Looking For A Business?

This is an advertise for "Hire A Hubby" franchise. I had to take a photo because of the car and colour.

Wild Animals on Rabbit Island 2

It was late in the day, shortly before sunset, and a large group of boys appeared.

Some started playing immediately, some tried mock-fighting, a few stood around waiting for something else to happen, two pretended they were engaged in an intense conversation, and one told everybody else what they should be doing.

What kind of a teenager were you?

Wild Animals on Rabbit Island 1

Did Ben tell you there are no wild animals on Rabbit Island? You've just got to look more carefully.

Charity Bins

This is the easiest way to give something to charity in New Zealand. We used to have these bins by different organizations all around town, mostly in parking lots of large supermarkets. Sometime around 10 years ago kids started fire in a couple of them, and more than a few bins were removed.

One year, early on Christmas Eve, our friend Charlie deposited quite a lot of bags of not-so-used clothes, and her wedding ring slipped off her hand. She would have been hysterical, dancing and shouting in front of the bin, but a kind, not-so-young man apparently crawled into the quite-full bin, handed every bag one by one to Charlie waiting outside, found the ring, and then put everything back in carefully, and left.

Oh, the kindness of strangers.

Beware of Weavers

When we were queuing/lining up to get into the Opera, there was a smartly dressed woman wearing a vivid blue-red shawl. The body of the shawl was a standard Herringbone twill, but on the ends were this fantastically intricate knotted work I had never seen before.

Naturally, once we were inside the gates, I approached the woman and asked if I could photograph it. She thought it is from Ecuador. Yummy!!!

I Guess it's a Semi Big Deal???

After ogling at the die-cast models of the cars of the 60's and 70's in the model shop, Hobby Central, Ben though he was still dreaming when he found the Datsun Sunny in front of the shop, and Triumph across the street.

Sorry, Boys, I had to have the cars pointed out to see what he was on about. So there you have it; Queen Street, Richmond.

Art for Health

From the sculpture map, to which we haven't referred for quite a while:

"Art for Health, tubular stainless steel sculpture by Grant Palliser, next to the main entrance of the Nelson Hospital, was commissioned in 2003 to mark its opening. The work can be viewed from many vantage points, inside and outside the hospital. The three corners are based on the three interwoven components of the Health Triangle - patient, health service providers, and the patient's own family/whanau support system."

Earlier this month, Grant was selected to create a central piece for what will become the center of Richmond township.

Other Grant Palliser pieces posted in NDP are:
Lean On Me IV - Marquette
Reef Knot
Oracle
High Flyers, also here
The Seafarers' Memorial, also here.

Juicy

In the last couple of years, we've been seeing a lot of interesting names and paint jobs of/by new car rental companies. This is Jucy, and she has a blog!!

Ben went nuts a year ago seeing orange Spaceships buzzing around Hanmer Springs; we couldn't figure out if it was a courier or a car company.

Fireworks

We had fireworks show at end of the concert.
This is what we saw... a sort of... very close...
Actually, this is 4 images blended with the photoshop. I tried to recreate what actually like from series of short blast shot to simulate the long exposer. I hope you agree, Meg.

Blue Sky

It was another very fine day on Saturday "Opera in the park".

Opera In The Park 2

Here is our main guest Kiri te Kanawa performing on the stage.
I only had Canon G3 and this is best I can with the distance, but I guess you can feel how big the concert was (in the small town scale, of course). (wide shot in later time)

Opera In The Park 1

This year was the 10th anniversary of this annual event (last Saturday, 16th Feb). We were about halfway down the rugby field but were took our own picnic. It had a really enjoyable feel and nice event. The picture shows the pre-show performance performed by our friend The Nancies.

ICNIV AD

The "Da Vinci Machines" is exhibiting until end of this month. (B&W)

Evening

It's after 6:00PM on last Wednesday. All shops (well almost) have been closed even there is still bright sun light. Most of local are at beach or there home to spend quality time with family. I was waiting Meg after my work. B&W here.