Wellington Eating Houses Clean Up in Cuisine Awards
This years’ Cuisine Restaurant awards have seen three Wellington restaurants receive gongs, including the supreme title for Martin Bosley’s at the Port Nicholson Yacht Club. Bosley’s restaurant also took out the Best Fine Dining Award.
Other local winners were Pravda, who won the Best Casual Dining, Metropolitan award, and The Martinborough at Peppers Martinborough Hotel, which took Best Casual Dining, Regional.
Stationery Porn
Hopefully!
Small Business Expo – a 3 day event happening from today at the TSB Arena on Queen’s Wharf.
Um… no pictures to tempt you sorry, I dithered lovingly over a snap of an electronic stapler, but it occured to me that there may be no electronic staplers there & that might be misleading advertising.
Anyway, the expo – 3 days of stalls, seminars, mentors, and most exciting of all, giveaways.
See you there this afternoon.
Glancing at the Stars
If this were the Aucklandista site, this’d surely be about Millie. But it’s not. Besides, we’d never heard of her until yesterday. Millie Elder? Millie Holmes?
Anyway… that’s just alluding to celebrity gossip to lure you in. And to trap the googlers… yoohoo!!
Here in the Capital city, when we talk about stars we talk about the really big ones! Real stars.
Matariki.
In May or June each year, just before dawn (yeah right!) look toward the North Eastern horizon & you should see the Matariki constellation. The Greeks called it Pleiades (although they view it upside down to us) or the Seven Sisters, the Japanese called it… Subaru!
To Maori, it marks the New Year, and is associated with the Winter Solstice. The name itself literally refers to the Eyes of God.
This month till the 1st of July, Te Papa are hosting a Matariki Festival, click through for further details.
Further information on Matariki itself, can be found here, here & here.
Pruning With The Stars! Sunday 17 June
This weekend sees the Annual Rose Pruning Demonstration at the Lady Norwood Rose Garden in the Botanic Gardens.
Want to bone up on proper garden maintenance? This is your chance! The Wellington City Council has laid on the roses, and the experts. There will be tips on both pruning AND growing your roses. Dancing with the Stars contestants may or may not be there. The same goes for the surviving Beatles & Nastassja Kinski, but I remain hopeful.
I usually make wise with the Rose puns at this point, but she emailed this year & asked me to kindly stop.
There are two sessions:
1.30 – 2.30pm: pruning modern roses in the Lady Norwood Rose Garden. Meet at the Begonia House.
2.30 – 3.30pm: pruning rambling and heritage roses at the Bolton Street Memorial Park. Meet at the Seddon Memorial.
Grab your blades & go to it!
Addendum – Glow Worms:
While I’m on the subject of the Gardens, I happened upon an official person taking a bunch of schoolkids on a glow worm tour last week & feel I should pass on the intelligence I gleaned on my way past them. The poor lady was stretched thin by 10 or so bored & restless boys. It didn’t help that there were no worms glowing at all.
I’d wondered for a while, from personal experience, but as the lady snapped at the boys she confirmed my theory that glow worms put on their best display after rain or a heavy dew (I do not know why this is).
So should you be planning a visit, do so soon after rain & while the worms can be found in most places in the Gardens, the easiest to find & arguably best are on the main track between Glen Road & the Duckpond.
Charity Dinner & Dance, June 16
Get your glad rags ready, and pay a bit more attention to Dancing With the Stars over the next few weeks.
The Asia & Pacific Ladies Association are hosting an authentic Indian & Continental food evening with live entertainment!
- Enjoy the music & excellent company
- Win great door prizes (win a door?)
- Bring friends & reserve a table for 10
Saturday 16 June
(I know this is early, but you need time to find that perfect outfit right?)
From 6pm
Indian Association Hall
48 Kemp Street
Kilbirnie
Drinks BYO or available for purchase at venue.
Tickets $50
Contact (021) 855 789 or (04) 477 0628
And the charity? You’ll be helping keep the “FREE” in Wellington Free Ambulance.
“Just like a Star Trek convention…
…except with better-looking chicks and binge drinking”.
Here’s a challenge for you. In an unidentified pub, somewhere in town tonight, the local heats for the New Zealand Rock Paper Scissors (RPS) championship will take place.
At stake is a trip to the national finals (at an unidentified location) in July. The winner of that will attend the world championships in Toronto at some unspecified time later in the year.
The highly (un)informative article (not) detailing all of this is here.
Rock, Paper, Scissors is an ancient game played across the globe from very early in humankind’s history. Yet, it seems to me that in some strange way, RPS is also a sport of the future, indeed, I would not be surprised to see Wii RPS on the market, paving the way for the game to be included in future olympics (we start lobbying next week, depending on how the Kiwi RPS competitors look).
I mean, I’m guessing that this is a beguiling spectator sport (if anyone can find them tonight feel free to confirm that). Particularly if there are going to be hot chicks & binge drinking. It’s darts for the modern age! (Although I’d need someone who knows to confirm whether darts attracts a superior breed of groupies.) But I bet the whole thing is more reminiscent of a darts match say, than a Star Trek convention.
Unless they’re dressing up as Klingons or something, in which case I’ll concede that point.
Yesterday’s Protest March & the Second Coming of Christ
The Anti-Smacking Bill? The Child Discipline Bill? I’m not entirely sure what it’s officially called, and in standard tradition, I can’t be bothered looking it up. But you know what I mean.
Cuba Street Carnival Feedback
Did you know that the Council supported the carnival?
Do you think they should support the carnival?
Got 2 minutes to answer those & a few other questions right here?
Supplementary question:
Are you offended by nudity at carnivals? If no, were you not outside Floriditas with half the Wellingtonista?
Then go here… and if that’s your wife/girlfriend/mother/daughter wrapped around that pole.…
Well, way to go.
St Michael’s & Kelburn Village Fair – March 10 from 10am
The St Michael’s & Kelburn Village Fair is on tomorrow at 10am.
This will be the first one I’ve managed to catch, so I can’t regale you with tales of past experiences, but I can promise you stalls, home baking, junk/treasure, and probably an awful lot of very out of date 2nd hand university text books.
There may also be fire eaters, dancing, dancing girls, dancing bears, acrobats & tightrope walkers. I dunno, but I’m hoping.
And of course, the very attractive residents of Kelburn.
And her owner.
Help Fight Gnomelessness!
Cool prezzie alert – Locally made Gnome Homes & Gnomaloos. Hand cast by a master blacksmith in the Hutt Valley (who also does a good line in Roman Armour, and let’s face it, who doesn’t like dressing up in Roman Armour?, and a few other ideas he’s working on which I’ll report on when they come to fruition, but which must remain under wraps for now so as not to give away his ideas to competitors.)
I just got a couple of Gnomehomes & matching Gnomaloos for my nieces, they also come, I’m told, in camouflage colours for the boys, and in various combinations – Gnome Village, and the bulk pack which I guess could constitute a Gnome City.
You can get them through this site, or by emailing Murray (click on the little Murray figure for the email link), or through numerous retail outlets, including Christopher’s Crystals in Cuba Street.