Beautiful Days

I've spent the last ten days enjoying Spring as it unfolds here.

I met a few friends down at the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch nearly a week ago to scope out the scene.

Daffodils.


Nora appreciating the Flora.


Stretching party in the pavilion.


Our adventure to the Botanic Gardens inspired an adventure there on Sunday that consisted of a picnic and duck feeding.

There are lots of beautiful flowering trees in Christchurch.


Our meeting place, "the stump":


Lying out in the sun picnicking. I did some juggling, ate a grapefruit I brought, pinched some hummus and pita from Rachel before going off to tour the greenhouses in the gardens.


After our picnic we had a go at feeding the ducks. We had to try a few different spots before we found ducks that were keen to have a munch.

The group then dispersed only to meet up again not three hours later at The Bard on Avon for a pub quiz. A pub quiz is an event in which the members of each table at a pub form a team and attempt to best the other tables in a trivia competition to win a prize of some sort. Typically, the prizes are certificates worth $50 or $100 NZ. Though our team did not win I had a very good time and have since attended a different pub quiz at Canterbury University's The Foundry. The only picture I have found from our quizzing at The Bard:


Another thing I did recently was brew up some mead with Dale, Jasmine, Rachel, and Matt. I made a recipe pretty similar to the last one I made during the summer which was delicious except I added a bit more vanilla and some almond extract. The brew appears to be doing very well. If it tastes decent before the end of September I will submit a sample of it to be tasted and ranked in the Brew Club's end of the year competition.


Yum...

Tomorrow I leave for the Country Life Weekend with Dale and Carie. The Country Life Weekend is a two night farm-stay put together and paid for by IFSA-Butler. The Country Life Weekend is for people who thought it sounded cooler than the Adventure Weekend or had something else to do the weekend of the Adventure Weekend. Dale and I are the latter while Carie is the former. It should be a great time. I'm told I may do some of the following: learn how to shear sheep, play with sheep dogs, work a tractor, eat delicious home cooking. Expect a good blog post about it in three days when I'm back.