it is that, unlike the cool folks in a place like Wellington, or Budapest, they’re nice.
Vinci’s is ingeniously designed so that one slice isn’t quite enough, but instead of buying a second I dip back through Chantal and into Hāpi, where I get the berry version of those raw cheesecake slices that used to have a gluey-mouth feel but seem to have had their recipe refined recently, so that they’re now perfect: like something the fairies would stir up together on a girls’ night in.
On Hastings Street, as I head back towards Shakespeare Rd for my car, I spot Freeman White, art god of Havelock North High School in the nineties, who has somehow since become even more famous.
I act like he remembers who I am and say a warm hello; he’s polite enough to nod and smile back.
It’s time to indulge in my favourite Napier hobby (after café-hopping).
The joys of op-shopping in Westshore.
I hit the Carlyle Street op-shop strip first. In Vinnies, my man gives me a huge smile (he once told me I look like Leona Lewis; I love him).
In the Sallies, my favourite lady is working too. A while back, she sold me a pair of cowboy boots that had an $80 price tag on them for $30.
Perhaps I looked like a down-and-out? But I prefer to believe it’s because she recognised in me the rightful, predestined owner of those boots.
My favourite op shops for true vintage dresses and fill-a-bag deals are Knox Church and Westshore respectively, and the atmosphere in those two is superior and just how an op shop should be.
Dusty and dim, with the smell of Yardley in the air, the radio tuned to Magic but quietly enough that you can hear every word of the op-shop ladies’ chat.
Dee and Karen at Westshore know me by name because they were teacher aides in my kids’ classes, and they’ve always got personal recommendations for me.
I’m full of good food, good coffee and good cheer, and my car is full of books, organic produce and op-shop treasure.
It’s time to head home to the sleepy, green Waipātiki Valley. This has been such a perfect day, and I’m glad I spent it with you, as Lou Reed would say.
We can say we spent it together, because it exists only in my head and on your screen: our collective imagination.
But you, reader, are lucky, lucky, lucky: because you’re there, you have the luxury of walking these paths, going to these places, talking to these precious, lovely Napier characters in your real life. Go! Now! Say hi to them for me! And I’ll see them, and you, in the spring – I’m counting down the days already.
