Christmas in Alexandra and side trips to Arrowtown

I don’t really do anything on Christmas eve day or the big day itself. I wander the streets of Alexandra to get things to cook for Christmas and to poke my nose in any door that looks interesting. Top of that list is Wanderlust Books. It looks like what a used bookstore should look like - a certain amount of organisation giving way to the chaos of having too many books. There’s a big fiction collection downstairs - I am so close to buying the Norton Anthology of American Literature. The only reason I don’t is that, quite naturally, it can only have extracts. I’m amused when a local comes in checking on fresh titles for (I’m assuming) her husband on the two titles he’s interested in: tractors and fine art.

Of course, cafés feature - I go to the Tin Goose and the Courthouse, both old favourites. The former isn’t all that photogenic, but the latter definitely is.

Not sure if I have shared these, but they are the food cabinets at Industry Lane, which is where I start the day. Very photogenic.

For dinner, with all the café visits, I’m not feeling very hungry, just want a snack - a couple of tacos and some chicken wings at Amigos are the perfect size.

Christmas day, I don’t leave camp - although I’m thinking I might need to as rain is predicted and my only means of cooking is a barbecue. I read, listen to music, even do a little writing (I receive an email from my publisher on the Monday before Christmas). A wee fellow, aged about 4, from the next door caravan pops in every so often to chat until he is retrieved by his mum. Later in the afternoon, they bring me a plate of pavlova and other pudding-related treats. Talking to others, I find out that many people come to booked spots in this camp year after year.

The weather clears up sufficiently to let me get the barbecue out - it’s a pretty basic meal of chicken and spuds roasted on the barbecue and veg cooked in the camp kitchen. Ignore the burnt ends!

Over the next two days, I take two drives to Arrowtown - if I had done just a little bit of research I could have just gone once. I really want to see a movie, and Dorothy Browns is a fabulous boutique cinema in Arrowtown which just happens to be showing a movie I want to see: All We Imagine As Light. It’s the first night, and it is rated 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, yet no one else is there to watch the movie. It follows three characters who work together in a Mumbai hospital. Nurse Anu just wants to spend time with her Muslim boyfriend. Nurse Prabha hasn't seen her husband for years - the movie starts with a rice cooker being delivered to her, presumably from him. She needs to move on but is stuck. Parvati, the hospital cook, is losing her home to redevelopment. They all head off to her village down the coast. It's a slow, tender movie with not much action but lovely. I think there's some magical realism near the end - they are all at Parvati's beautiful coastal village - which helps Prabha. I try to talk about the ending with the staff at the cinema but they haven’t seen it.

While in Arrowtown, I pop in to Slow Cuts for their version of roast spuds and chicken - it looks nicer, but the spuds aren’t exactly roasties.

Ayrburn is a foodie development established by Winton just outside Arrowtown - so planning ahead would have allowed me to come here before the movie. Instead, I come back a second time - I have my misgivings about Winton, and particularly its boss, but curiosity gets the better of me. Ayrburn has half a dozen restaurants with a residential development to come.

I pick the Bakehouse for lunch, figuring it would be the cheapest option - beer and pain au raisin anyone? I could have had even more chicken but I still have more to eat back at camp.

I am possibly wrong in my assumptions - after eating here, I walk around the other sites and find that the Manure Room has a nice looking menu with not unreasonable prices.

The Dairy is really just a stone shed with an array of ice creams - there’s a bit of a queue and prices are quite high so I don’t go in.

It is still only early afternoon, so I head to Queenstown. Internet in the camp is quite pricey and it’s free in the library - after a couple of hours there, I go looking for Nadia Lim’s new shop in Queenstown. It was a Raewards Fresh - I don’t see many changes to the line up and Nadia herself is, of course, not there. After a wander around town, I finally feel I have room for dinner, if it’s a light meal. Saigon Kingdom in Remarkables Park fits the bill, except that the lemongrass and chilli chicken dish is actually quite big.

I wash it down with a couple of Tigers, thinking to myself that in a blind tasting, I probably couldn’t distinguish it from a bunch of other lagers, yet I rate it a favourite. I think that might not be its flavour, so much as associations I have with Tiger beer - I have had many happy visits to Singapore and Malaysia, where it is the beer of choice.

I have some in the fridge, so I’ll wind this up here.

Cheers!