all the fun of the show

We went to "The Show" on Sunday. The said Show is actually the Nelson A&P Show, A standing for Agricultural and P for Pastoral. It's been running for 117 years, which for NZ is a long time! When I was a kid we looked forward to The Show just as much as we did for Christmas! In those days it was on a Friday and Saturday, and Friday was the day all the farmers took their prize animals to be showed. My mum and dad showed sheep, two breeds - Romneys and Suffolks. We were always allowed the Friday off school. And would spend the day roaming around eating hot dogs and candy floss and looking for fizzy bottles which we could take and get 2 or 5 cent returns on (I can't remember which). Then the Saturday was the day the town came to the country and all the "townies" descended on the show. Now it runs from Saturday to Sunday and there are no where near as many farmers about, there are hardly any sheep in the sheep sheds either. There still are lots of animals to look at, to talk to and to stroke. It's a tradition that I'm trying to foster with my kids, except we feel slightly removed from the action not having any livestock (yet) ourselves. What hit me was as soon as we got out of the car how all the smells took me back 30 or more years, it was almost like dad was going to be in the sheep shed, and mum was setting up the picnic blanket under the trees with bacon and egg pie for lunch .................

there were wee piggies to laugh at  - miniature Kune kunes (definitely not for eating!)

calves to pat - Fresian

and Jersey - the two breeds of dairy cows in NZ

Suffolk rams to stroke

alpacas who wouldn't be stroked

day old chicks to hold so carefully

baby goats to long for (one was asleep on the other!)

There were lots of other things other than animals, but they were all that I took photos of. On the Friday the kids school had it's Pets Day, another institution of rural schools around here. They took their bunny rabbit. But the highlight for me was the wallaby that visited. NZ has wild wallaby populations in a couple of places (not round here though) and the wallaby is actually a pest animal and people hunt them! They also catch them and have exported them back to Australia where they came from. Anyhow one of the local vets raises orphans by hand and she brought Rosie along to visit the school.

She happily hopped around the classroom, looked out the window, let the kids stroke her, and when it all got too much hopped back into her sack/pouch. What a special treat.

belated bonfire and bangers

Yes Guy Fawkes was almost 2 weeks ago now and I have been meaning to put up some pictures of the night.We still call the event Guy Fawkes, not Bonfire Night, as seems to be the common name in the UK. After reading all the Halloween posts I wanted to share a bit of our culture, as Halloween was hardly even noted when I was a kid, let alone celebrated. Nowdays the long tentacles of commercialisation have stretched over the oceans to our shores, but I refuse to be drawn in! One thing we did celebrate on the other hand was Guy Fawkes, so in the spirit of tradition we celebrated this event. I didn't go as far as getting the kids to make a Guy for the bonfire, as I feel that is a bit too macabre!!

So we had a large bonfire from a pile of garden that I'd ripped out back in June and had been sitting in the paddock since then. Topped up with broken pallets and rubbish wood that the previous owners kindly left us! The night was a bit chilly, but at least the wind that had swirled around us all day died down. Living in a forestry area (although there are fewer and fewer pine trees around these days) and the long hot summers we get means that we have to apply for a fire permit. We obtained the required permit, which stated that we were not allowed to put any more fuel on the fire after 11pm!! The kids were so excited that I had actually brought fireworks (first time for everything!) and that we were going to have a bonfire, and toast marshmallows. They had lots of fun, H got to help with letting the fireworks off (we managed to find a responsible adult!) the highlight of the evening was setting off the rockets in front of the lights of Nelson. The audience stood on our front lawn or hung off the front gate, and the pyromaniacs went over the road and down a wee hill, and let off the rockets against the backdrop of the lights. The evenings festivities were rounded off with the kids being let loose with sparklers. It was lovely - I do enjoy fireworks.

 

 

 

new house feels like home

We have been in the "new house" for 18 days now, wow! I had to count them, as it feels like we've been here a lot longer than that. Straightaway, even before we had finished shifting (which took a mammoth 10 days to do - that's what happens when you DIY!) it felt like home. I am an early riser and every morning I am greeted by the view from the kitchen window - everyday it is different, and I'll never grow sick of it.

both of these photos were taken on the first morning, about half an hour apart

some mornings it's red

and some mornings it's misty

 Another great thing is that not only can we see the sea, but we can be at the sea in 5-6 minutes. We popped down the other night. The kids had fun jumping off the stormwater pipe.

Ready!

Set!

Jump

and jump again and again!

 The boy found a very long stick, as you do.

We all gazed out to sea and felt very happy and glad that we had moved.

Oi You!

I took the kids and a couple of their friends to the Oi You Urban Art exhibition in Nelson yesterday, it's on as part of the annual Arts Festival. Definitely well worth it, and it was free!

It's on a Founders Park, which is a heritage park/ living museum, and is where they hold a lot of the Arts Festival events. The drawcard was the international collection of street art, which was pretty amazing. All the catalogues had gone, so I just had to appreciate them for what they were, and had no idea who had done them, apart form the obvious Banksy ones.

International artists were; Banksy, Paul Insect, Faile Collective, Adam Neate, Antony Micallef and David Choe.

That's a tiny selection of the "international" selection. There was also a national competition of street art which had some great pieces.

Another section was re-makes of famous NZ artworks; my favourites were Rita Angus' "Cass" and Bill Hammond's birdlands with a Placemakers slant!

 There was another room with pieces made by the Oi You! collective.

And a wall of corrugated iron where the kids left their mark. Mr H did his "trademark' bowl of fruit! I love how it turned out, he was worried about the shading and the angle of the light!

 After all that culture the kids had a good run around outside. They enjoyed the freedom of walking down the railway tracks. This is the only railway Nelson has now, and it was the first place in NZ to get a railway! Then they pushed a train. I had to drag them away.

night time flowers

I've been busy, I've been working (yes it is a shock to me too!) on contract at hubby's office, doing readability checks. Basically reading lots of technical engineering documents and going through them with the red pen! So it's good for the bank balance, not so good for the house work, or for getting the house packed (2 weeks to go!), or gardening. Now when I say gardening I'm not trying to leave the garden in perfect shape for the new owners, that would be impossible. But I am trying to take wee pieces of some of my favourite perennials, especially as the new garden is lacking a bit on the perennial/cottage garden front.

The other evening, I wandered around with my flash going, and took some night time shots (well it was actually dusk). 

Primula - Wanda

Hellebores

Trilliums

  
The primula and trillium are definitely on the "dig up" list. However, not keen on the basket fungi - it just looked spectacular!. Also definitely can't take the large weeping cheery tree, know as the "fairy tree" around here. We will miss it, the kids have a rope swing in it, and used to have a tree house - yes it's that big!

Well it is last day of term 3 here, our terms have all been messed up by the Rugby World Cup, as we should have had holidays in September! So I'd better go and prepare the kids for their last day at Brightwater School.