ANZAC DAY 2019

A digger with his rations.

A nurse reading mail from home.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

we will remember them.

Capital snapshots

 Some snaps taken by my GKB
on a wet and misty Wellington day.

A day of sightseeing finished off with delicious hot chocolate.

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Wishing everyone a joyful Easter weekend.

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joining Debbie over at Breathing in Grace

for friday foto friends

Terracotta Warriors

In March my GKB and I went up to Wellington for a long weekend

 - conference for me, R&R for him. Wellington is the capital city of our fair land and home to the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. It is known locally, as in throughout the country, as Te Papa. Te Papa Tongarewa translates from the Maori to 'Container of Treasures'. We decided we had to visit as there were two exhibitions we particularly wanted to see, so while I conferenced my GKB went sight seeing. Later we visited Te Papa together. Twice.

Outside Te Papa on a wet, windy ,cold Wellington day

The second time we were there to see The Terracotta Warriors from China. This was really fascinating once we got in. Entry was once an hour and you bought your tickets earlier. We hadn't realized how the system worked, bought our tickets and then had to wait over half an hour till we could go in. Never mind, we had a coffee and went back and discovered the queue was very long waiting to go in. Well worth it though.

One of the lions on guard outside the exhibition.

She has a cub under her foot and represents nurture.

There was a male lion on the opposite of the entrance,

 also on guard.

There were a lot of artifacts on display including this ceremonial dagger. The handle was gold inlaid with turquoise. There was one display which we missed altogether as the people were several deep and moving extremely slowly...and we had a plane to catch! I'm still curious as to what they all found so fascinating though.

This is a half size replica of the carriage, horses

and driver who would transport the emperor around

 his celestial realms in the afterlife. The attention to

 detail was amazing, everything was very lifelike.

And finally we reached the warriors, ten in all approx. 2 metres tall, with two full size horses. All made of terracotta. They ranged from the lowly foot soldier at the front through the different ranks and then two generals. One in battle dress, one in formal dress. You could see where they had been holding weapons but because of their age these had rotted away being made of wood. Can I say again, I found it amazing. If ever you get the chance to see any part of this treasure, please do.

If you click on the blue print near the top of the post

it will take you to links with more info if you're interested.

I'm so glad we made the effort to go, we knew we wouldn't have another chance as they all head back to China in a few days.

Then we got our bags out of the check-in, crossed the road and caught a taxi and headed to the airport. And that's another story :)

I said at the top this was our second visit to the museum

 and I'll tell you about the first one a bit later.


Have a great week
Diana

Joining Deb over at Breathing in Grace
to share in Friday foto friends

New beginnings

New beginnings in more ways than one.

A lot has changed in my life in the last few months,

I have given up some activities and taken up others.

Some things are going to be a challenge and a

learning curve for me but I'm looking forward to it.

One thing I discovered though was that I needed 

more variety just to bring some balance to my life 

- I needed to do something creative.

So I decided to come back to blogging, this is totally different to anything else I am doing and writing and taking photographs is the type of thing I enjoy doing, I find it very relaxing.

I am also cross stitching on a baby blanket.

Middle sis, in Australia, crocheted it 21 years ago for my daughter when she was pregnant. I never got the stitching done on the blanket before the baby was born so she just used it as it was.

Sis had also earlier crocheted the same blanket for my eldest daughter and I'd managed to do the cross stitch on that but for some reason not on the second one. Above is one of the panels I'm copying.

And now we have a new little life just about to begin.

Eldest granddaughter, Monica, remember

the wedding we went to last year, is going to gift us with

 a little boy and the blanket came out for me to finish.

Now this is not the sort of creativity I am happy with

but seeing as it is for my first great grandchild it will be done :)

And if I do a little each evening it should be finished in time.

We had a baby shower for her a couple of weekends ago so

 I've put up a couple of photo's of the blooming mother to be.

She was so delighted with all her gifts and just slightly overwhelmed by peoples generosity as well, I think.

So...I'm back and find I have enjoyed writing this.

I've been on once or twice reading posts

but only decided last night I needed to come back.

Have a lovely week,

Diana

My muse has left me

I have reluctantly decided to stop blogging

for the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately my blogging muse seems

 to have left me and although I enjoy

reading what everyone is up to I find that

I can't get anything on the page myself.

I had two goals in mind when I started

this blog and haven't achieved either of them

 - I'm not unhappy about that, just philosophical :)

I will miss you all, I have enjoyed getting

to know people through this medium

and hope I have occasionally made a

 positive contribution as well. So in the meantime...

So long, farewell, auf weidersehen, goodnight...

Diana

Lunch at the lake

It was a beautiful day on Saturday so we decided to take a sandwich and flask and have lunch at Lake Waihola.

There were not a lot of people there, much to our surprise, just one or two families about. More around at the boating, waterskiing area than at the swimming area where we were. Once more I missed an opportunity to go for a swim. The water wasn't too cold and not a lot of people. And we had a little bay to ourselves :) A really pleasant  spot to sit, eat and watch families enjoying the day.

There were the usual gulls hanging about looking for a free lunch.

This is a black billed gull and is only found in New Zealand.

Quite a pretty bird I think.

Over the track from where we were was the camping ground.

You can see it over the fence here. Quite a small one but just 20 minutes out of the city so you don't have to drive too far

to feel like you have escaped the madding crowd.

We stayed a couple of hours and then decided to take the scenic route home so set off over the hill and out to the coast road. This was the view looking back at the lake.

We drove home with native flax and toetoe on one side of the road and the Pacific Ocean on the other. The plan  was to stop and buy an ice cream but at $3.50 each (a rip off price) we decided to wait until we got home and have a free one :)

Another lovely outing on a lovely southern summers day.

Diana

'Tis 2019

First of all let me wish everyone a belated New Year.

How did you celebrate? Did you celebrate?

We didn't. We had our grandson staying

so thought we might at least sit up until midnight

 but he scooted off to bed about 10:30pm

and so we went not long after.

It still happened without us :)

We were a bit spoilt on New Year's day, a friend invited

 us out to lunch and we had a very enjoyable catch up

 with her at one of the hotels a couple of suburbs over.

That evening we were also invited to our son's home for the evening meal. We had a delicious cold meal, summer noodles, followed by icecream with a passionfruit sauce over it.

This was all finished off with rose petal tea

(coffee for my GKB) served in beautifully fine

 porcelain tea cups. So delicate. In the bottom

of the cup was an image in the porcelain of the

head of a Japanese lady. I think you'll see it

if you look closely at the picture below.

We all headed to the beach afterwards, next time

I'll take my swimming togs. It was a beautiful

 evening and the water wasn't too cold. Some of

us paddled, one of us decided the water was

too cold and another one guarded the cardigans,

cell phones etc. We headed home about 8:30pm.

After grandson headed back up to Christchurch

 we had a day or two just relaxing and then Sassy

arrived to stay for a couple of nights. She's missing

her family but once she realized we were actually

going to feed her and take her for walks she perked up.

She has been good and it's been fun having a dog again

 for a little while. We were out early for our walk this

morning as the forecast was for warm temps during

 the day, it's 31C at present. Unless it cools off somewhat

 she may miss out on her evening jaunt :)

And that has been our first week of 2019.

I hope yours has been just as relaxing.

Diana

joining Deb today for

Friday foto friends