Progress?

I met a friend outside the temporary council building (the old Rexel warehouse) for a milkshake yesterday - someone had set up a caravan/container serving lunches and shakes.

We sat on the old cable reels from Rexel, and watched the ongoing construction of a new central bus exchange.


The mayor still has somewhere to park his car, but it's probably not quite as flash a location as it used to be...


The thing is, it seemed totally normal, and relaxing, and social to be sitting in a carpark, drinking a shake, watching demolition crews at work, surrounded by the sounds of construction and not a piece of greenery in sight. I think we are definitely now adjusted to the new ChCh.

Post-quake social life

We were lucky to be able to attend the opening of a contemporary jewellery exhibition in Christchurch this week - Blood Sports by Dunedin designer Jane Dodd. As with everything in Christchurch right now, the setting was unorthodox, yet totally acceptable to those of us currently living here. For example, the gallery entrance:


Being right on the fringe of the red zone, the previous shop front was closed, but you could watch the going-ons through the large windows at the front of the gallery:


Before the quake, there was a cafe in this space, but unfortunately it has not re-opened yet. If it had, then I would happily spend whole mornings and afternoons watching the slow and steady demolition of the CBD.

Bees bees bees

Not sure if uploading these videos will work, but bees were a'swarmin' all around the house this afternoon. I'm a bit scared to go out there...

Fancy pooch.

When we were in Melbourne recently, we visited the North Melbourne Aesop store. All the Aesop stores have amazing, and unique fit-outs, and are generally pretty cool. Their products are awesome too; natural botanical ingredients and simple, sleek labeling.

Anyway, they aren't cheap, and all we bought was a slap of soap for us, and some dog shampoo for Boo.

We had a warmish day last week and Boo got her first Aesop bath - not sure she really appreciated it, didn't seem overly impressed. But she sure smelt good for a while.

Eeeek!

I am in the process of removing ivy from the path by our house. It is one of the few 'safe' outdoor areas to work in, and the ivy needs to go at some point, and the weather was lovely today so I got stuck in..


Only after I had stripped the trunk of this tree did I notice this:


Holy crap! That is one massive spider. He sat there for over an hour.


I'm not so keen to continue with the ivy clearing now.

Rugby Shmugby

Sitting at home, with the dog on the couch, watching cycle 16 of America's Next Top Model.


...and eating cake. Lots of cake.

Still the best....

They didn't get the coveted purple pin, but they managed to scoop four gold pins and three silver this year.



The standard of photography has also increased immensely - look at last year's photo.

Go Sons!

ps. will hopefully start blogging again this week - just needed a bit of down time.