Note To Future Self

On the weekend, we ventured down the the Christchurch ReStart, a big event where the old high street was re-opened and re-imagined as if constructed from old shipping containers. Ballantynes, the properly old-school flagship department store for downtown was also reopening and it promised to be a bit of a zoo.

It was, as they say, a cracker of a day, and the ReStart lived up to its promise. Mostly we noted how the new urban mall accurately reflected the composition of the old high street — a few gift shops, our independent bookstore, and rows upon rows of expensive boutiques. Actually, the old downtown also had stores that sold the edible items we call “food.” The ReStart has two cafes, which were swamped. Hey, Christchurch city fathers, how about some food trucks?

On plus side, the bathrooms, which were also built from shipping containers, were (a) clean, (b) like, totally industrial chic inside, (c) not swamped, and (d) included both a family room and a handicapped facility.

We feted the mighty Yarra last week as part of his farewell tour before returning to his ancestral homeland.

Apparently, we were the distraction while the removalists did their work. Or perhaps I just like saying “removalist.”

And yes, he kept his pants on this time.

Trolley rides were the order of the day.

Sometimes he pushed….

Sometimes she pushed…

I honed my late-night-bad-idea-on-Facebook photography aesthetic…

We ginned up some hazelnut biscotti yesterday (thank you Treasury of New Zealand Baking!). Sadly, by “ginned up” I mean “baked,” not “soaked in gin.” But I digress.

This required blanching the hazelnuts. Sadly, this also involved neither gin nor tiaras, but did involve roasting the nuts, then rubbing the skins off in a towel.

Once denuded, what do you call them but “naked babies?” And so the naked baby hunt was started!

Admittedly, attention spans were a bit shorter than the job demanded, and quality control was the first thing to go. On the other hand, hey, biscotti!

… but where does it lead?

We’ve crossed the line from “never be warm ever again” to “must hide from the sun’s harmful UV,” with one brief stop in nekkid-baby-ville. Sigh…

As Anna mentioned previously, we’ve greatly enjoyed watching the RWC on Maori TV. They have the best commentators, bar none. And we get to enjoy a bit of te reo Maori on the side.

Tonight, for example, we learned that “France” or “French” is “wīwī”. No, really.

Maori Televison is our preferred Rugby world cup broadcaster (mostly because they’re free, but also because the commentators are awesome – abandoning all pretense of objectivity in the waning minutes of a two point Australian victory over south africa). However, they have one failing, and that is that they have very few advertisements in rotation. Thus before every game, they run a PSA from the NZ Fire Dept entitled “Don’t Drink and Fry” It features drunks about town extolling the virtues of their favorite post-libation eatery and ends with flames rolling up a wall and the ominous tag line. ‘Don’t drink and fry’.

It’s a good thing our citizenship test is a ways off, because there’s clearly still a lot we have to learn.

Spring sprung this weekend, so we hit the local kidz fest with Ringo.

Some stuff happened.

Photos were taken.

Fin.