Thoughts by Penny Ashton
Hello to the ConArtists massive reading out there in our beautiful country.
It’s a stunning day in Auckland, the sun is shining and after returning from a mini-tour of the South Island I have to tell you life seems pretty sweet living in Aotearoa.
As well as improvising my way to better health I have an alter ego comedienne who travels NZ and the world spreading Hot Pink Laughs wherever she goes. The lucky recipients of my Pink Bits in the past few weeks were the bustling metropolises of Dunedin, Wanaka and ……… Gore.
That’s right Gore.
Now many out there at the mere mention of this diminutive southland town, screw up their nose, dig up some jokes about gumboots and wool and prepare to make baaa-ing noises. When I told one friend the wool dress I was wearing had been purchased in H&J Smith fine Department Store of Gore she replied: “Well I bet it’s not virgin wool then.”
Yes well.
I am here to defend them however. Though I cannot be 100% sure of their nocturnal paddock manoeuvrings I only encountered lovely welcoming people who happily forked over the cash to see me and then many bought fridge magnets with my breasts on them too.
So you see, they are very very clever people indeed.
Gore itself also has a lot of pretty countryside surrounding it and of course has an enormous fish statue, which is obviously awesome. (They also have a statue of a sheep, but I shall abstain from commenting on the significance of that.) They have free entry into the East Southland Art Gallery which maybe surprisingly was very cool and stacked full of Hoteres, Rita Anguses and giant Mali-an statues that Madonna wants to adopt AND if you’re a fan of country music, well it’s bloody near Mecca.
There was one very surly po-faced ladybeast in the local bar, but she still provided me with a cold one so can’t be all that bad.
So there, I’ll not have a bad word said against Gore again. My Wanaka shows went off like a bride’s nightie as well in the groovey Cinema Paradiso and Dunedin followed up the rear.
The best part of all the meanderings was I also got a chance to be a tourist in my own country. So I visited the Catlins and hung out with a sea-lion outside my bach and spotted three hoi-ho penguins, I climbed the tower in Larnach Castle, I wandered Oamaru’s historical district annoying the locals by saying how nice OR-ARM-A-RU was, I walked around Lake Wanaka looking at my future houses when I win Lotto, I drove past the little houses at Aramoana and got the chills, I drove through Timaru ASAP AND I told everyone wherever I went that I lived in Auckland, and they all said how lovely that must be for me.
Sure they did.
Next stop is The Comedy Festival here in Auckland with our lovely Austen Found and Sex, Lies and Improvise shows.
Be there or be in Timaru.
PS to purchase said fridge magnets visit www.hotpink.co.nz!
Penny Ashton is a MC and Actor with ConArtists