Crafty Mermaid

Craft 2.0 has moved into a Wellington City location from Lower Hutt - I'm gutted!  I loved the reason to visit the Dowse Museum :) I also passed by the Occupy Wellington protest on my way home and felt the need to record it for posterity.

A recent excursion to Staglands in Upper Hutt with two young charges.  The presence of two three year olds definitely adds to the excitment of these types of places.  Though the tonnes of peacocks were worth the price of admission. There was some really fun birds - unfortunately my camera skills weren't quite up to the task - and the next photo is even worse!

Hopefully, this card will have arrived by now and I won't be spoiling the surprize. Hah! Its a card, I kill me. I spent ages thinking about the type of card I'd make for my brother and his new fiance. I finally decided on a pretty simple one - which shouldn't have taken me two weeks to finally make - but you put bits and pieces aside then then revisit again and again!

OK, OK, home renovations might be an overstatement, but BM and I recently cleared out our workroom. We removed borer infested shelves and treated the floorboards with Borer treatment and then set off a borer bomb - we really want these suckers gone! Our house is old and borer is a pretty annoying problem. They chew through wood and can cause it to disintegrate. Poof! Shelves gone... just like magic! BM putting the first of two coats down - yes, I did put down the camera and start to help!

The final group match for Ireland in the Rugby World Cup was with Italy in Dunedin.  It was an amazing match and I had the absolute pleasure of flying into Christchurch and a road trip to Dunedin with a good friend of mine.   We had a quick pit stop in Fleurs in Moreaki - a wonderful South Island culinary institution. A stroll in St. Clar's in Dunedin.  And then the main event...  The atmosphere was truly electric - I'm already thinking about going to the All Black's v. Ireland match there next year!

Rugby in New Zealand is a national past time (actually much like Gaelic sports in much of Ireland).  It'll be interesting to see what happens with New Zealand as World Cup champions after last night's match.  Much celebration and warm fuzzes I'm guessing! It seems timely to finally work my way through my photos of my trip to Rotorua to see the Ireland Russia game.  Its a bit of a long trek from Wellington but the presence of Mt Ruapehu is a beautiful milestone.  The town of Bulls is also a rather fun stop along the way - I went into an antique store and purchased some bits and pieces I'll share later.  The town makes a LOT of puns based on its name.  And this particular one was accurate! BM and I stayed in a charming motel on the outskirts of Rotorua - the hideaway lodge - thankfully the entire town wasn't booked out like New Plymouth!  We managed to stay somewhere nice for a lot cheaper! The motel had a petting zoo attached with so...