I LOVE spring!

Last year I think it would be fair to say I missed spring. I was in Australia, and Australia doesn't have a real winter, and so September just feels slightly warmer and flies begin to annoy you. Back in Christchurch, however - it's like the first day of September is a sudden, uncanny change. Winter is no more. Spring is upon us! We may have had a few days of icky weather in the last two weeks, but it's the icky weather of spring, not the icky weather of winter. Best of all, flowers are suddenly appearing. Everywhere!

The daphne bushes are out in flower - my favourite smell in the whole wide world! [This is not my photo.]

At uni, the trees are blossoming around us...
I was going to be a good girl today and study hard, but as soon as I got to uni and allowed myself to be distracted by the sun and the flowers and the general niceness, I got a sudden urging to go into town, to Hagley Park, with the rest of Christchurch, and wander lonely as a cloud among the daffodils.

At this time of year, daffodils, snowdrops and bluebells carpet the floor of the Christchurch Botanical Gardens and it's rather lovely to join everyone else in wandering and admiring. It's one of those genuinely beautiful things about Christchurch that not only tourists enjoy.

I thought these two girls were particularly cool for finding parasols for the occasion.
Now I am back at university, about to start writing my essay. I wanted to share this final photo, though. This is a tree just outside the History building. Apparently the tea bags are an addition by a Fine Arts student. They looked horrid during winter, limp brown sacs hanging on bare branches, but for some reason, with the blossom coming out, I rather like them. At least, I'm intrigued. Is it supposed to be a tea tree? or is that too obvious? Is there some deep significant meaning inherent in the act of hanging old tea bags on a tree?

just too cool...

So, I'm in a small group that does Bible studies every week, and every now and then we organise daytrips or weekends away for the group. Because everyone's pretty busy this year, we decided to just have a daytrip/fun-activity, which was last Tuesday, and this is pretty much how we decided on a destination...

Let's go to Willowbank! [sarcastic] (Willowbank is a small zoo in Christchurch)
Hahaha! Yes! Let's go to the zoo! [sarcastic]
....
Well, why not?
[General consensus - we are going to the zoo]
Hahaha! Let's go dressed up as animals!
Hahahahahaha! [snorting] Yes, that would be funny!
...
Really, let's!
Yeah, it would be funny!

Only five of us ended up going; the rest couldn't get off work for the day, or, I suspect, were a little too insecure in their coolness to go to the zoo dressed up as animals. We, however, are so insanely cool that verily I believe we have started a trend. At least, all the mums and dads and little kids seemed to like us. And the zookeepers. The animals didn't really seem to care. Although I have a theory - in the kiwi house the cheetah and I were treated to a demonstration of kiwi procreation techniques. Surely they wouldn't feel comfortable enough to do that in front of normal people? A cheetah and a tiger, however...

Just so you can see with your own two eyes how cool we are:

Our cheetah poses. Look closely at the picture; I painted her face and I am very proud of it.
The bumblebee and the peacock. You cannot see it here, but our peacock had six peacock feathers stuck into the back of her belt. Very styly.
Our zebra.
Aaaaaand, me. To be honest, I'm not sure how cool this photo really is. But I am willing to risk humiliation for this blog.

Speaking of wildlife, I came across this white-tail spider in our kitchen last night...
Eeeeek! I don't like killing ones that big because you can feel them crunch. So I kept him in that glass, drove ten minutes away and let him go in a big field.

a little piece of Trish arrives in Christchurch

Yesterday a little package arrived in the mail for me with an exciting Amazon label on it... Hooray! Trish's book! I started reading He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not on Friday night and then today I stayed in bed until 11:30am to finish it off. :) I haven't done that for so long and it is such a good feeling. Anyway, in honour of Trish's arrival in Christchurch, New Zealand, I decided to take her out for a little sightseeing, despite the miserable early winter weather. Luckily by the time I got into town it had stopped raining, and a friendly passerby took this photo...

... I did not explain why I wanted my photo taken with a book. Think of it as the hook by which that passerby will hunt down Trish's book for themselves.
Then Trish and I went to the Arts Centre. You may remember some weeks ago I did a "My Town" blog post on the Arts Centre; well, it was time to show Trish one of my favourite spots.
We went to the markets, and I even sampled some fudge for Trish at the Fudge Cottage and considered buying a greenstone necklace.
Then we took a quick look in the museum, and I showed Trish the scary fake cave of my youthful days.
Next stop was the Art Gallery. We had an iced coffee in Alchemy café, and then had a look around the gallery and in the gift shop.

