Annual abundance

My poor little feijoa tree is at it again. Here is a shot of the sublime and the ridiculous with my phone for scale. And here is the crop to date - well technically, this is what I have retrieved so far. Last week they were all on the tree then suddenly they ripened and started dropping. Coming soon to a 'free to a good home' sign near you!

Never say never

When I finished my degree I said I would never do formal study again. Cake decorating and flower arranging, that was it. However, as you know I am doing Te Reo Maori and managed to pass all my assessments last year. That means that last Tuesday, along with about 60 of my classmates, I graduated. Gown, sash, certificate and academic record, the whole shebang.

And here is a shot of the after party. We all took great delight in being outside on a fabulous day having a quiet bevvy and a great time (the empty Guinness glass is mine btw).

Ramere Breakfast Club

Every Ramere (Friday) morning a group from Te Reo class get together for breakfast and (in theory) practice. This morning one of our number 'graduated'! She can't join us at our proper graduation on Tuesday so she was decked out in a high class, recycled gown and sash and needed an extra sip of her hot chocolate to deal with the emotion. And here is the rest of us, well most of us. When we are all there we are 8. Note substantial support of the local economy, not just take away coffees and the dictionary at hand for emergency vocab support.

The Commandments, Rev.Ed.

Spotted at St James on Willis St in Wellington

I was in town for the day for a work meeting and was on my way to get back to the airport. Someone has a sense of humour and good on the committee that went with it!

Forget you knot

A local artist designed this and got a jeweller volunteered to make stirling silver broaches to sell at Womad to raise money for Christchurch. I noticed this 'serious' version of the design, the knot connects us in NP to then in Christchurch. Fab.

Fried Hungarian Bread...

and Kiwi beer, flags in the park and the crowd going off to Monglian Rock and 17 Hippies from Berlin can only mean one thing...WOMAD.

For the the last 2 years I have watching people eat this bread at the festival but the queue is legendary so when I arrived after work on Friday and saw that it was only 10 or so people long I jumped in and finally got the chance to try it. Now I know why you would wait for an age to get some!

And who knew there was such a thing as Mongolian rock music, tradition instruments and outfits (minus the fur hats) plus bass guitar and drums, fabulous stuff! The 'life's rich tapestry' award goes to the Inuit throat singer. I can't even begin to describe it but for some it will be meaningful that she has sung with Bjork - nuf said.

'Proper' art

On Saturday night the Gallery opened it's latest exhibition. There are pieces by several different artists but this one really is quite stunning - stunning as in you stand there and can't really believe that not only has someone dreamed this up but they have actually built it. And it's huge.

Yup, seriously, cardboard boxes and packing tape, the whole thing. Our exhibitions guys were helping out and one of them was working on this. It was built off site, dismantled, carted up the road to the gallery, put back together and then hung, upside down, from the ceiling. Wow doesn't even begin to cover it.