LUXCity

There is a very nice habit forming whereby people who don't live here do nice things for us.  Some people find it annoying because they want their homes fixed and will not have a bar of anything good until the very last house is back to normal.  Some of us is broken houses on shitty streets in sad neighbourhoods embrace teh good at every opportunity and are very grateful to the lovely people who take a moment to help make life a little better.  Life is not that great if you live here and have no city and all of the above shittiness.

So, when 300 architecture students from universities in NZ decided to make us an event in the city, on a bunch of rocky empty sites that once housed buildings we just went for it.  What a fantastic event and many of us were very happy to be there doing something interesting in a place of despair.  THANK YOU.

We went early and left as the many thousands crowded in but we had such an awesome time seeing friends and connecting with bars and cafes who were on trestle tables in the rubble selling their wares.  I took some very average photos but there are some stunners floating around in cyber space so you could check them out if you were of a mind to.

Experimental balloon lights...not sure they worked out as intended but great anyway.

The music was very LOUD here and that is what dancing looks like in our house

Alex, Jonty, Nic, Pete, Oliver, Joseph and me

Shadow play

George and Helen

I have had a busy week with lots of social activities and busy work stuff. I composed an excellent blog post while biking to work the other morning and for the life of me, have not been able to recall it since. This lead me to thinking about doing a post called 'Inappropriate thoughts' but thought it might get some very inappropriate porn hits. Anyway, the tenor of that post would have been the constant stream of thoughts popping up just when I don't need them. Example: thinking about what needs to be in my bag when I am about 100m away from home on the way to somewhere and having to go back and get forgotten things. Websites/houses for sale/phone calls I need to make, when I am on my bike and miles from any from of technology. Things I need to do in my lunch break at times that are nowhere near my lunch break and finally thinking about things I need to do at work at about 4am. What is that? When will my thoughts align with my physical location?


Now, about George...'The George' to be precise. I scored a free nights accommodation at said hotel and Jonty and I made the most of that last night. Very nice. About Helen. I had the pleasure of attending the opening of the Beca Heritage Week on Friday night. I took my friend Karen who was in town for the weekend and we got to hang out at the COCA gallery with a cross section of the architecture, local government and other heritage type people. Nice wine, nice food, GREAT music courtesy of the very talented and sweet Flip Grater (whose sister is a friend of Jasmine's).

While we were deliberating over Chardonnay v Sauvigon Blanc, there was a buzz and hustle behind us and in walked Helen Clark our Prime Minister. She looked tired, trim and toned, short and prettier than expected

She spoke for a long time, very knowledgably and in a very relaxed manner,

She had very cute security guys and was rushing to catch a plane so whipped out pretty quickly

Whether you like her or not and aside from the fact that it is election year, I was kind of tickled to see the PM up close.

Check out the events this Heritage Week and enjoy something interesting and different in your life. The theme is 'Retrospective' and here are a couple of pics representing some 70's Christchurch architecture