doledrums

Im not the only blogger to comment about the Lower Hutt suburb of Naenae of late. I was there the other day. I'd been in Naenae about twice before.

The two biggest buildings in Naenae are the Work and Income Office and the Naenae Hotel.The third biggest is probably the creche for teenage mums. The biggest pot hole in Naenae was in the the carpark outside the WINZ Office. It is probably even bigger than the biggest tinnie house, which can of course be regarded as a pot hole and the most frequently visited shopping centre.

Front lawns of houses are not for the kids to play, they are for the purposes of parking cars that need a warrant, registration and about three wheels.

Anyway, the frontage of the hotel is about a quarter of the length of Courtenay Place. It is huge. I went into the pub to do.. well... to go to the little boy's room actually. It was about 10:30am. When I walked in I noticed that there were more people in that pub than there were on the street. What was interesting was where all these people were.

They were all in one of the smallest rooms in the pub. No they weren't in the little boy's room, no they weren't in one of the bars. In fact nobody was in the bar - but the pool tables did look like they`d been used as change tables to change nappies.

Every one of these people were in the sole room that had at least 25 pokie machines. The machines were not just around the inner walls of the room as in most pubs, there was also a circle of machines in the centre of the room. There was standing room only. Those who were not in the pokie room were having a fag outside.

The day was.. you guessed it, pay day. The benefits arrive and life goes on.