Freezing

Winter is well and truly underway. So far we have had lots of hard frosts, more than we have seen before. Locals would say this has been the coldest winter they can remember. A friend has recorded his lowest temperature at his house of -5C. I have seen our thermometer at -4C on a few mornings. The upside of these temperatures are the sunny days. Nelson was the warmest day in New Zealand yesterday, recording 12C. The records were also broken a week ago when all recordings for the south island where negative overnight. Loads of snow elsewhere in the country, with ski fields having a great start to their season.

Frost on the ground and another sunny winter's day

 

 

Neil from Chocolate Dog photography took this from a vineyard beside our house.

 

We are enjoying the winter. The wheelie admin work continues and some bike hire. We are waiting for building work to start at the wharf. As our shed was sitting on the site of the new building, we had to move. This was quite easy, as Lift n shift moved us all of 20 metres, in a matter of minutes.

Shed moving

Lisa has a few quieter days in the restaurant, so sometimes the coffee is served with 'latte art'

A flat white bear

I have also been on a few geography field trips, this winter. One of the trips went to Wellington and we took the chance to go to the new Gallipoli exhibition in Te Papa. It really brought the tragedy and horrible conditions of that campaign to 'life'. There are large (4 metre high) life like models of several people who served there and whose stories they tell.

Every detail life-like and very large

Next term starts in a weeks time. I am going to teach a class of Business Studies for 8 weeks. That should shorten the winter and before I know it we will be back into the tourist season.