Hobnobbing with the local gentry

This is a little behind the times because the internet it very bad at the moment.

Saturday night saw the Monahans hobnobbing with the local gentry at their annual shed party.

Don't let the words gentry and shed fool you into any judgements. Firstly the 'shed' usually housed a combine harvester with plenty of room for a spare jumbo jet. It was huge and in it was a bouncy castle, a gladiators style pugel sticks thingy (any one remember Gladiators? The one where you and your opponent climbed up on opposing podiums and then knocked seven shades of something out of each other with big sticks until one of you falls off?), a barbecue and a bathtub bar (basically a bathtub filled with ice that the guests dumped their beer in and everybody helped themselves). Add to this loads of the locals, hordes of screaming kids and the odd bit of runaway livestock then that about does the ambience.

New Zelanders do not do gentry, you really can't tell who owns stuff and who works stuff. There was roughly half the GDP of the south island in that shed and you wouldn't know it. Most had just stepped out of their blue overalls or changed out of the kiwi farmer uniform of boots, thick woollen socks, very short 1980's nylon shorts and t-shirt/vest (fleece jacket if its chilly). We are trying to get a photo of the iconic kiwi farmer but are afraid of the subject taking offence...

Anyway, the entertainment was fairly familiar to us by now: music, beer, lots of beeer, more beeeeer. Drink lots more and then some more, and then all pile into the truck with the designated driver – you could tell who they were because they could still stand, sort of, and walk uprightish – and drive home. We decided as it was a lovely evening, to cycle the few miles and decided to leave on our bikes before everyone else got in the trucks. Safest all round we thought.

Jack was elsewhere at a 16th birthday party in town. So Jenn had to remain sober and drive into town at midnight to collect him, her little hands gripping the wheel in sheer terror waiting for a drunken kiwi farmer in a truck to drive over the top of them or into the side of them or some other horrific accident. Thankfully they made it all the way out to town and back home again safely.

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