Words appar­ently don’t mean any­thing any­more, so here’s our best of the week cov­er­ing… a little bit more than a week. Because life. So here’s what’s good and Wel­ling­ton-related this week!

Best adult learning option that you didn’t know about

Some people know Make Room for their won­der­ful chil­dren’s STEM edu­ca­tion classes, but you may not be aware they run fant­ast­ic pro­grammes for adults too.  From laser cut­ting, to weld­ing, to mak­ing your own neon sign.  I just com­pleted the Intro­duc­tion to Ardi­uno Pro­gram­ming where we learnt to build and pro­gram cir­cuits for sensors, led strips and a  weath­er sta­tion.  I can­’t emphas­ise how much joy learn­ing as an adult is, to be provided with everything you need, shown exactly how to do everything, and to focus on t the task of learn­ing.  For most adults under a lot of stress in our day to day lives, it is a won­der­ful dis­trac­tion for two hours a week.  and I have noth­ing but praise for our teach­er Nigel and his patience, as I am ter­rible at listen­ing.

They have mul­tiple loc­a­tions through­out the city includ­ing Miramar, Karori, New­lands.  They are cur­rently tak­ing book­ing for next term, with some classes start­ing next week (pos­sibly already star­ted cos this post has sat in draft so long – Edit­or).

Check them out here! - Nadia

Best in the pink experience

A friend What­s­Ap­p’d us the oth­er day:

“A very spe­cial screen­ing of the Pink Pan­ther is on at the Embassy with live music sound track by Laurence Ara­bia. 11am Sat­urday. Who wants to come?”.
What, the 1963 movie? Or one of the sequels? Weird.
Turns out she was mis­taken and it was a Square Eyes Fest­iv­al screen­ing of six of the ’60s car­toons that were spun-off from the films’ cred­it sequences, with a live soundtrack to be provided by Lawrence Ara­bia. Sold!
We turned up this morn­ing to find things basic­ally going off. People dressed in pink. Many many chil­dren. Many many nos­tal­gists like me who grew up watch­ing the Pink Pan­ther Show on TV. A Pho­to­booth. Free pink dough­nuts and rasp­berry cor­di­al. And not only Lawrence Ara­bia but also Riki Gooch and Con­nan Mock­as­in, who togeth­er impro­vised a con­tinu­ous soundtrack to the six car­toons – ori­gin­ally made for the­at­ric­al screen­ings – for a full 45 minutes, includ­ing extra jams in the pink-screened pauses between car­toons. Not a note of Henry Mancini’s, just a glor­i­ous new car­toon vibe, com­plete with well-timed music­al fx for the many moments of clas­sic car­toon viol­ence, which judging by their delighted guf­faws the young­er mem­bers of the audi­ence lapped up.
The show – and the fest­iv­al – was expertly wrangled by Nic Mar­shall who has relaunched Square Eyes since she and it left the NZIFF this year, and is now fly­ing free. Good on her and all her staff, includ­ing the young Ambas­sad­ors respons­ible for hand­ing out tick­ets, ush­er­ing and clear­ing up the pop­corn.
It’s all over for this year, but watch out for the 2025 sea­son. - Tom A

Best bakery discovery by me, a person who hadn’t been to Fix Federation before

Crunchy tiger bread with lemons

Hey, do you know what’s deli­cious? Fix Fed­er­a­tion! I happened to be in Pito-one vis­it­ing my sis­ter and steal­ing her lem­ons, and asked her for a bakery recom­mend­a­tion. I knew Fix Fed­er­a­tion was fam­ous for their donuts, but I was­n’t expect­ing their bread to be so good too! This crunch chewy tiger bread brought back memor­ies of Ger­man and Japan­ese baker­ies, glor­i­ous places that took bread ser­i­ously, unlike the cot­ton wool tiger bread of super­mar­kets here. Very recom­men­ded. And yes, the Nutella donut was glor­i­ous too. - Joanna

Ooooooozing nutella donut

Best new (to us) liminal space

There’s just some­thing about lim­in­al spaces. Con­sider how uneasy you feel every time AceM­cWicked posts this one on Twit­ter. Well, we’ve got anoth­er for you to add to your list of places to do a post apo­ca­lyptic­al fash­ion pho­toshoot – in the cor­ridor to the toi­lets behind the café build­ing on Tory Street that houses Gem­ini, Dam­as­cus, Le Ceil and oth­ers.  Too scary to take pho­tos of. - Joanna