Matilda, Pretrina And The Neighbourhood Party

  Matilda, Petrina, And The Neighbourhood Party

It was April the 14th 2020 and it had been announced  on one of the social media sites that they were suggesting ways to enjoy having some time with your neighbours, in Lockdown time. Of course there were some ways which made it quite apparent to everyone. Matilda really liked her neighbour Pretrina and decided to talk to her about the neighbourhood party. The theme was that everyone took a chair and put it by their letterbox and with a bottle of their favourite wine and some nibbles and, having a glass of wine while having the time to chat with each other.  Matilda went to talk to her friend Pretrina in her front yard. She decided she was going to talk to her at her Letterbox, while still keeping the 6 feet distance away, which was a great way to socialize in this time of Lockdown. Hi Pretrina how’s things going? Said Matilda, Okay Matilda, how’s things with you said Pretrina 

All good said Matilda, a bit quiet, but okay though. How’s your garden going then, I see your passionfruit has been growing. Did you get a good crop this year? Said Matilda. It has been a good year for my passionfruit, this year said Pretrina. Oh good said Matilda, the reason I am asking is that I belong to a page on Facebook and one of the Ladies was talking about making passion-fruit wine which she had made and stored away for a special occasion. You could most probably look online and google a passion-fruit wine recipe. Pretrina replied that sounds like a good idea Matilda, I might try that out. How’s your garden coming along? Well I harvested my first spring onions, a couple of weeks ago and now I have harvested the second lot from the first lot of bulbs, and I am so pleased with them. How did your spring onions do? Said Matilda. Your Garden always looks nice Pretrina, you do really well. I need to make sure I do a good job tending to my Garden as well. Starting off has been really hard for me especially when I haven’t had the proper tools to start it off, but now I have some small tools which I got on sale at Mitre 10 a couple of months ago. And was able to have some idea about what to grow from seed to plant. Then Matilda asked Pretrina, had she heard about the neighbourly get together in the street. Pretrina had admitted she was thinking about joining in. Matilda then said I will if you do, Okay then said Pretrina ring me Thursday Afternoon and we can plan our get together then.

Matilda and Pretrina’s Street was a long street and Matilda actually loved her street as it had a lot of hussle and bussle going on, there were a lot of private houses and most of the neighbours worked. 

In the 20 years that Matilda had stayed in her suburb she had got to know a lot of history about her street and her suburb Elsdon, there was always some excitement in her street. The street name itself was genuine Kotuku, in English the meaning was  White Heron, which was the name of a bird. 

It was early Thursday Morning and Matilda got up and did her usual schedule, Lemon drink with a tsp of rewarewa honey and  hot water. She really looked forward to her drink in the morning which was a good pick me up. Matilda decided to change her schedule for the day as it was going to be a good day and her expectations were high. She rang Pretrina and spoke to her, Hey Pretrina is it on for later on in the day. Umm well I’m not sure really I am a bit nervous about the whole thing. That’s alright then Pretrina. I don’t want you to feel like you are obligated. Oh Matilda what makes you think that. I will be at my letter box at 6:30 pm. Sounds good Pretrina see you then bye. Matilda got back to her usual schedule for the Morning and then after Lunch decided to get herself prepared for the Lockdown neighbourhood Party. She looked at some clothes she had stored away in the closet and also some dresses that she had on hangers in the closet. decisions , decisions she thought to herself she had some real nice clothing and to pick from them was sometimes a difficult task. She decided to wear a white lace top with a long black skirt and a pink jacket with black socks and flat pointy shoes. It was 2:30pm. She put on some relaxing music to help her to slow down her momentum and afterwards  put on a song called raspberry beret. Her jacket was sort of raspberry and she had a raspberry beret  she would wear too. Matilda started to dance around the house, she loved the Freedom to enjoy her little bubble at the time. She thought of where she was 10 years ago and thought how she had been through a rough patch to get to where she was now she felt Happy at that moment of time. Most of the time Matilda was a quiet person with not much to say, but kept herself busy. Well she was sure to have some Fun because as far as Matilda thought life was Fun. She decided to get some dark chocolate and a bottle of red wine. She put her wine glass in a special bag she had made for such occasions, Matilda walked to the dairy. Hi, how are you said Matilda to the shopkeeper. I’m fine. Matilda thought to buy some Chocolate Roses, have you got any Chocolate roses, yes here we have. Okay I’ll get some in a moment, I want to go and look at the wine, have you got any red wine? Yes in the freezer, okay thank you said Matilda. Matilda went and looked at the freezer. It was one of those walk in freezers which was cold to walk into. Matilda looked around for the bottle of wine she wanted and found a nice merlot wine. Walked out of the freezer and paid for the wine and box of chocolate roses. Thank you, Matilda said to the shopkeeper, And went to walk to the Letterbox. She arrived to see Pretrina’s  son leaving in his car. Hi Matilda said smiling and waving her hand. Trent smiled and raised his eyebrows in a hello way. How's things going with you? He smiled again and left. Matilda went in the driveway and shouted out Pretrina’s name, there was no answer she called out again. Still no answer she didn’t feel right about going up the stairs to the Front door because of the Covid 19 virus. She shrugged her shoulders and turned around and left. Matilda got home and then started to worry about Pretrina. I hope Pretrina’s alright, she would look her up another time. She didn’t know what she might do. Well I will just open up my bottle of wine and have a couple of glasses and eat my chocolate roses all to myself she thought. And that is exactly what she did and danced the rest of the night away by herself till she went to bed and  fell asleep around 1 am in the morning. 

By Writehand .