Close-ish encounters

I woke up the other morning to see that the rig had gone, no more pretty lights offshore apart from the usual cargo ships. Turns out it had just moved. Here it is in port where they have started on repairs.

Woohoo!!

Well... I'm excited even if no one else is. My Rugby tickets have arrived!

UFO?

Nope, floating drilling rig.

It sustained some damage in all our serious weather and has been anchored just off the coast while it is repaired. At night it's lit up like a christmas tree..

and during the day it looks more like this.

Be very nice to mother nature

Last week I spent slightly longer in Nelson for a library managers meeting than originally planned. Mother nature wasn't very nice to 5 of us, an electrical storm putting paid to us making our connections out of Wellington. So an extra night in Nelson it was. It did however mean a very nice meal and a very nice beer in a Macs pub where this kind of art is part of the branding. You just have to imagine the 'h' and that the photos line up, but you get the drift.

And this one was taken in Christurch a couple of years ago now. Obviously the Macs view of life appeals.

Farewellings

My boss (now ex-boss) finished up last week. As is entirely appropriate there were many farewells the last being a staff do on Friday night. Six years ago he was piped into the building as befitted his Scottish heritage so we arranged for him to be piped out of the building to send him on his way.

We then took him down to Wellington and on Monday morning a group of about 70 of us handed him over, with full Maori protocol to be the new National Librarian.