This is Christchurch

Today happens to be the 4th anniversary of the first of the earthquakes. You would think that the city would be well on it's way to being rebuilt, you might even think that the broken buildings had all been cleared up, even if the new stuff wasn't yet built.  Buuuuut, you'd be wrong. 

Some recent photos:

So... what's been happening?

1. Well, firstly, a well overdue update on Hermann - he died. I couldn't actually bring myself to eat the cake that he turned into, as I was so put off by him sitting on my bench rotting away for days on end. So I was the end of that particular Hermann chain. 

2. Study - remember this? Yeah, so it ended up taking up a fair bit of my time and although there was a LOT of procrastination, the blog has kind of been not so much of a priority.  ps yes, I passed and can now officially call myself a cat vet! Whoop!

3. Not much else. Seriously, things have been very boring indeed.  The kid is now four. Four! Mental!  We are on the countdown to school which is totally crazy, but there you have it. He can swim and ride a bike,  and has a few jokes up his sleeve,  and is generally a pretty funny guy to have around. 

And that's it. Holidays? Well, funny you should ask as we have just come back from a trip to Arrowtown for a week. It was the best. We ate enormous amounts of food, sat by a fire, went for a few decent walks and didn't do much else. The photo opportunities were incredible. See:

Nice huh?

I'm coming back.

Promise. Just working up to it. Not that anyone's listening anymore...

In the meantime, I give you Boo, in all her middle-aged glory:

Herman

Sitting on our kitchen bench right now, hidden in a bowl, under a teatowel, is Herman the German...

He was a gift from a friend of mine, and actually looks like this:

In a week or two, with some tender loving care, some regular attention and lots of stirring, he will be ready to turn into Herman the German Friendship Cake. ..and also ready for me to pass on to someone else.

My Friend Lid

Some children play with their toys, give them names and pretend they are real. Others have imaginary friends - wolves, monkeys, elephants.

My son has Lid. Lid is a plastic milk bottle top. 

Seriously, is that normal?

He says things like...

"I have two friends - Matthew, and my friend Lid".

"I am watching the dvd with my friend Lid"

"Have you met my friend Lid?"

"Mama! Say hello to my friend Lid!!"

Potatoes are the most exciting thing that has happened lately...

Things are a bit dull around here.

But today while weeding the bank around the back of the house, I discovered a treasure trove of spuds.

Honestly, that is the most exciting thing that has happened for a while!

Horse riding in the city

Friday was a good day. I did surgery on a hermaphrodite dog (so exciting), then on my way home I stopped the car to chat to a guy with a horse. He's a bit famous here in Christchurch - he showed up in the last 12 months, leading his horse around town, letting it graze in Latimer square, and generally just hanging.


So I stopped to say hi, and to meet his horse - a lovely bay mare. After a bit of a chat, he asked if I wanted a ride, gave me a leg up and off I went. The weird part was we were in the forecourt of the Shell petrol station on Moorhouse Ave. Made my week.

A few more city pics

When in town the other day, I took a few photos around Matt's old work...

The sound of demolition (grunch, grind, groan, hammer hammer hammer) still dominates. In amongst all the rubble and mess was the site of the PGG building where 18 people died - now a freshly mown lawn:

I think that's pretty nice. I hope they keep it like that.

Squashed flies

I made a 'fly cemetery' slice last week - I used to call these squashed fly biscuits. Dried fruit and apples sandwiched between two layers of shortbread.

The good-looking boys from Student Job Search who were labouring in a friend's garden particularly enjoyed them.

Sons - then and now

I stole this photo off the internet....it's Matt old office, pre-quake. Looks pretty nice.  I went for a wee explore of that part of town the other day - and took a photo of the place now (below). You can tell it's the same place because of the parking meter machine, and the electrical box thingy that was sitting on outside of the right hand side of the building.

Otherwise, it's unrecognisable.  Not him, or his neighbours, or the places across the road. The buildings that are in that recent photo are all brand new. Some parts of the city have been completely wiped clean.

Holy shitballs

My baking reached new heights last night. It's Father's Day today, but we are going out tonight, so I made a special dinner last night - steak, red wine jus, celeriac mash....

Pretty nice.....BUT...the real stunner was dessert - my first Paris Brest. 

Nothing to do with boobies, this dessert was invented in France, to commemorate the Paris-Brest bicycle race in 1891.  The circular shape is supposed to represent a bike wheel...

Choux pastry, covered in almonds, filled with sweetened whipped cream. Farkin incredible.

Happy Father's Day.

Cathartic

I spent a superb day up at Black Estate yesterday.  Stunning.

Madeleines

I was super lucky and was sent a madeleine tray last week.  I've made a few batches since then, with different recipes... they are crazy unhealthy, but oh so delicious.  We had the most amazing madeleines at Cumulus Inc in Melbourne - they were filled with lemon curd and I am going to try to recreate them (we have their cookbook) this weekend.

In other awesome news, I just watched Heathers. Boom.

No more thinking

A few weeks back, I was lucky enough to trial a free box of home delivered organic fruit and veges. It was awesome. I was inspired, and have just set up a weekly delivery of a box. Every Thursday afternoon someone comes and drops off heaps of really fresh and yummy fruit and veges - only those in season, and mostly locally sourced.

I'm kind of indifferent when it comes to organics, but I like my veges to be seasonal, and fresh. And I hate shopping for them - deciding what to get, and how much blah blah blah.  We are in week two, and so far it's going great. We've had kale, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, yams, potatoes, kiwifruit, apples, oranges, bananas, nashis...

Cardamon tea cake

Just cos.

Aphid cleaning

I have a tray of small plants and herbs that sit on our windowsill. Unbeknownst to me, tiny little aphids have set up shop - thousands of them.

So one of my jobs last week was to take each plant, shake the aphids off, then spray them with slightly soapy water.  Sp far, it has worked well I think. I haven't seen any more anyway.

Nice day for a walk...

Up in the Port Hills.

You say potato...

At the dinner I attended last weekend, there was the most amazing potato and honey bread. Of all the dishes that night, it was actually my favourite. So, yesterday I tried to make my own version. 

I used this recipe (but without the saffron)...

Aside from being a bit on the dark side, it was pretty good. I was especially taken with the consistency of the bread we had on Saturday - it was half way between croissant and brioche.

My loaves yesterday did manage to have the same texture - yum yum yum.

Hot off the needles

A black hoodie for Sylvia-Jean. No-one is too young for black in my opinion (in this case, 6 years old).

Lucky

I was privileged enough to attend a fundraiser last night for the Christchurch Art Gallery Trust - they are hoping to purchase one of Michael Parekowhai's bronze bulls - so amazing. They came to Christchurch last year and the exhibition was a total pick-me-up for the city - it will be AWESOME if we get it.