Five questions with Wanda Harland

Full dis­clo­sure: the Welling­ton­ista is all about nepo­tism. So we thought it was about jol­ly time we sat down (well, emailed) our Martha, who has been a very impor­tant part of the ‘ista since like 2006 at least (although she is much less of a bad influ­ence on us now than she used to be), […]

Are men ‘man enough’ to knit?

There is a bit of a knit­ting renais­sance tak­ing over the world. It’s cool, it’s hip and as proof, the ulti­mate gen­tle­man of hip­ster cool, Ryan Gosling, likes to unwind after a long day with some yarn & pair of nee­dles — he’s described a day-long knit­ting ses­sion as “one of the most relax­ing days […]

Candidates: Holly Walker for the Greens in Hutt South

We invit­ed all can­di­dates in Welling­ton elec­torates to con­tact us with their answers to fif­teen crowd­sourced ques­tions. Answers are restrict­ed to 30 words each, and we pub­lish them exact­ly as we receive them.  Who are you and what do you want? I’m Hol­ly, I’m from the Hutt, and I want a clean green econ­o­my that […]

A great yarn — what Tash did next

Remem­ber Tash from It’s A Tree? Not con­tent to rest on her lau­rels — or tuis, or flow­ers, badoom chish — she’s kept her­self busy in the world of wool, open­ing up Hol­land Road Yarn at 281 Jack­son Street, Petone. We thought we’d have a chat to Tash and see exact­ly what was going on…

TAWA5 Best Suburban Destination

The sub­urbs. Love them or loathe them, they sur­round every city. And loathing the sub­urbs out of some sort of twist­ed inner-city-cen­tric impulse is pret­ty short-sight­ed – espe­cial­ly when you could be enjoy­ing the fol­low­ing:

Hutty goodtimes

The Hutt is a seething mass of cul­ture (as if you did­n’t know), and at the moment there is a par­tic­u­lar­ly splen­did out­door exhi­bi­tion of sculp­ture, Shape Shifter. The art works are for sale, and we at the Welling­ton­ista Tow­ers feel a few would look just the thing in the foy­er. The exhi­bi­tion is at the Civic Gar­dens, next to the Hor­ti­cul­tur­al Hall and oppo­site the Dowse.

Why not make a real trip of it, and come out on Sat­ur­day for the Petone Fies­ta. This street car­ni­val fea­tures a vibrant and eclec­tic mix of music, food, the­atre, arts and crafts. A cer­tain shop may even be open espe­cial­ly late for the fun , and a cer­tain shop­keep­er may be guz­zling grog to make the fun fun­ner, but that is anoth­er sto­ry…

Petone Fies­ta, Jack­son St, 6pm-10pm 8th March.

Shape Shifter, Civic Gar­dens, 22 Feb­ru­ary — 16 March.

Petone Fair today!

Be there to score some great food and rides and crowds and good times and bar­gains at a tru­ly cool, old skool fair.

Jack­son St, Petone. Today.

Um, that is all.

Right up your Hutt Valley

The win­ter car­ni­val is on in sun­ny Petone next week­end (7th July). There will be cir­cus acts, trapeze, and extreme­ly chill­ing dip in the ole briny dur­ing the day.

The best bit of all is in the evening, when there is a huge fire­works dis­play off the pier. The mid­dle of win­ter lends itself to a very civilised start time of 7.30pm.

Wrap up warm and bring a ther­mos of what­ev­er you like to warm you from the inside.

Come ear­ly, enjoy din­ner at one of the local eater­ies and avoid the traf­fic, which can get a lit­tle sticky approach­ing kick off.

More sen­si­ble and detailed infor­ma­tion can be found here.

Fair season

The next five weeks are going to be tres busy for the dis­cern­ing shop­per. There are fairs galore. Here is a quick run down:

15th Feb­ru­ary — Craftwerk is on at the South­ern Cross. An almost all new line-up of stalls will keep it fresh and inter­est­ing, and it is on from 5–9pm with bands.

17th Feb­ru­ary — Petone Fair. Jack­son St will be chock full of every­thing from sausage siz­zles, boun­cy cas­tles and eth­nic food, to fab jew­ellery, clothes and gifts. Starts 10am. I rec­om­mend park­ing along the Esplanade and walk­ing a cou­ple of blocks to the fair.

17th Feb­ru­ary — The Big Bang is on at the New­Dowse. This sig­nals a month of excit­ing activ­i­ties. A high­light will be The Real Hot Bitch­es per­form­ing a danceathon at 4pm.

3rd March — The sec­ond of the Mar­t­in­bor­ough Fairs is on. This is a repeat per­for­mance of the fair in Feb­ru­ary, with all the same fab­u­lous food and stalls. It is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to scope out some winer­ies while you’re over the hill. Mar­t­in­bor­ough Square.
10th March — Gay and Les­bian Fair, New­town School. An array of stalls and activ­i­ties. 9am-4pm

17th March — Whoop! Craft2.0 is going to be on at the New­Dowse in Low­er Hutt. This fab­u­lous fair is the cul­mi­na­tion of a month of activ­i­ties at the New­Dowse to cel­e­brate its ren­o­va­tions. There will be the finest craft from around the coun­try and hot bands. More infor­ma­tion on this excit­ing event will be updat­ed every 2 min­utes (heh).

Muka

The Set­tlers Muse­um is host­ing the MUKA YOUTH PRINT EXHIBITION 2006.

The exhi­bi­tion fea­tures a col­lec­tion of forty orig­i­nal lith­o­graphs by twen­ty promi­nent artists from New Zealand, Aus­tralia and Europe.

The exhi­bi­tion is unique in that it is only open to young peo­ple aged 5 to 18. The idea is that young peo­ple are giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to see, select and buy an art work that they like, unin­flu­enced by adults or the name of the artist. All the works reflect the nor­mal style of the artists and there is no “talking down” to the chil­dren.

The uni­form low price means that this is an excel­lent way for young peo­ple to get real works of art into their hands.

Set­tlers Muse­um
The Esplanade
Petone

25 and 26 Novem­ber
12 noon — 5pm