Crafty skills have been passed down for generations, writes Rob Rattenbury. Photo / Getty Images
I have always admired people who are clever with their hands.
I can wield a paintbrush, a hammer and a socket wrench with the best of them but only because I need to at times.
There is no real pleasure or great talent involved; just doing jobs that cannot be ignored.
I am of a generation who can actually master DIY stuff reasonably well albeit with no real passion.
Thankfully many truly talented and skilled people are not like me or the world would be a less beautiful place.
I have a crafty wife. She has been crafty since we were teenagers and she spends most of her days being crafty or associating with other crafty women in groups, in person or on social media.
She is always being crafty.
Even when we go on holiday, especially if it involves a road trip, the opportunity to be crafty is overwhelming to she who sits in the passenger seat with the map and the little book of crafty places.
Crafty women have secret cells that they must attend all around New Zealand and even the world.
The purposes of these cells of activity, or shops to us, are to meet other crafty women to discuss crafty activities.
These discussions can take many hours out of a day.
My role as the husband of my crafty woman is to sit in the car outside the cell, usually accompanied by other men sitting alone in their cars, reading books or newspapers or playing on their phones.
We are happy to sit for hours while our treasures hold important meetings and discuss important matters of being crafty.
We may wave in a manly way to each other, each understanding our importance in these missions but we rarely communicate.
Husbands of crafty women tend to be lone beasts. We have become used to our own company, a bit like bull elephants, necessary but only for certain tasks such as driving and agreeing.
My wife's days are replete with craft.
Our home has craft articles on the walls, shelves, on top of furniture, on the beds, in the grandchildren's toy box.
They are everywhere.
Most of my wife's friends are crafty women, even the owner of our local Lotto and book shop.
A quick trip to get magazines is a chance to show and tell.
Some years ago, while on a 3500km road trip around Victoria and New South Wales I sat outside Australian crafty cells in beautiful small country towns for hours in the heat, all the longer because the International Sisterhood of Crafty Women would be holding special transtasman meetings to discuss international crafty events and methods.
Again I was accompanied by the Australian version of the husband.
Again we were politely distant but mostly gazing forlornly at the nearby public bar knowing a beer was out of the question as we still had a few hundred kilometres left to travel before dark.
These women of craft use a version of English males may struggle with.
UFOs, when mentioned, used to make me look skyward in trepidation but then I was informed in that tone of voice used to instruct small children that UFO means Unfinished Objects.
Other terms such as WIP (Work In Progress), PHD (Projects Half Done) and "stash" are scattered with abandon by these crafty women when they meet each other.
It took me a while to realise that not all crafty women feel the need to wield whips or hold PHDs, that "stash" was not hash(ish) or cash, but their materials.
My wife did a degree but I do not remember her completing a PHD despite her evident cleverness.
In my extensive experience as the husband of a crafty woman I can expertly attest to the fact that crafty women are, by nature, clever, happy, very grounded and very skilled.
As a male making a rare entry into their club environment things can be a bit tricky.
It's daunting to face a room of women meeting with one thing in common and being disturbed by a mere male.
I am never sure what the reaction may be, hilarity at my awkwardness and obvious shyness or "the look".
I never stay long, usually long enough to drop off lunch and then out of there.
As a family we have all benefited from the skills of the crafty person, woollen clothing, children's clothing made on the home sewing machine, quilts everywhere, stuffed toys, paper art, all sorts of treasures.
My granddaughters are now enjoying the benefits of both their grandmothers being crafty.
They will never be cold or without nice things.
I hope these old arts do not fade away in our modern world of convenience.
The skills these women have are passed down the generations.
What was once a necessity of life is now an art form that simply makes our world better.
Nicola sought emergency housing but was told she was ineligible in Rotorua.
