Scorching Bay, Wellington

This was at about 10am on Sunday February 18th. We're only 15 minutes drive from Wellington city here, and even closer than that to Peter Jackson's house. Apparently.

A post, and a view of Wellington harbour

Chinese New Year in Civic Square

Summer Fun.

Karori Wildife Sanctuary, Judith's birthday, Chinese New Year, brunch at the Chocolate Fish Cafe in Scorching Bay (a stone's throw from Peter Jackson's house and the Weta Studios!), Cuba Street Carnival... swimming at Oriental Parade.... and, arriving tomorrow, a visit from Judith's brother and his son, Joshie, who we have never met even though he is shortly three!

Some pictorial highlights follow.

Kelburn, between the Cable Car and VUW

Duck on Plaque; Wellington CBD

The Bolton Memorial Park leads to the City's botanical gardens.



A rose garden (obviously),





The possum is a pest.



About 15 minutes walk from parliament.

Bolton Street Memorial Park /Cemetry

Just off the Terrace (the back of which you can see in the first photo). The only European cemetry in Wellington between 1840-90 ish, consequently the resting place of some famous early European New Zealanders (Wakefield and Seddon, to name two). Had a bloody great motorway run through it in the 1960s, which meant exhuming and reburying 3600 bodies in a mass grave.



This grave records the deaths, separated by a few days each time, of six children from the same family - all victims of Scarlett fever in May 1865.







In the Jewish section...

Our apartment building

Panorama-rama

Joanna Newsom / Smog

Great / Disappointing

Lyall Bay, Wellington

Around Wellington

The Handsome Family

On Wednesday we went to see The Handsome Family at San Francisco Bath House - a nearby club on Wellington's Cuba Street. The tickets were bought a little impulsively, perhaps, given that the two albums I have - Through The Trees and In The Air - are 7 and 8 years old. But as it turned out they hadn't made any radical changes to their sound - in fact, they played a fair number of songs I knew, including my favourite 'Too Much Wine'. On stage, they were warm, endearing and funny, acting out a no doubt well-practiced, but authentic, husband-and-wife double-act. The audience was suitably charmed - a good job too, as earlier in the evening our collective patience had been tested beyond breaking point by the local support act, The Moon Whispers. I'm sure this duo were musically talented, but they singularly failed to engage with the crowd, to the point where it seemed everyone their was only discussing when they would stop playing. Towards the end, the audience stopped even the polite applause it kept up for the beginning of the set. Earlier, when a fire alarm cleared the building mid-way through the set, I'm sure we weren't the only people who wondered if someone had set it off purely to avoid hearing another Moon Whispers number. In any case, it provided a welcome break from their sound.

Tonight we're back at the same venue for Joanna Newsom and Smog - I'm slightly hysterical.