Wonderful Wellington

Well, if we ever needed a reminder that we live near several fault lines, we've had it... We had a decent 6.5 magnitude earthquake on Sunday, and there have been nearly 400 quakes of magnitude 3 or higher since last Friday in the marlborough/Wellington region, compared to less than 300 in the last 10 years! The last one I felt was a 4.2 this morning when I was driving into town. The house came through the big quake fine which is reassuring. There are about 25 buildings in the CBD with some superficial damage, but nothing too major... I think the media played it up much more than they needed to, and worried a lot of people unnecessarily, it even made the BBC news!

 

My second week of holidays has been lovely. Will and I popped into town to do a few bits and pieces on Saturday, and were quite intrigued to come home to some chook 'art' on our doorstep. The girls love to dustbath in a sunny corner of the garden, and have obviously had a good shake to get rid of all the loose dirt!  

Below you can some rather different sized eggs from the girls. I hope you also admire my nice sparkly pink nails, courtesy of a voucher for a manicure & pedicure which I used on Tuesday. My toes are a nice dark shiny purple, similar to what I got last time. Before getting my nails done I had a very nice catch-up lunch with my old HOD Nada, plus Denise who also used to teach maths at QMC amongst others. It has turned into bit of a holiday tradition having  a nice pot-luck meal at someones house.

I have put some work into the garden this week. Will and I have dug permanent beds into the greenhouse, giving us loads more growing space. The last couple of years we've grown the tomatoes, capsicums and chillies in grow bags. I've also cleaned up a couple of the other beds. Any outdoor work comes with 3 'shadows' who are actually bit of a pain when I'm trying to garden! They hover so close, ready to duck in and fight over any worms or spiders that I turn up... It's a wonder one of them hasn't lost a foot yet they get so close to my spade!

Yesterday was a stunning day in the capital. I had an 11am appointment in town to get my eyelashes tinted and brows tidied up (another job I usually get done each holidays with a voucher from grab-one, treat-me etc). I then went for a nice walk along the waterfront, taking a few pics as I went. It really was glorious!

Because it was so nice I decided to grab some sushi and smoked mussels from the supermarket and have a nice lunch at Lyall Bay. Being school holidays there were quite a few people at the beach. However, despite the blue skies and sunshine it still is the middle of winter so no one was brave enough to swim, although there were a few kids paddling... There were also a few surfers out down the airport end.

I finished my scenic day out by popping up Mt Victoria on the way home. Again, I had stunning views from the top. I tried to take a couple of selfies with varying success... The light was doing pretty interesting things!

 

 

When I got home I also took this pic from our house which is the view out to the street looking south from the deck off our dining room. We take it for granted, but I forget that some people aren't used to all the house tumbling down the hills in Wellington...

 Here's a couple of gratuitous pics of the chooks enjoying the sunshine to finish... Tomorrow Will and I fly to Samoa at the crack of dawn for a week. I'm more than ready for a bit of warmth! Full details in the next post...