Because of all of you, 2006 turned out to be a fun year. Thank you!! We appreciate the many visits and complements and challenges and laughs and friendships. Do please keep them coming in 2007. Soooo, see you all tomorrow?!?!?
About 20+ minutes steep walking, just slightly east to the town centre, is this monument. The pen-like object points to a plate underneath which is the symbolic geographical centre of New Zealand. It's the tiny white/blue spot on this map. The real geographical centre is a little further south. More info here.
I want to go again! I don't like the frozen ones when heaven is only a 15-minute drive away!! I'll be waiting in the car!!!
On the bench outside the Nelson Post Shop/City Council building, someone left a deep red rose under the No Smoking sign. I thought it was a very good message and a photogenic situation.
On the 17th, we did one of the Nelson Pre-Christmas must-do activity, berry picking. Because we are nuts about berries, and because last year we couldn't go at all, we went a bit overboard and picked 8kgs. We picked raspberries (my favorite of the ones available), boysenberries (Ben's favorite, too macho for me; I now call it the Hemingway Berries) and tayberries (a cross between these two). I think Nelson's soil and climate best suits boysenberries because they never fail, but this year raspberries were delectable as well.
As for my ultimate favorite, blueberries, they are available from supermarkets but we haven't found a place where we can go pick our own, so I have a small plant. On the 17th, it looked like this and we thought we should pick the good ones before the birds get them as they do every year. Around lunch time on the 18th, the ripe ones were all gone again! How on earth do the birds know exactly the right day to come and steal my blueberries!
Christmas is over, over here, folks! Only 363 more sleeps to the next one. Anyone else still finding Christmas colors everywhere? Found at Cold Store Gallery, Mapua.
Christmas carol on Cathedral steps on Christmas Eve, an annual Nelson event that we had never been to until this year; we were a bit late but it was fabulous and Nelson Summer Festival is all go. Have a wonderful holiday season, everybody. 
Our famous Harry's Bar, again. I've seen it before, so it's not a Harry's original. 
Tomorrow is his big night. Earlier I spotted him on reconnaissance in town but now I'll let him relax a bit. Here's Ben's not-so-paparazzi style and here's his result. Happy Holidays to all who celebrate Christmas.
Remember this? It was a sticker and we said it wouldn't last the Nelson summer. Ben told me quite a while ago that they did something to remedy it, so last week I went to investigate. Now two new leaves (I couldn't tell if it was an identical sticker to the previous one) are affixed to a thin piece of plaster-like white board, which is screwed to the cement block wall. From a distance it almost looks like the old sticker, but the green leaves are less vivid, because of the white instead of the gray background, and you see the screws all over the place.
I vote for painting the leaves: it's probably cheaper in the long run.
The anchor of this barge looks like a plug. When Meg and I saw this, we both said the same thing: "Who pull the plug?!"
This is a old bench at lake side of the Lake Rotoiti, Nelson Lakes National Park. Here is a wide angle shot.
