Best contribution to society

The monthly Repair Cafe at Ngaio Union Church.  How cool to have a big room full of incredibly competent humans dedicated to helping others for free (you can contribute koha and if you don’t have coins, ask them for their bank account number). I took a record player and was not condescended to at all when it was discovered it hasn’t worked for ten years because of a rogue cue button. Lovely Andrew also showed me the packaging of a switch to go to Mitre 10 to buy so he could fix my lamp too. Hero.

andrew's hand screwing a switch

There were others there with sewing machines, and fixing furniture, and bike repairs happening outside. You’re welcomed in and told to grab a cuppa and something to eat while you wait to be called (the baking looked really good but I was wearing a face mask). It appears a bunch of people just come in to chat and get human interaction, which is lovely too. There’s very solid seats, and an area set up for kids to colour and play. It was a little hectic so you may want to take something to read and/or noise cancelling headphones if you’re likely to find that a bit difficult, but the people could not have been more lovely.

I will just also add that as a queer person, seeing how some “Christian” churches have been weaponising hate lately,  it was a lovely reminder that actually, some Christians really are there to make their communities better places, one broken lamp at a time.

The repair cafe happens every third Saturday of the month, and if you’ve got anything you need help with, I really recommend heading along.

Best decision that seemed unfair at the time: 

K-Zone karaoke on Wakefield Street does not sell soju. Sunday was probably all the better for not being able to buy it on Saturday night.

Also hot tip: for K-Zone – they DO have a buttload of Beyoncé songs, but you have to search for them under “full name” rather than “first name”. Ask the staff if you’re still having trouble – we were not the first to have this problem.

Best newish bakery

Uncle Leo’s in Evans Bay. Absolutely stunning apple cronuts, good coffee (and it’s harder to get right with decaf!), lovely staff. The apple & sage pork sausage roll was also really good too but it would probably have been nicer at the start of the day rather than at 2pm after sitting in a heated cabinet for many hours.

Best contributing member of the Wellingtonista (this week)

Me cos I’m the only one that stumped up with contributions.