Saturday, September 3, 2011

Sometime suburban strolling







I love taking a stroll through the suburbs sometimes. As much as I love living right in the centre of Wellington, sometimes I feel like you only see people about their 9-5 lives. Empty souls inside shells of tailored suit jackets, trading social niceties while being battered about by the cold wind and unrelenting force of the liberal market.


I exaggerate. My poetic license is out of hand, yet again.


But in all seriousness, central city life can sometimes be a little too austere. What you rarely see are families, or people going about the very real, very everyday parts of their lives. Getting out into the suburbs (especially on a sunny day) shows you a New Zealand you will not often find on Courtenay Place. People smile at one another, or gossip over their garden fences. The elderly potter about the streets with walking sticks and family cats leap at neighbourhood fantails. There are markets, op-shops, and dodgy old pubs- all of which contribute to this wonderful sense of multi-cultural community. And Newtown, this quirky little suburb is quite possibly the most interesting of them all.