Huxley Super 7

Tip Top real ice cream (a kiwi icon, but now owned by Fonterra)

Coca Cola (the long arm of multi nationals plasters our shops too)

Dairy (= corner shop)

Dairy Dale 2L milk $3.40 (a small stand against Fonterra, NZ's multinational dairy cooperative)

Just at the other end of the white fence.

A classic warm summer day and a local dairy serving ice cream in a cone conjours up memories of growing up in NZ. Many small dairies like this have closed through the years, their custom taken up by supermarkets open long hours and petrol stations diversifying into milk, bread, pies etc.

I like them. The loose lollies glass jars or a beneath the glass top counter are long gone. Health and safety saw to that. Jaffas, Gumballs, Aniseed balls, Smokers, Wine Gums and Sherbert you sucked up a straw from a paper bag.

I can just remember T-T2s, frozen flavoured ice on a stick - lemondade, raspberry etc. Popscicles replaced the name but the product remained the same. Fru jus with their small amount of real fruit juice. Topsies (vanilla ice cream covered with chocolate). Jelly Tips - like a Topsy but with frozen jelly on the tip. Eskimo pies - like a Topsy but without the stick. Ice cream slice - a rectangular slice of vanilla ice cream between 2 pink waffers.

Most dairies would stock hokey pokey ice cream, a flavour I believe remains our favourite.

This dairy is owned by a lovely man from main land China. His stock level is low but he gets by. He and many other small local shops like this helped distressed locals after our major earthquakes, giving people supplies they needed without payment.

Life is just a tad too busy and I'm fighting off a sore throat.

Yesterday's blip showing a strong family likeness.