There was a big bad wolf in the garden. It was huffing and puffing and wanting to blow the house down. It was joined by a banshee who shrieked and wailed. They had quite the party. They smashed pots, shredded leaves, tore down branches, scattered debris about like confetti. The noise was tremendous.
It was the party you never wanted to be invited to – there were no sausage rolls. There wasn’t even anything to drink. We were outside, trying to tie up our favourite rose which grows up a pergola and had been blown down from its ties by the horrible wolf.
Greg was up the ladder, which teetered precariously because of the strength of the wind. The banshee shrieked and wailed. It was terrifying. We knew the power would go out. It often does. We had filled the bath and every available water container.
Greg took the car out of the garage, which has an electric door. He was due to go to his mother’s funeral in Auckland the next day. The power went out. It stayed out for the next three days.
We had a few days of reprieve. My mate Janet, who lives just around the bend, suggested a treat: morning tea at Brownbutter. It is a new cafe at the Masterton Golf Club and serves enormous pork and ginger sausage rolls, airy and delicate jammy doughnuts and light-as-air cheese-and-spring onion scones.
I went to the loo, which is accessed through the clubrooms, and landed in another time. There was the ladies’ room, with immaculate cubicles and hair dryers.
This is the club where Bob Charles, as a Wairarapa lad, emerged as a prodigy. There is a Bob Charles Lounge, with strict dress rules: no jandals, no jeans, no gumboots.
There are photos of him from the 1960s making heroic shots. And, most excitingly, an “early Bob Charles bag”, brown leather and battered, containing his clubs.
I interviewed Sir Bob on the 50th anniversary of his first New Zealand Open win, at Heretaunga, aged 18. He was then 67.
We met at a flashy Auckland golf club. He arrived on a golf buggy and waved, regally. I admitted I didn’t know a thing about golf. He waved that away, regally.
He was happy to tell me that when he travelled, which he did often, he carried an orange squeezer and his own muesli, and when he dined out, he took his own avocado. Did restaurateurs mind, I wondered? “Generally, they oblige,” he said.
Taking your own avocado to restaurants might have been regarded as a bit eccentric. “But I love avocados. And the nutritional value is there. You go into a restaurant and the nutritional value is not very high.”
He’s 89 now. It is impossible to know the link between longevity and avocados.
The nutritional value in a Brownbutter sausage roll might not be very high, but they were delicious. We scoffed ours and went out onto the golf course where Sir Bob did his early impressive golfing stuff. It is a very pretty golf course with mature trees and views of the Tararua Range. There were also views of golfers getting ready for a tournament.
There were chaps taking their golf trundlers for walkies. Or were the trundlers taking their chaps for walkies? The trundlers had remote controls. You can make them stop and start and turn right or left.
Could I have a go, I asked one golfer? I had a go and almost collided with a golf buggy. The owner of the remotely controlled trundler might have gone a bit pale.
His mate steered his trundler at us. There was a crash. Had he done it on purpose? “Maybe,” he said.
So, after the storm there were sausage rolls and a golf trundler demolition derby. We had got off lightly, unlike other parts of the country.
Greg came home and began loading the storm’s debris into his little John Deere ride-on’s trailer. He towed the branches into Apple Tree Paddock to chuck on the burn pile. The sheep galloped excitedly after the buggy. The nutritional value of leaves is very high.
