In the Strath Taieri Historical Society’s museum in Middlemarch at 12.45pm precisely…

– a piercing, high-pitched shriek escaped the red painted lips of Mandy McGuire. Connecting with the roof, it exploded as if duck down from a burst pillow fight.

Bouncing from the photo-laden walls, past the dated 1895-calendar swinging off the hook in the display kitchen…

…to slide along the selectively laden glass-topped display cases…

…to take a spin in the ancient of Ancient’s washing machine,

…where it waited for the inevitable, “No, No, please! Not the murder house!” (A loose, although popular, term, once used by pupils to describe the school dental clinic.)

To get to the middle room, smart thinking Mandy had managed to weasel her way past her companions, who, in the museum foyer, spell bound, pored over their individual fascinating finds.

Such as the 1943 Hyde Rail disaster. How there had been a working ski field on the nearby Rock and Pillar mountain range. Reading “in depth” about Platypus, the most famous gold-mining inland submarine–ever! A-n-d it was directly outside, beside the workable smithy–mind food for those, who are past it.

Meanwhile, Mandy, now over the initial shock, straightened her skirt, to which she has clung so dramatically, to move on from the school dental display, and the black pedal-powered drill that initiated her reaction.

Plunket babies, memories of the Strath Taieri Highland Pipe Band, metal toy soldiers, a shanghai, memories of wartime…

…and the Salvation Army Girls’ Home turned into a maternity hospital, now erased from sight, mysteriously burnt to the ground.

The square box-like vacuum cleaner had Mandy ‘sticking with the broom, thank you!’

Wearing hats, as they did, delivered a crushing blow to the hair. Thus, these ‘hair-raising,’ heated hair curlers! – Well….Gosh, there is still the barn…

…In the corner an ugly dog trap turned her head to the “Pheasants Liberated Here” sign…all this gear!

Through an outside door a helpful museum attendant implemented a secret ‘museum only’ method for opening the sliding door to the cracker, totally refurbished railway boxcar. Tablet–machines included–with yet another railway wagon awaiting its new ‘do-up,’ in defence against the old rot.

Museum members here need not fish for compliments. They already boast a 9.4kg trout caught locally and now decorating a wall at the museum…

…just along from where a true Otago skink permanently keeps watch from its mini schist outcrop.

A vocal youngster demands, “M-u-u-m, where is the old fossil you were talking about?”

To quote a woman from Hamilton who, just off the Otago Central Rail Trail, writes in the visitor’s book: “Staggering! So glad to see it.”

We will be glad to see you, too.