My Quest for Cheryl's House!!!

I made it my mission, on those long sad Sick Household Days, that if I did nothing else in Auckland this holiday, I was going to find the house they use as Cheryl West's family home in the long-running Kiwi TV series "Outrageous Fortune".

This is a fabulous series, by the way, and Keith's weekly bit of nostalgia here in Hong Kong, where they, unfathomably, show it on television, and which has apparently developed a bit of a cult following, despite being definitely enough to turn anyone off ever visiting NZ because it's all about a gangster family where the mother, Cheryl, decides she's putting her foot down and the entire extended family is finally going straight and it's hard, hard work indeed, the poor honey, because no one else has any sort of moral compass.

It's supposed to be a drama but it's actually very, very funny and it's definitely been charming me for years.

Anyway, we've guessed from the constant references to 'Westies' and Henderson that the series had to be set somewhere around Keith's suburb, and from occasional shots of the view towards the harbour we decided that Cheryl's house had to be somewhere very close to John's place.

Thus this Quest, which really was, if I'm being honest, just an excuse for going out for long, long walks when I felt I couldn't stand another moment of endless sitting.  And also a test for my memory since I hadn't a single picture for reference to help me along.

If you don't know what the house looks like ... and if you don't watch the series you won't ... so check it out in this trailer for the final episode:



And did I find the house?

Since a picture paints a thousand words ...

Ta dah!

... can I ace a quest or wot?

And yes, it is just up the road and round the corner from John's place ... and no, the neighbourhood definitely isn't the Sodom and Gomorrah that this TV series makes it out to be. In fact, it's a very nice neighbourhood and that's for definite because I think I must have walked every inch of it.

So it just goes to show that you shouldn't believe everything you see on TV!  I mean, Cheryl doesn't really even live here ... although I didn't actually go up and knock on the door so who knows!