This is a guy I met called Richard – actually he brought me a beer, so how could I not like the guy. Well he was telling me about how a few years ago he had a conversation with a guy about how the cost of housing was about to go up and that he really should get into the market while it was hot. So he ended up getting into business with this guy and investing in loads of houses in Auckland. Apparently it all went pretty well because now he’s sitting pretty, in fact he’s just come back from a few months in the US (San Fran and LA) where he was hanging out going to parties and enjoying himself. So what’s he doing in Christchurch? I’m pretty sure he comes from here so it must be home to him. Hopefully he’ll come back so that I can get more of the story, but it is a story that I’ve heard a few times.
Later that night I met a guy called Steven (don’t have a photo of him cos we were talking in the Arts Festival Club Bar) who had a different story. He had a well paid job and managed to save ten thousand dollars so he teamed up with a couple of friends and moved into a house in Auckland together. It seemed like a pretty good thing to do until he realised that one of the girls in the house was impossible to live with. She tried to make him stay on but he was determined to get out. In the meantime (this was 1997 apparently) the housing market slumped and so the place was worth less than what they paid for it, so he cut his losses and lost the ten grand but gained his freedom. The next year he got an even higher paid job and went to live in Europe with an expensive girlfriend and even more expensive habits. He now lives in Auckland again, just working in Christchurch for a couple of months, and he seemed a pretty happy guy too. PS he didn’t buy me a beer.
This is a not that came through my window. It says ‘You must be some kind of King, to get strangers on their knees’
I reckon this has gotta be the best title for a book ever thought of. So whoever wrote it, I hope you don’t mind me using this title, thanks for passing it through.
This little girl was one of a family full of red heads.
'nuf said
