Entries Tagged 'Out and about' ↓

I’m such an Audi slut (or maybe it’s fast cars … expensive cars … or perhaps just a petrol head in general) … I just went out for my afternoon coffee and stopped right in the middle of the footpath so people had to walk around me to give a good hard stare at a blue RS4 parked outside work. It was a blue one like this:

It was filthy. It had a huge birdshit smudge down the side. It had Jesus decorations on it’s number plate!

But when it started up. Oh. My. God. Not sure if the guy saw me standing there or whether it’s just a thing that owners of sport-version Audi’s do but he really stamped on the gas when he took of. What a sound!! It’s a V8 – imagine that petrol bill. I filled up the baby Rocket the other day, it was just under quarter full and it cost me $105!!

Word on the street is that People’s coffee is opening a cafe on Garrett Street (off Cuba) in an old garage. Mmmmm, if done right People’s tastes fab and will be v.close! Must go look and see if rumours are true.

I was down at Fuel WT this afternoon and I witnessed a delightful exchange between a mother and ohhhhh 3-year-old? son just after she’d parked their car.

“Mu-u-um. Why are you looking for your money?”

“Because I need to buy a ticket from the parking machine.”

(A couple of minutes later with said ticket procured…)

“Why do you always have to get another ticket?”

“Every time I park in a new place I have to give the council some more money.”

“But why do they want money?”

Hmmm, what else could she say other than what I’m sure is a stock standard parent answer to all the why’s:

“Because that’s the rules.”

Have to say, it left me wondering why you have to pay …

Was quite amused by this line-up of seagulls on the waterfront this afternoon. They wouldn’t quite line up as straight and uniform as when I first saw them for their photo to be taken but close enough.

It was just roasting today and there were loads of people around eating ice-creams and swimming.

On the way home we had to perform a bit of first aid on the Mister’s toe. Recently I’d begun to think I was perhaps a bit too anal and well prepared when a power cut in our building brought us face to face with the blackest hole of a stairwell we’d ever seen when out of my handbag I produced a torch. Ha! Knew there was a reason for it to be in there. And a similar situation arose again – since the Mister has started carrying a Freitag I’ve snuck a few things in there so I don’t have to lug a handbag around at the weekend and today when he stubbed the top of his toe right off and it was gushing blood all over the footpath (well that’s how he tells the story) I was able to produce some tissues to mop up his toe and a couple of bandaids. It was like proper family outing!!

Windy Wellington eh? Today is warm and calm – lots of people wandering around the waterfront and eating their lunch by the harbour.

(Taken with phone camera…)

The Willis Street side of the Chew’s Lane apartment/shopping complex was revealed this week. Quite nice brick construction – and with Willis Street being very green at the moment reminds me a bit of Melbourne.

Just had breakfast at the Nikau supplier’s market being held outside the cafe this morning in celebration of their 10th birthday. Supreme was there with a small roaster, roasting beans and then making coffee with them straight away – delicious. I ate so much – a blueberry scone (date ones have not yet made it back onto the menu) AND a peach collete – never had one of those before but I think they’re normally in their cabinet. It was basically pastry with scrunched up edges around a pile of fresh Golden Queen peach slices. YUM.

Two months ago I photographed and questioned the wine trail sign that has appeared on Oriental Parade … and today I’ve finally found out where they’re pointing via an article on stuff.co.nz!

Wine trail to nowhere
The Dominion Post | Thursday, 31 January 2008

Drinkers may think they are pie-eyed after the appearance of street signs which could be interpreted to mean that wineries have opened in Wellington.

The Classic New Zealand Wine Trail signs direct motorists between Wellington airport and the Interisland ferry terminal.

The route snakes along Aotea and Waterloo quays, Cable and Wakefield streets, Oriental and Evans Bay parades and Cobham Drive – roads not within cooee of a vineyard or winery.

But Wellington makes up only a small part of the 380-kilometre wine trail – a self-driving route that takes in the wine regions of Hawke’s Bay, Tararua, Wairarapa and Marlborough.

When Miramar resident Ranui Calman saw the wine trail sign on Oriental Pde she was left scratching her head because as well as pointing to Martinborough it was on the side of the road heading to the airport.

“They were pointing the wrong way,” she said.

“There needs to be more information on them. Otherwise people are going to be driving around looking for wineries that don’t exist.”

The wine trail is supported by Positively Wellington Tourism and even its chief executive, Tim Cossar, admits the signs could be confusing.

“I can understand that some people would expect that they might see a vineyard down the road, and get confused.

“But the signs are just part of our commitment to the trail as opposed to saying there is a vineyard around the corner.”

The trail is heavily promoted overseas and Mr Cossar said tourists who had bought into the concept would understand that the signs are directional only. If the signs had simply directed drivers to the motorway, and not along the city’s waterfront, then Mr Cossar said he would have failed to show Wellington as a tourist destination.

The first Wellington wine trail sign appeared in November. The signs were funded through a $24,000 government grant to the NZ Wine Trail organisation.

I think Zambesi might do this every year but I’m always alarmed to see the broken and strewn limbs of mannequins in their window at sale time.

Wore my Obama ’08 shirt out and about today. Got a couple of stares and a couple of comments. At Nikau I was told it was a ‘nice shirt’. At Borders the girl serving asked if it was a pro Obama shirt. I always try to imagine I’m in the States when I go into Borders so it was great that the girl there got into a conversation with me about it. Although she did tell me about a woman she served the other day with a Vote Hillary badge that she wasn’t too pleased to see in a way that made me think that she thought they were on opposite sides!

Anyway, since being given the t-shirt for Christmas I thought I should find out a bit about the guy so cruised around the website and signed up for email updates on his campaign … thought I’d get news as he won various States. Instead out of the 9 emails I’ve received (one about winning a State) only one hasn’t asked me to make a donation! It’s a full on sales job, feels quite preachy and all. The whole election thing is so different here. However, I’m wearing my t-shirt around – call it a donation of support!