tu? (1)

That’s what the cal­en­dar is telling us. As is the wind howl­ing through the trees, and short­ly, a string of cold south-west­er­ly thun­der­storms and gales. Stay classy, Welly Weath­er God!

Leav­ing that aside, the our eter­nal opti­mism finds expres­sion in the cel­e­bra­tion of grow­ing things that is the Spring Fes­ti­val, to start at the week­end (through to 3 Octo­ber).

The first event is the annu­al Otari-Wilton’s Bush Open Day & Plant Sale, which any aspir­ing sub­ur­ban­ite should be advised to attend ear­ly if they want to pick up the real­ly good stuff. Ear­ly bird catch­es the hard-to-find horoe­ka vari­ant and all that. But even if you’re not a gar­den­er, the ‘Bush is a very nice place for a stroll, espe­cial­ly on Open Days when after­wards you can reward your­self at the sausage siz­zle (and the last cou­ple of years there’s been a cof­fee cart there too).

You’ll also stand a good chance of see­ing lots of tui, the occa­sion­al kaka, and prob­a­bly even a fal­con (and here, this author must insert a gra­tu­itous “please read this and then vote for the fal­con here”). To get there, just catch the Num­ber 14 from town; there are also some free trans­port options on the day if you can get hold of a print­ed copy of the Fes­ti­val Brochure.

Anoth­er inter­est­ing-sound­ing series of events are the “Poet­ry in Lambton Quay”, on every day next week and for most of the week after at 12:30 by the Braille Sculp­ture at Grey Street, and fea­tur­ing “some of Welling­ton’s top poets”. Who these might be is not stat­ed — which does add to the inter­est…

Most of the rest of the events are cen­tred around the City’s var­i­ous gar­dens, such as the “Grow your own Veg­eta­bles” work­shop on Sun­day; var­i­ous walks and tours; and a kids’ tree-climb­ing class (yes, real­ly — they’ll learn to do it safe­ly, appar­ent­ly).

So wrap up warm, and get out of the house!