Cuba St Carnival

The Cuba St carnival is a relatively recent Wellington tradition involving a couple of days of music, markets and other activities, and culminates in a big parade. I missed most of the carnival but managed to get down for the parade with Jeff and Sara. They're not the clearest/best photos, but gives you some idea of the party!

Breaker Bay sun worship

This summer has been pretty good (although not as good as last year I reckon). Have managed to get down to Breaker Bay several times for a lie in the sun (go the vitamin D!). Here's some shots of the other day when Jesse, Arte, Bas, Pip, Euan and I did a bit of a tribute to Ra :-)

Garden Magic

Over the course of the summer, there are heaps of free concerts and other events on in Wellington. One of the events are the Garden Magic series of concerts in the Botanic Gardens. They're held in the soundshell and are a great (free!) night out. I went to see the Little Bushmen, OpenSouls (who played on my birthday - yay for them! I had a really great picnic down there which was fantastic), Adi Dick, and the Wellington Ukelele Orchestra among others. It's so easy being able to just pop down because our flat is just up the road from the gardens.

These photos are from the last concert (the Little Bushmen) that I went to with a whole heap of people. Jesse looks like he's enjoying it but Arte was a little bit tired having just returned from a whirlwind trip around the world!

Sevens!

Well this year I finally went to Wellington's biggest party - the Sevens! I have to say, it was a whole heap more fun than I was anticipating - and everyone literally does dance and scream and yell the whole time! I even found time to enjoy the actual rugby - go Samoa! Unfortunately NZ were absolutely thumped by Fiji in the semi-finals, but I'm sure we'll end up victorious over the course of the series :-)

Adrian and I went with Bastiaan and Pip and we dressed as the people from the Tui ad where they're trying to break into the factory (all except Bas who wore Pip's mum's black 80s cocktail dress - but only on the first day when I didn't have my camera!). I ran into heaps of people there, like my cousin Scott and Adrian's sisters Emilia and Veronika (the pirates in red) - not to mention literally running into all the other people - the place was packed! Excellent costumes though, although the site of grown men dressed as Borat (in the green swimsuit) has scarred me for life I think...

Cocktail party chez Jeff and Ruth

Jeff and Ruth were incredibly generous and hosted a cocktail party at their lovely flat on Oriental Bay where all the cocktails were provided! As could be anticipated, it ended up being quite a messy night, but Adrian and I had left well before then thank goodness! ;-) I enjoyed the blue cocktails in particular :-)

In the first photo from L-R it's Pam, Pip, Bastiaan, Jeff, Adrian and Matt and Euan from the back.

The second one is Bas and Jeff sharing a 'special moment' - Pip doesn't seem to mind though! ;-)