Yikes! Went for a walk around the waterfront yesterday and when we went passed Frank Kitts lagoon I thought I saw something flit in the shallow water – thinking it might’ve been the jumping fish I’d see there a couple of years ago I went out on to the little pier thing to have a look. Turned out it was a bird scooping up little fish but when I looked into the water I saw stingrays! 3 of them! Right up close. The first one I was staring at looked dead. It was just sitting there, and I couldn’t understand why they’d be right in town. In the shallows. (Not that I know much about stingrays). A couple of other people noticed them too and a wise looking man said he’d never seen them in this close before. I went around to take a closer look at one of the others and he had his eyes open – was staring at me! There was a bit of a breeze across the lagoon so hard to get clear photos, but you should definitely see they’re stingrays.

(You can see his eyes open in this one, honest!)

The Rugby 7’s tournament is here this weekend on its annual tour of countries that play rugby with 7 per team (oh god what do I know anyway?) Seems it’s more about gangs of people getting together and all dressing the same and drinking enormous amounts of alcohol and making their way through town to the stadium.

We had a coffee at a cafe with outdoor seating and watched some of the crazy fans walk and stumble by.

We saw rather a lot of costumes – here’s what we can remember:

• strawberry tarts
• Billy T’s (NZ comedian)
• Puss in Boots
• a carrot
• Spartan warriors
• army guys
• men dressed as women (including one with his dress & a piece of toilet paper caught in the back of his knickers)
• construction workers
• Girl Guides/Boy Scouts
• Smurfs
• Atom Ants
• Tangy Fruits (NZ sweets taken off the market this year after having been around forEVER)
• a yoghurt
• Heidi Klum from the Guitar Hero ad
• Mexicans
• Pirates
• bumble bees
• Pink Bats (insulation, as in the current TV ad)
• sailors
• sheep (all with ear tags with sheep-like names Baaaabara, Shaun, Rambo and one black sheep called Obaaaaaama)
• nurses
• Adam & Eve
• Rubics cube
• gridiron team (Wisconsin)
• Barbie/Ken
• i-Pod
• priest (with a toy kid stuck to the front of his trousers!)
• Mr Incredible
• life guards
• jockeys
• Fred Flinstones
• 3 blind visually impaired mice
• buzzy bees (class wooden NZ toy)
• Mormons (oh wait, they were actually some guys on their way to a wedding)