Botanic Gardens and the Coolest Cinema

Tuesday 7 July

Another grey day but less rain and more drizzle this time. Pottered in Banjo - didn’t get dressed until almost 11am - and took more practice tests. Michael Sheen/Aziraphale looked shocked that both Ella & I were still in our PJs on our morning video chat at 10.30am 🤣

Then headed into VTNZ near Sockburn so that Louis could take his Class 2 licence theory test… which he duly passed despite encountering two questions which never popped up on the practices! 🎉 Now just got to confirm his 2-day practical course for the end of the month.

Drove on into town and had a lovely, but damp walk around the Christchurch Botanic Gardens Te Māra Huaota o Waipapa - I think all the ducks & multitudes of Canada geese were enjoying the weather more than us! There were soooooo many Canada geese all over the gardens, but the honk-wah ducks were still in charge, Mrs Wah standing proud on the bench back! We saw some sad, damp looking tourists out punting on the Avon - not the same as on a warm summers day! There were a few blasts of early spring colour like the red azaleas below, but mostly it was all grey, brown & green wherever we looked.

Our loop path brought us round to the Ilex Café so we stopped in for lunch as it’s always good food there. We opted for toasted ham & Swiss on pumpernickel and pumpkin & leek soup - then swapped halfway through and both were absolutely delicious. Walked back to the car past "Diminish & Ascend" by David McCracken - I love this sculpture - and so do the ducks!

We’d booked tickets for “Disclosure Day” for a dry indoors afternoon activity - at the Alice Cinema in town and that place turned out to be a real gem… the movie, not so much! I think we’ll be back to see “The Invite” later this week - cinema tickets were just $13.50 each which is a bargain! (Turned out later it was half price Tuesday - good learning for future cinema visits) Louis picked up tickets and the best choc top ever while I wandered around exploring the weird & wonderfulness.

The whole place is loaded with shelves and shelves of DVDs - like Blockbuster Video with curated offerings! The Alice theme is carried throughout the cinema and there are also tributes to many legendary movies - I picked up their 500 greatest movies ever and was sad to find I'd only seen about 85 of them... lots of homework viewing ahead 📽️🎞️

There was a trailer before our movie and a poster outside for "Cate Video Fest" which basically seems to be cat reels strung together and shown on the big screen - I'm wondering if we can make it back here to that - it would be hysterical!

Back to Banjo rather slowly as the rain, spray & winter darkness made driving quite hazardous (employ 4 second rule!) and cooked ourselves lamb steaks for dinner whilst watching more Downton Abbey & working on our blog.