Tick, Tick and Tick

 Festival friendly footwear - Tick

All the food groups (fried bread, goat curry and donuts) - Tick

 Beverages - Tick

It can only be WOMAD.  Apart from the food it was another great weekend of music, dancing and thankfully fantastic weather.

Wow Factor

A bit over 18 months ago the work began on the new Len Lye Centre.  This week was the first reveal of the stainless steel facade that will grace 2 sides of the building.  Three panels on the western corner.  And?  It looks truly stunning.  Not sure how the grinches will feel about it but I think a lot of people are going to be surprised by how fabulous it looks.

The Tron and Gizzy

aka Kirikiriroa and Turanganui-a-Kiwa or Hamilton and Gisborne.  I've been travelling so that's why I haven't been writing - to the Tron for fun (an exhibition of korowai/cloaks) and to Gizzy for work although work does have an up side wne you are visiting significant sites to iwi...

 and then last night there was another concert at the Bowl, a lovely night with Sol3 Mio, 2 tenors and a baritone, beautiful music and wonderful Samoan humour.

Not quite 4 weddings

Today is Waitangi Day, our national holiday and although there were no weddings there were:

• a celebration at the local marae - music, food and friends
• 2 tangi (funerals) - family and more food
• a trip around the mountain anti-clockwise going between the above
• and a frog (technically spotted last night but, close enough)

 Her name is Lulu and she and Gaston le mouton (below), carved locally, are currently sitting at Paris Plage cafe on the coast, the perfect place for a glass of wine to start a long weekend.

Perfect Night for a Party

We desperately need rain and today it's tipping down but it held off just enough to provide a perfect night for Sting and Paul Simon at the Bowl.

The place was packed, 3 hours of great music, a lot of dancing and singing along with some old favourites. and when the rain started the coats and ponchos came out and we kept on dancing.

Weaving resumes

I spent this weekend with a house full of weavers, luckily the weather was wonderful so we spread ourselves inside and out.  Seven of us from my class last year managed to come at some point; lots of talk, lots of laughs, lots of food and even some weaving.

You will notice that blue tarp is the must have weaving accessory.

Sparkle overdose

I am not a huge fan of sparkle, I firmly believe that there is such a thing as too much glitter and my threshold is very, very low.  There are exceptions however and this is one of them, following the rule that, if you are going to do it then go all the way.

It's official title it The Golden Bearing but it's better known in town as the glitter tree - for obvious reasons,  It's up until the end of the month as part of the Festival of Lights and seeing as I missed it's last outing I've made sure to see it this time.