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Published: July 23rd 2006
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Lesser spotted Helen Marc and Claire
At Otari Nature reserve during an educational nature walk. It was after this we got somewhat lost in the bush - yeah. Having been inundated with literally one email (thanks john) about our recent lack of blogging, I’ve hence decided to try and cram the highlights, lowlights, thrills and spills of 3 weeks in Wellington into one chunk of informative text. In a crazy world where most people seem intent in being nasty to each other and nicking bits of land off their neighbour it’s been very nice to spend a domestic and serene existence in New Zealand’s capital taking stock of life and enjoying a good deal of high culture. And it must be said a great deal of luxury for those who have been used to sharing a dormitory or tenting it for as long as can be remembered since Christmas. As many days merged successfully into one and bore almost mathematical similarity here goes on a typical day in the life Wellington style.
Rise sometime between 8am and midday: this began to even itself out at 10.15am as the 3 weeks wore on. Without fail the next line in my diary for every day was ‘made tea’ and ‘fixed breakfast’. Often the next couple of hours were spent in book club, where three of the four housemates (Tess the
Tess and greenery
In Wrights Hill Reserve dog abstained) got through a huge amount of books. Highlights for me have included Fermat’s Last Theorem, Touching The Void and… Calvin and Hobbes: The Authoritive Collection. Lunch was then taken consisting of sandwiches (or carrots and apples if you’re Helen), more tea liberally drank and then a nominated person would take Tess out for a walk. We’re very lucky / stroke the house is well positioned, that right behind the house we’re sitting is Wright Hill Reserve which is a huge expanse of scrub/park land with many walks, dog exercise areas (an old war time parade ground), mountain bike routes (one in particular rather ominously named ‘Deliverance’ which made a ‘challenging’ walk) and lots and lots of stunning views over looking Wellington and it’s harbour. These walks were, it must be said, taken in very variable weather (an extremely Wellingtonian trait is its unpredictablenesss on this score), to the point where on a couple of occasions I would set of in bright sunshine, wander to the summit to be rewarded with a great view, drop down into the bush to pop out into driving rain a mere 10 minutes later. The worst condition came yesterday in hail and near
Your Team Make Sushi
Comedy genius with actually good results - just what we like gale force winds (why go out you may ask? Dogs have a way of convincing you… large eyes, whining, exploitation of weak-minded humans etc etc..). Tess’s appreciation just about made the regular drenchings worthwhile, but as the blog title says, ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ we certainly were. Anywho, after dogs had been walked the late afternoons were taken up with a variety of activities, the highlights of which are listed. The evenings were then taken up making all kinds of lovely meals (a return to tag team Claire and Marc cooking) and often more reading or films. This may seem dull to some but amounted to the Rolles Royce of living to backpackers who have been used to living in a smelly dorm room and slogging there guts out in mundane jobs for 3 months.
July 4th: Made Salmon Sushi
July 5th: Made ginger biscuits and scones. Biscuits very tasty and successful, forgot baking powder for newly named ‘flat scones’. Hmm.
July 6th: Went to Te Papa (the national museum) where Claire enjoyed an exhibition of Constable paintings (of interest as it made up a large part of one of her geography degree modules - obviously), and I marvelled
Claire on the beach
Trying to fly a kite - a good more successfully than i managed at such things as cars made out of corrugated iron.
July 7th: A day at the beach for Claire and Marc flying kites, playing softball, aqua Frisbee (the sea being the aqua bit - very cold it was too) and cri-base-catch-get the other person as wet as possible-ball.
July 8th: Vinyl record appreciation day. Original pressing of ‘With The Beatles’ a highlight.
July 9th: Baked Anzac biscuits (for those not in the know these are oat and treacle based biscuits which get there name from Australia New Zealand Army Corp - the sort of fodder they ate in WWII) and went on a nature walk through Ortari Natural Botanical gardens (lots of silver ferns, rivers, colourful plants, samey looking paths through bush that made us lost - that kind of thing). Partook in photography of these things.
July 10th: Guitar lesson for Claire and concert given to the dog by myself. Attentive audience! Made falafel for dinner.
July 11th: Claire bakes delicious citrus tart complete with pastry. It is a triumph.
July 12th: Film appreciation of the French film Monsieur Ibrahim. Helen’s recommendation and a film everyone should see.
July 13th: Flora appreciation day at the botanical gardens where one
Wellington Harbour
Stunning view from the top of Wrights Hill on a glorious Winter July day. I'm confused as to the state of the seasons. July = warm, but here it should be backwards, butit's not..ah it was a good day anyhow can see such things as modern art, plants and the sundial of human involvement (you become the needle for the dial - and it works).
July 14th: Claire and I watched film of Les Miserables and lamented how fortunate we were that it wasn’t the musical version.
July 15th: Homemade pizza from scratch and an evening ‘out on the town’ - notice this is the first such entry - to go to a Britpop music night full of such classics as Ash, Oasis, Blur (for those aware in Coventry think Campbell x Colly) - music from mine and Claire’s youth (we’re now both nearly 24 you know).
July 16th: Twas a Sunday, which means we watch Top Gear (our only TV of the week) and make a lovely curry - a tradition I started in Leeds and one I encourage everyone to follow.
July 17th: Watercolour challenge day. Wondering which of the arts we hadn’t explored, we spent the day out in the sunshine (nearly as good as UK..ok maybe not) painting pictures and generally mucking around with paints - ace!.
I could continue but I think you get the idea, explorer like travelling it isn’t but we
Marc On The Beach
I broke the kite just after this - aboo couldn’t keep that up for a whole year could we. All of this was conducted in a highly comic Claire and Marc style as always with lots of laughs and tomfoolery - as mentioned at the top, in a world where there are lots of uncertainties, Clarc’s (amalgamation of Claire and Marc used by our friends in Queenstown) continued randomness and travelling fun is something to be thankful for. Thanks from me to the other half of Clarc for this.
Marc
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Dave
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Poddles
I like poddles but you never mention me, you big tart. I had a nice bakewell tart the other day, all the way from bakewell in derbycestershire. Nice. Bye Bye