Wednesday 13th February

Another short day today, activitywise at least. We spent most of the morning writing up yesterday’s blog, uploading the photos then trying to arrange accommodation at or around Napier this weekend. Jane and Peter warned us that the Art Deco festivities take place in Napier during the 3rd week of February but since we had limited net access till we got here we hadn’t got round to booking anything – big mistake! However, we have managed to book about 50km away for Sat night and actually in Napier for Sun and Mon, so that’s OK. We also talked to Amy this morning. Good old Tesco internet phone came up trumps here. For the first time, we had an uninterrupted line and spoke for nearly half an hour. We tried to phone Andy too (Andy please note) but couldn’t get through. I caught up with some e-mails and will get round to others soon. It is good to hear from those of you who e-mail us – a little touch of home and even though we’re enjoying our adventure, there’s still a touch of homesickness now and again.

Today it has not rained! It looked like it at one time, but the clouds flew away. We went to WOW this afternoon (the World of Wearable Art, and Collectible Cars)

. We got in on Senior Citizens rates which amused Tom no end! The car collection is wonderful. There are some superb classic cars and actual cars from films – the DeLorean from Back to the Future and Magnum PI’s red Ferrari 308, as well as a fantastic Cadillac Eldorado – Amy, you’d have gone gaga over it even though it isn’t pink! Most of the cars have their certificates of roadworthiness and one is even for sale. There are also quite a few motorbikes from a World War II messenger bike to some very swish looking ones. Tom took several photos so any of you car buffs who want to see more will have to wait till we come home and see them all.

The World of Wearable Art started off in the 1980’s in a small way and is now one of THE shows of the year in Wellington, drawing an audience of over 30,000. Other countries have now expressed interest in having annual shows too. I was fascinated by the displays – some are static but they have a moving display of 20 garments. One of the categories in one year was the Bizarre Bra section and boy! Do they have some VERY bizarre bras. One is made of 100 % human hair and entitled Her Suit; one was made from two stuffed budgerigars; one from the front ends of two model Spitfires – and so it went on. But the outfits that were most spectacular were made with fluorescent materials and shown in a dark room with ultraviolet light. As a dressmaker, I found them all utterly fascinating and would have liked to have more details. The nearest thing I can think of to describe the types of outfits is Cirque du Soleil costumes. Normal fabric was used but was in the minority with coins, wire, plastic bags, metal sheeting, ring pulls, reeds, hair and no end of other unusual materials.

There was also another of the “Rings”, set into greenstone as a memorial to Jens Hansen, who was the goldsmith that manufactured the 40 rings for the films. Jens died in 1999, and the memorial was crafted by his son, Thorkild, working with Jeff Beckwith, a well known Jade artist. Having had our fill of that, we returned to the patchwork shop for Tom to take photos of the kit I bought yesterday as the instructions are not clear as to how the fabrics are laid out. Then we did another little explore around the town, had a yummy ice-cream from Penguino’s and wended our way back along with half the workforce of Nelson, the traffic was so heavy.

While Tom was topping up the screenwash this evening, the fire siren went off – the fire station is immediately beside the motel – so off he ran with the video and filmed the fire engine going off on its shout – you can take the man out of the boy but not he boy out of the man!!

Sorry there’s nothing very exciting today but there are still lots more days ahead so keep reading. TTFN.