Holiday Break

End of 2019...  Hopefully we can post little more often in 2020. 

Find this is restrant window in CBD,  I found quite interesting and photogenic. 

Bay View

Another hot day, Happy holiday season!

Summer Day

At river side walkway.  It's a hot day but feels refreshing.

Sunset last night

Rather spectacular where usually too bright to take picture or look at.  
This is possibly an effect of massive bush fire in Australia.

Cherry Blossom

This is our second tree whcih somewhat start with leaves first but give us large spectacular blossom.    Getting worm around Nelson and  Arts Fastival is on! 

Spring

Getting warmer, feel the difference, but we still have slow cap on top of mountain. 

Heron

Let's bit of zoom in.  (Cropped from above image and tint on highlight a bit to balance)  

Taken at Golden Bay, Tasman

Chilly

Snow clouds moving every second. It's chilly but not cold; the wood burner burned so well last night inside is a balmy 14C.

And we grew a mountain overnight. The tallest gray bit is clouds. As far as I know.

Dragon

Art by Mariya Panfilova

This is at NMIT Arts school building top floor.

Horizon

Cloud watching over the horizon.

Evening

Carpet of Leaves

A nature's carpet.

Autumn

Falling leaves...

Special Service at Nelson Mosque

Around the country today there were vigils and special services in support of the Muslim communities of New Zealand. Only recently we discovered Nelson's Muslim Community Center is right next to my work place, behind the church.The turnout was much bigger than I expected, and many women, including the EMT staff, had covered their heads. There were speeches by civic and religious leaders, singing, Adhan/Azan, and later prayer on rugs in front of the steps. I had to return to work so there may have been more later.  

Preparations, the street in front, police, fire and and emergency medical services were present.

These guys posed after I asked if I could take pics. Since New Zealand police do not usually carry weapons, I'm not sure if they are from Nelson or from elsewhere as members of Armed Offenders Squad. It was also the first time I saw a rifle, well, two, in real life. Other officers were armed with tasers.

Meg is disappointed as she has the flu and could not attend; among other things she's loved Adhan/Azan as long as she can remember and missed the, urrrr, "live" version. 

Nelson Mail Article

Kia Kaha Christchurch

You've seen the news. Today it was some grownups but also some kids' turn to show solidarity in support of Christchurch and to New Zealand's Moslem community.

This is as close to "church" as it gets for us, but nevertheless we support. (Mitre10 Mega is the biggest hardware store chain in New Zealand.)

Climate Action Movement

 

Here is how it started worldwide movement 

Online Petition here!

Coffee Break

Branch at TOZETTI in town and before eating...  had a little coffee break with nice sample of cookies. 


This is the one ordered by Meg.   "decaf flat white".    Me?, always long black ( or may be short in some case ) .

Tasman Bush Fire Day 19 : Rain and Hot Spots

It's the 19th day of the fire and we had our first real rain in probably a couple of months. (We had one that lasted less than a minute and another couple of minutes at our place but can't remember about where the fire is.)

We think there's none or very little rain to come today, but can you see skinny string-like smoke going up from behind the ridge? That's all the remaining hot spots, above and underground. This is between 1/3 to 1/2 of what we can see from our window, so it has been a big one.

Weeeeeekendddddd!

We noticed something going on outside while eating dinner. This was going on. There was talk we might get some rain this weekend, but that wasn't to be.

Back to the base

One of the helicopter has been back to the base.

Large Sky

It's been so long I haven;t see this much space in sky since Tasman Forest Fire on last Tuesday. 

If I look at closer with binocular, I can still see several hot-spots with smoke comes up.

 

Sunset : Day 5 Tasman Forest Fire

Tasman Forest Fire 05/Feb/2019

Evening

Sun light filtered by ashed smoke and it turned the sea read in partially depends on where you are seeing from.

larger view later on when fire progress

Shadow of smoke

Sun behind the ashed smoke.

Sun setting behind the smoke

Night time view with long exposure

Night time view with long exposure

Bed Time Stories

Nelson Arts Festival 2019  - Pop up arts in CBD.

Last light

Happy New Year!

This is almost last light from 2018.