"Ding dong, Avon calling.'' Not for much longer.
The jolly dinging and donging consequent of the Avon representative's finger on the doorbell will not be pealing across the neighbourhood past the end of the year.
I was sad to read the news that the door-to-door cosmetics company is closing down in New Zealand. It's been here for 55 years, but actually began in the United States in 1886 and has built up a strong reputation over that time.
When I was a kid in England, I remember the Avon lady always seemed to be at our place with her basket of amazing smelly soaps, creams, lotions and sprays. Later, when we moved to New Zealand, my mum became an Avon lady.
And I'll always recall the unfortunate incident of me sunbathing as an 18-year-old in the back garden with very little on, when our own Avon lady turned up with the latest order of soaps-on-a-rope.
We still have a bathroom cupboard full of Avon deodorants, given every Christmas to my three boys.
"Do you think Nana thinks I smell?'' one of them asked me.
It will be sad to see Avon go. But at least we have an emergency supply that should see us through to about 2056.
I'd love to hear from any retired Avon reps out there with stories of how it used to be.
The 'ODT' is everywhere
In that Wash snippet, Sylvia had just returned from a holiday in the UK, where Anna had shown her a photo of Penny, Anna's pen-friend, taken around 1945, and was wondering if anyone knew where Penny was.
Serendipitously, a cousin of Penny's in Dunedin recognised the photo of Penny, aged 16, in the ODT and got in touch with both Penny and Sylvia.
"I then arranged for Anna and Penny to `connect','' Sylvia says. "They were able to meet up in England last year.''
Penny takes up the story about the reunion photos: ``These were taken on September 14, 2017, at a seafront cafe on Southsea Beach (south of England), when we met for the first time after corresponding 60 years ago. We were pen-pals for a number of years but went our different ways in probably 1957 or 1958.
"It was so good to see her after all this time.''
Can't you just picture the rendezvous? A grey English afternoon, seagulls wheeling, whitecaps on the water. A warm cafe.
Such a lovely story. But it must have been very hard to say goodbye again after all those years.
Famous encounters
Margaret Bartlett, of Belleknowes, Dunedin, is the latest to share her brush with fame.
"Shortly after arriving in London in 1963 I had an evening out with an English friend, who took me to The Establishment club in Greek St (started by Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and friends). From memory, the club covered three floors with small cabaret-style entertainment areas.
"We were having a drink at the bar while waiting to go up to the second floor and started chatting to an Australian chap called Barry - pale face with long, lank, dark hair, who had just finished his act. Then on up to our booking, which was in a small intimate area with individual tables and a hilarious hour entertained by Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara (Ben Stiller's parents). We met and talked with them at our table later.
"It wasn't until a few years after when Dame Edna arrived on our screens that I realised who Barry [Humphries] was!''
I hope you planted some gladioli to commemorate the evening, Margaret?
Unusual sight
An ODT colleague reports the following rare vision.
"Seen in a local restaurant last night: a girl, about 10-12, sitting at a table, reading a book.
"Not a cellphone, not a computer game or any other piece of technology, an actual book, with printed pages - fiction, at that - and really engrossed in it.
"When did you last see the like? She got a big thumbs-up from our group of old grumps.''
Census forms
Thanks to Russell Jones, of Caversham, for this explanation of the census process.
He received his initial letter last Thursday, called the "very helpful'' staff at Census Central, quoted his six-digit code number and was told his forms would be in the mail in four to five days.
That seems pretty straightforward. But in terms of getting the most comprehensive information possible, I'm still concerned the onus seems to be on the recipient to follow up, not the data collectors.
- Paul Gorman whatswiththat@odt.co.nz