Airports

And just to finish off the weekend's stories I thought I'd share a couple of photos of the airports I went through.

This is the view from the waiting area at the New Plymouth airport. If you look at the horizon really carefully (click on the picture to enlarge it) you might just be able to make out a blue sparkly line. That's the Tasman Sea. Yup, the airport is right on the coast, with only a strip of grass and sand between the tarmac and the water.

And when you land in Auckland and have to go between domestic and international you can either catch the free shuttle or walk. If you walk all you have to do is follow the blue line on the pavement. Even without the helpful signage it's hard to lose your way.

Birthday season

My Mum and my nephew share a birthday and since it was a 'significant number' for my Mum this year we all got together on the weekend to celebrate.

The birthday boy

The birthday girl and her brother

The grown-ups went to lunch at the Berowra Waters Inn which was stunning all round, location, view, food, wine and of course the company. The only way to get there is by boat so you are met a a private warf and ferried across the river. Then you sit and watch the water traffic while you have a five course degustation lunch with matching wines. All a bit tragic really.

Then we followed up with brunch for everyone on Sunday. Not much beats bacon and eggs done on the bbq, fresh bread and fruit and lots of good coffee.

Book Festival

Last week was the Taranaki Children's Book Festival which involved three library services, 9 authors and illustrators, 70 librarians and a swag of schools. This is our 2nd festival and by all reports it was at least as good as last year. As well as touring the schools the visitors got to mix and mingle with local librarians and we also managed to get some quite good coverage in the press, much nicer seeing a good news story for a change. Unfortunately I missed out on the finale on Saturday (see next post) which was held out at the Stratford Pioneer Village no doublt I'll hear all about it tomorrow.

Being loyal

Looking for something else in my wallet I realised I'm a really loyal person. Mind you it says a lot about me when you look at what I choose to be loyal to.

In the collection above you will find 3 coffee cards, 1 sushi card, 1 book shop card, a shoe shop card and a Heinekein Club card from the restaurant at work. I'm also on the loyalty list for 2 local dress shops, a second book shop and another shoe shop.

Doesn't take a lot of thought to work out my priorities in life eh?

Marmalade

Having dealt as best I could with a bumper crop of feijoas I am now coping with citrus. Today was spent making 3 fruits marmalade - oranges, lemons and grapefruit.

Before

during

and after

I have more than a sneaking suspicion that it hasn't set properly but that's ok, it might end up as sauce rather than spread.

A ???? of Librarians (and friends)

When librarians get together you are guaranteed 3 things; lots of noise, lots of food and lots of a selection of bevereges. Just occasionally you will also get dancing and once in a very rare while, when the circumstances are just right, you get an enormously animated comparison of knowledge.

aka the Quiz Night.

That's what happened here last night. Library staff, curators and exhibitions staff gathered for pizza, nibblies, drinkies and a test of trivia in 6 categories. As you might be able to see there was also a lot of team spirit (aka dressing up) and the Cataloguers of the Caribbean won both the costume category and the quiz overall.

Niles the garden gnome and Quiz Night Trophy is now scaring the pigeons from his windowsill in Tech Services.

Small geek moment

Given the title of this blog I found myself wondering exactly how close to true east I had moved. So I checked it out.

New Plymouth sits at 39.06667 S (that's 39 and a bit degrees south of the equator). Melbourne sits at 37.49 S (so a little bit further north). What I found really cool is that Wilson's Promontory (at the bottom of Victoria and best known for it's lighthouse) is exactly 39.11 S.

So you can draw a straight line, due east and you would pretty much make landfall at New Plymouth. Cool eh?!