Seasons greetings...

We have a random rose growing on our lawn. It is nothing special - but obviously something old and gnarly that has survived drought, flood, snow and earthquake...It is our third summer here and I have never seen it before.

Just in case anyone still wanders by here to have a look - wishing you a happy holiday!

Poo Bum

Tomorrow morning, I was going to catch a flight to Palmerston North, to spends three intensive days staring down a microscope like this:

...looking at things like this:

...and I was really excited about it! I had booked myself a room at a dodgy motel (with a bath and free wifi!), and was all ready to go. 

Then my kid crapped his pants everywhere on Monday, and he hasn't stopped crapping since. And that means this morning I had to phone and cancel my dodgy motel room, and cancel my flights (with no refund). Instead,  I am bound to our house, with a bucket of bleach and a mop and a whole tonne of baby wipes. SO uncool.

But today, salvation arrived, in the form of not one, but two bottles of Lighthouse Gin. Hallelujah!


Thank you S + A + B - your timing couldn't have been better.

SUMMER!

Playing under a sprinkler in the gardens......summer is here!!

Back by popular demand...

...a post about food!

We were in Melbourne over the weekend, and while there we visited Cumulus Inc...twice. It is our fave hangout over there.  So, when trying to find ideas regarding what to feed my hungry husband tonight, I re-visited their cookbook and gave the Spiced Cauliflower Salad with Goat's Curd a whirl.

I even got all fancy-pants on it, and found a pomegranate at the store to scatter on top.

The verdict?  Amazing to look at, and pretty yummy.

(Don't worry - hungry hubby didn't just have cauliflower salad for dinner - there was a porterhouse steak on the side).

Our disappearing city..

When we were in town on the weekend, I took a photo of the Manchester and Worcester St corner:

.

My brother had been asking about the old church on the corner where we went to sit piano exams (it has seen better days):

Anyway, I grabbed another Google Maps screenshot of the same intersection pre-quake:

The church is pretty much the only building left standing...

Saturday outing...

This weekend we went into town to see Melbourne artist Ash Keating create an artwork in an empty section amongst the demolition.

 

 

Unfortunately we were too late to see any actual action (Ash used fire extinguishers to spray paint on to a concrete wall), but the results were pretty rad.

 

 

Every little bit of colour helps brighten our grey, concrete (or plastic wrapped, as above) CBD.

Goodbye...and hello!

This morning I took the boy on one last drive in our DS (we sold her last week and the new owners are collecting her on Monday). We drove down to the famous Dunsandel Store for a morning snack.

 It was just lovely - nectars and peonies...

And I had an enormous piece of lemon sour cream cake with yoghurt. Perusing in the store afterwards, I cam across none other than a bottle of New Zealand made gin, and....New Zealand made tonic. Unable to resist supporting local made products, I picked up both!

Another great lunch at Black Estate

Last weekend we had some amazing spring weather, so we went to Sumner beach for the morning.

The key to enjoying a morning at the beach in Christchurch is to keep you eyes out at sea....

...that way you don't notice the shipping containers lining the road (there to stop rockfalls), the bare cliffs, and the houses teetering on the edge, some already half at the bottom.

Football in the gap..

The folks at Nike helped set up a mini football field on a vacant lot in the CBD this week. Soccer isn't really my kind of thing, but a friend and I went along and checked it out - more for the sake of the kids than anything else...

  

It was kind of cool, but in the end my boy was far more interested in looking through the fence at the cordoned red zone to watch the crane and diggers.. 

 

Christchurch people may recognise that sheath of corn as Regan Gentry's Flour Power on the corner of High and Colombo St.

Cherry bomb....

Look what I found at the local Countdown supermarket:

At $1.99 per can, I think this is going to be the drink of summer...

The best thing to do if you live in Christchurch right now is...to leave Christchurch.

I know, it's cynical, but true. Nothing is better for the soul right now than a trip away. We went to Auckland Friday night for the Best Awards (where Sons & Co scooped a purple pin...whoop whoop!)..  And all I brought back was this photo of a Rhodesian Ridgeback:

 

Then on Sunday we drove up to the new tasting room at Black Estate...for the most amazing, sunny, relaxed afternoon.  Our boy hit on the ladies:

While we enjoyed the view:

Great place, great people, great wine and (now) great food too..

More earthquake tourism

I drove down Gloucester St today for the first time - it has been open for a while, but I haven't been interested until now, when I had to get across town quickly and needed to take the most direct route.

It is unrecognisable.  I stood on Gloucester St and took this photo looking north - east to the Colombo St corner - the tall building is the Forsyth Barr building.

 

And this is the Google Street Map view of the same intersection pre-quake:

I took a photo of the Isaac Theatre Royal on Gloucester St - the brick building to the right in the distance is the entrance/foyer, then there is a space/gap where the audience sat, then the building on the left is the stage - still standing, which a large shade curtain flapping in the breeze:

 The entrance to the Central Library:

 And the small arcade opposite:

Further round on Hereford St sits Shands Emporium - it had the best vintage clothing store upstairs, and is one of the oldest buildings in the CBD - it used to sit wedged between other buildings (again, a photo from Google):

But now it sits all alone.

Barely intact. I'm guessing the reason it is there at all is because of some sort of protection status, and hopefully it gets restored

Little-town

We drove over the Lyttelton this morning to pick up some supplies and the market and grab a coffee. It was actually kind of buzzing.  There is something about the view above that makes me always pick up my camera and take a photo.

There was an old piano set up on the main street, which Clem had a good old bang on...

And several small gardens planted amongst the rubble on empty sites..

The CBD right now

When we went into town to watch the implosion I took a few photos of the surrounding area.We were on the edge of the "Red Zone" but had a good view of the south-east side of the CBD.

The High St-ManchesterSt-Lichfield St corner - check out all the cranes!:

The corner of High and Lichfield (looking North) - the big building on the left is the Majestic.

Manchester/Tuam corner:

The facade of the backpackers that was on the High/Manchester corner - the whole building has gone, but the facade is being propped up by containers on the other side, as the owners are hoping to save it.

Looking across High St at the only remaining building from that strip - the National. The cream/yellow building in the background is the Twisted Hop on Poplar Lane.

And a closer look at the Twisted Hop and that dodgy fountain/sculpture out the front:

Seriously?

I glanced at our fruit trees the other day and saw...blossom buds! Seriously? Does that mean that spring is just around the corner?

Now you see it, now you don't.

 We got out of bed at sparrow's fart this morning to go and watch the implosion of a building in town - although there is currently extensive demolition going on, this was the first implosion. We stood on a rooftop and drank champagne beforehand, and felt exhilarated and shaky afterwards.

I don't know why, but we expected a PA system, and a countdown, or something. Instead, as we were watching, a series of incredibly loud booms were heard in quick succession, followed by what felt like a huge pause, before the building gracefully sank into the ground below. Here are my two photos:

..which obviously capture none of that...to get a better sense of the occasion, I recommend this link.