So, it is a quiet Friday afternoon, and I’ve decided it’s is time to bring you all up to date on the latest goings on in New Zealand. Truth be told its been a fairly quiet week, bit of sight seeing, bit of shopping and bit of falling out of campervans, but I will get to that later on.
So, after a quiet Friday last week, on Saturday we headed into Christchurch and the RWC fanzone that had been set up. Sadly Christchurch has been robbed of RWC games at the city’s AMI stadium due to the earthquake in February. (I touched on this in an earlier post.) This has not stopped the event organizers setting up a fanzone in one of the parks in the city. A stage, mini rugby pitch, 2 stands and 2 big screens aim to bring a little bit of the RWC to a place that has been cruelly robbed of it.
Big screen and goal posts at Christchurch fanzone
The main reason for going to the fanzone was too see part of the Scotland team and watch them hand over a cheque for over $85,000 to the Christchurch earthquake appeal.
We arrived a little bit late and missed the start of proceedings, though I don’t think we had missed out on much. A stage had been erected at one end of the fanzone and various people were on it, Scotland team members, Andy Robinson (Scotland head coach) Gregor Townsend (Scotland attack coach) and Al Kellock (Scotland captain) were all in attendance as well as SRU president Ian McLauchlan who presented the cheque. After this Al Kellock was presented with a box of "Aftersocks". Once the pleasantries were done, it was time for the younger people in attendance to meet and greet their hero's! (please note, that may have possibly included a certain young(ish) Blogger who got rather start stuck while speaking to Gregor Townsend!)
Al Kellock with young fan, Eilidh Forsyth.
Al Kellock holding Rannoch, then (L-R) Bell, Eilidh and Lachie Forsyth
Gregor Townsend with Eilidh and Lachie Forsyth.
SRU president Ian McLauchlan with the Forsyth clan.
So after this I got what was being touted as the “earthquake” tour. Colin drove us around various sites in Christchurch and explained what happed and what in some cases were missing.
You can’t really comprehend the scale of the damage until you see it for your self, and this is seeing it 7 months after the event, what it must have looked like at the time, I shiver when I think about it. (by a strange twist of fate, I am writing this, the day after the 7 month anniversary of the quake)
After this rather sobering tour, we done a bit of shopping, picked up some presents and a book about the earthquake and the aftermath of it, proceeds of which go to the recovery fund. (as do funds from the Aftersocks site)
Sunday was another quiet day, brunch at friends house and wee trip for me with Sam up into the hills to check out paddock he will be doing some work on. Time for a wee pint with him on the way home, and that was that.
Monday morning, and that can only mean one thing. It is a school day in the house, and it is a very special day at the kids school, it is the opening of the new library! This is in the afternoon though, my plans for the morning consisted of, even by my own admission, being very lazy and having a morning of doing nothing other than relaxing (I am on holiday after all!)
That afternoon, we loaded into the car and headed for the school. We arrived in plenty of time for the start, directed to our seats, given fudge and a programme of events by some of the older children and we took our seats.
There was a Traditional welcome in Māori and then the national anthem was sung by the kids, all very nice. It was interesting to be on the other side of this, having done it a few times as a kid in my own school.
The special guest to open the new library was a local author who’s name escapes me at this moment in time. (terrible sorry about this)
Mystery local author tells the kids a tall tale!
Mystery author cuts the ribbon to open the new library.
After this, we went in and had a wee look, was very nice, then got nibbles and coffee in one of the other classrooms and that was it, home time! (for us, not the kids)
And that as they say is that! Much more to bring you all up to date on, but that is for another post (mainly because this one is exceedingly long and yawn inducing)
Speak soon people!
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