Our favourite was the Colin McCahon exhibition.
We walked down Worcester Boulevard, waving to the people on the tram...
...and ended up in Cathedral Square.
We paid $1 to climb the Cathedral Tower, up a claustrophobically small spiral staircase, but I did it for Trish's sake...
...and we listened for free to the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra rehearse Mozart's Symphony No. 35 inside the Cathedral for tomorrow's concert.

Then it was time to leave. Luckily for Trish and I, we narrowly avoided a parking fine.

Review to follow!

being a copycat

Jenkneebee has just done a fantastic blog post on the St. Paul Stone Arch Bridge as part of something called My Town Monday. Being, uh, me, I wanted to do the same thing! (I love how this form of plagiarism is acceptable while blogging!) I don't exactly intend to do something like this every single Monday but I do think it's a cool idea. So, I have chosen to write the Arts Centre, which is in the heart of Christchurch and one of my favourite places to go. (Here is the website for it.)

The University of Canterbury was founded in 1873 and what is now the Arts Centre was the site. Unfortunately for me, the university moved in 1974 to its current campus in Ilam, which is just not as pretty as the Arts Centre, though bigger. My dad studied at the original site in his days of BSc and MSc, and below are some older photos of the buildings and grounds.


The modern Arts Centre has kept its Gothic architecture, thank goodness, but the contents of it are quite different now. Restaurants, cafes, arty shops and galleries and workshops. I think some parts of the buildings are even apartments now, but most of the area is open to the public and there are heaps of things to do and see.

There is also at the Arts Centre a fantastic little movie theatre called Academy Cinema, which plays any slightly arty or special movie that has just come out, and also regularly plays a few films that are just so good people keep coming back. Gloomy Sunday has been playing there every night at 7.15pm for about five years now, in a tiny little theatre that seats about nine people. Also at the Arts Centre is the Court Theatre, which always has something of very high quality on - Shakespeare, modern drama, improvised comedy, musicals, you name it.
The Arts Centre is just about the most popular wedding photo destination in Christchurch (as below), and it is general practice now to book different areas in it for photos so that there are not huge numbers of bridal parties fighting it out for the best photos. Venues at the Arts Centre like the Great Hall can be hired for weddings as well.
There are heaps of cool little shops at the Arts Centre which I have loved to visit all my life. The Fudge Cottage (below), is one of the best. The fudge is delicious, and there are always free samples to taste. :) Another favourite of mine is Beadz Unlimited, a fantastic shop filled with a huge amount of beautiful beads and everything you could ever need to make your own jewellery. Even if I don't want to buy anything I visit it every time I go to the Arts Centre. Besides these particular shops, there's a huge amount of little arty shops filled with paintings, pottery, woodwork, and so on. Great for wedding presents or any kind of present that you want to be slightly special.

However, my favourite, favourite part of the Arts Centre is the markets that you can shop at on Saturdays and Sundays (below). These are random, arty and eclectic, some are expensive items, some are cheap. There's always some buskers round (including, in 2006, yours truly) and great food to sample. Even if you don't buy anything it's fun to look around.
The restaurants and cafes are also some of my favourites in town. The Dux de Lux is a vegetarian and fish restaurant that occupies the old Student Union building. Le Cafe has the best chicken nachos and coffee, and a great brunch menu. Alchemy cafe, down the road at the Art Gallery, makes the best iced coffee I've ever had. One of the best parts, though, is the ethnic food stalls that are open on the weekends, where you can buy incredibly yummy food from all over the world and then eat it on the sunny North Quad lawn.

Technically not in the Arts Centre, but so close that I have to mention them, are some other great places: Across the road, the Botanic Gardens and the Canterbury Museum (below)...

... the Antigua Boatsheds (below), where you can hire canoes for an hour or two and paddle up and down the Avon River, or hire some time on a punt, being peacefully punted along the river by a nice looking man in a funny uniform and flat hat...
... and the Christchurch Art Gallery (below), which is obviously a building of more modern architecture, but which I think is really quite beautiful, and filled with fantastic artwork, a very cool bookshop, and, as I mentioned before, a fantastic cafe.
The End. Come visit me and I'll show you around!