A Sunny Saturday

My legs were sore last night, I wasn’t sure how I was going to do this morning, but the miracle of a bit of ibuprofen at bedtime really helped. Headed down to the bus stop to take the scenic route to Annemarie‘s place and saw a group of people with hiking poles and backpacks. I found out it was the Wellington Tramping Club! I’m going to try to join them on a future hike.

I met Annemarie at the weekly vegetable market held in the playground of the primary (elementary) school near her house. There was every veggie you could think of and lots of them as well as a small craft market and a few bakeries selling their wares. We saw someone with a Frenchie that looked almost exactly like Emmy’s dog Winston. I bought an amazing looking seedy sourdough loaf and a maple and bacon pretzel for later. In the craft market I found a print that I loved, but then I got stuck as the art was priced according to size, either A3 or A4. I had no idea what size it was! I learned that A0 is the largest size and then every subsequent size is half that, so A1 is half the size of A0 and A2 is half the size of A1, etc. A4 is the closest to standard American copy paper size, it’s 8.27 in. x 11.69 in. (210 mm x 297 mm) as opposed to 81/2×11. We had a fun discussion with the artists about the metric system, they felt that the US did things differently because we hated England – not only with our measurement systems but also driving on the other side of the road, etc. I hadn’t really thought of it that way, I just figured we were too stubborn and lazy to change. I remember the feeble attempts to switch to the metric system when I was in elementary school.

After I spent some time wandering around the shops in Newtown, seeing fun artwork, looking at the library’s extensive tool lending library, checking out bookstores, interesting looking cafés and bars (my favorite one was called Auntie Social), I caught the bus (it had ‘More comfortable than taking the horse, faster than the tractor’ painted on the side!) to Ohiro Bay to look at an art studio that’s only open on the weekends.

The afternoon had turned absolutely gorgeous, sunny and very calm with almost no wind. I was drawn to the waterfront and noticed a cute little trailer selling hot drinks and snacks. As I’d already had plenty of caffeine, I bought a lemon, ginger and honey drink, which was absolutely delicious and hit the spot. I ended up chatting with a woman sitting nearby and we both had a lovely time enjoying the beautiful weather, listening to the waves, and watching kids and dogs having fun in the water. Later I checked out the art gallery, which had some very nice but pricey pieces, then headed to the bus stop where I discovered Nautilus Creative Space next door. It looks like an awesome place to hang out and work.

Mary and Owen had trees trimmed on their property and decided to use one of the big branches as their Christmas tree. You don’t see a lot of the traditional pine and fir Christmas trees in New Zealand. We often ended up buying what was in the fact a large branch as our Christmas tree when we lived here. While the trees always smelled great, keep them upright was a challenge!