From the num­bers of you lot vot­ing for the Mon­tana World of Wear­ableArt awards in the TAWAs, we’re guess­ing that you’re already pret­ty famil­iar with Mon­tana wines. After all, it’s been more than 30 years since Montana’s orig­i­nal 1979 vin­tage Marl­bor­ough Sauvi­gnon Blanc intro­duced the dis­tinc­tive flavours that estab­lished New Zealand’s rep­u­ta­tion on the world wine stage. As part of the com­mem­o­ra­tive cel­e­bra­tions, Mon­tana took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to fresh­en up the look of the brand. Always keen to get our hands on free wine, even if we have to pass it on, we have two triple packs to give away so you can see the new look for your­self.

With the com­pli­ments of the love­ly peo­ple at Mon­tana and us adorable Welling­ton­istas, you can enter the draw for a chance to win one of two Mon­tana prize packs val­ued at $50 each. The prize pack includes three bot­tles of the new look Mon­tana Marl­bor­ough Sauvi­gnon Blanc 2009

In order to get into the draw, all you got­ta do is leave us a com­ment and tell us where you’re going to drink the wine. Are you going to take them to your favourite Malaysian BYO place, or drink them (care­ful­ly!) at the top of the secret tree in the Bot Gar­dens? Tell us before Decem­ber 15 (which is also the cut-off date for vot­ing in the Welling­ton­ista Awards, don’t for­get!) and we’ll choose two win­ners at ran­dom. And now for the legal stuff: you need to be over 18 to enter this com­pe­ti­tion. We will be check­ing IDs because we def­i­nite­ly learnt our les­son with that one guy we met on Courte­nay Place that one time.

Just a quick note about an exhi­bi­tion tonight (Tues­day Decem­ber 8th). Col­in Kalden­bach — gig poster design­er extra­or­di­naire — exhibits the best of his work from 2009 at SFBH, with a live set from Welling­ton’s Kit­ten­tank.

Show­cas­ing posters fea­tur­ing bands such as Flip­per, Sons of Midas, Gay­wyre, The Pos­tures, The Ver­laines, Kit­ten­tank, New Tele­pathics, New­town Street Jus­tice and more . Prints, framed work and can­vas are avail­able for pur­chase. It’s free and there will be hap­py hour pric­ing all night. It kicks off at 6pm.

So if there’s a gig poster that has tak­en your fan­cy this year, you can either pick up a cheap good qual­i­ty print or go the whole hog and get a framed piece. There is some orig­i­nal one off work for sale as well. The exhi­bi­tion will run for two days only, so get in there! You can view some of the posters avail­able here

There’s a moment very ear­ly on in An Ada­gio Christ­mas when the whole the­atre gasped in uni­son, and both our daugh­ters stood up in shock. The moment passed, the shock fad­ed, but they nev­er quite set­tled back past the edges of their seats. Like the rest of us, from then on they were hooked.

An Ada­gio Christ­mas is a retuned-for-Christ­mas ver­sion of the ear­li­er Down­stage pro­duc­tion of the same name; a series of loose­ly linked vignettes whose per­for­mances encom­pass var­i­ous cir­cus skills as well as music, singing, danc­ing, and com­e­dy.

Tonight from 6.00 until 8.00pm This­tle Hall is hold­ing their annu­al $100 art sale. 

Sup­port the artists, the venue *and* get some­thing unique for the impor­tant peo­ple in your life just in time for Christ­mas.

Check out pic­tures of some of the pieces for sale here.

You can try and deny it, but the sea­son for shop­ping is upon us.

If your plan this year is to shop local and/or shop hand­made, then tomor­row night is the answer to all your plans.

The­New­Dowse pre-Christ­mas com­bo has  space rock­ers Spar­ta­cus R and the first-ever Craft 2.0 Twi­light Delight.

Music + shop­ping + art

= a mul­ti-sen­so­ry treat to cel­e­brate the fes­tive sea­son

Craft2.0 kicks off at 6pm and runs till 9pm.

All the gal­leries, bars and cafe are also open till 9pm.

If you’re a pedes­tri­an, some­times it seems as though you’re the last to be con­sid­ered. Oth­er modes of trans­port get all the big bucks while we get to stum­ble along on our own, catch­ing our heels on the cob­ble­stones and dodg­ing the seem­ing­ly inter­minable earth­works.

So it’s nice to see that there’s a ded­i­cat­ed Cycling and Walk­ing jour­ney plan­ner from the Greater Welling­ton Region­al Coun­cil. I par­tic­u­lar­ly like how it tells you the ele­va­tion of your route so you can see whether an appar­ent short­cut is going to be like scal­ing Ever­est or not. There is also a calo­rie counter, which I guess helps jus­ti­fy your morn­ing tea when you’ve got to work.

I exper­i­ment­ed with the route from my house to work, and the default sug­ges­tion was def­i­nite­ly the most prac­ti­cal for the unath­let­ic, though not the short­est — it knows about the tracks over Mt Vic, but you have to drag the route over the moun­tain your­self.

Def­i­nite­ly worth explor­ing, even if you’re a ded­i­cat­ed walk­er, if only so you can boast about the dis­tance to your lazy mates.

Vot­ing in the Fourth Annu­al Welling­ton­ista Awards is open from Decem­ber 1–15. Then come find out the results at our Awards Night at Mighty Mighty on Decem­ber 17!

To vote, vis­it this page.

Our nom­i­na­tions for Welling­ton­ian of the Year are all peo­ple who make our city a brighter, bet­ter place to live. Their con­tri­bu­tions are as var­ied as Welling­ton itself, and we’re so proud of them all.