A full day

Yesterday we left the house early-ish: after a school day would have started, but not by much.  We went for a long walk and scooter-ride, 90 minutes around to the next village.  There we stopped for morning tea before getting on a bus into Wellington to spend the rest of the day.

We went to Carter Observatory, to Fainjin’s delight.  He is very interested in the solar system since studying space at school and at Boys’ Brigade last term.  He bounced around the museum exhibits, while Pearl & I followed at a more sedate pace.  There were some school holiday activities there too, so they fished for “knowledge” about Matariki and made paper baskets to carry their knowledge home in.

Being at the observatory always reminds me of Susan, and of the Science Fair Stimey organised in her honour.  We saw a planetarium show about weather systems on different planets (and some moons), which was fascinating.  Fainjin confided later that he thought we were “going to die” because the film took us so close to the sun, but I held him in my lap for most of the show and he eventually peeked out from between his fingers and enjoyed most of it.

I wish I could remember whether it was on Neptune or Uranus that it rains diamonds.  Susan would know.  That sounded much cooler than seasonal cryovolcanic eruptions (although I have to say those are pretty amazing too!).  Pearl pouted because they didn’t mention Pluto then Fainjin started arguing with her that Pluto’s too small to be a planet and I had to hush them even though I was impressed by their level of debate because we were in a theatre.

Soon enough it was time to catch a series of busses home again.  The kids were happy but exhausted – as was I!  I put together a scrappy dinner of whatever-I-could-think-of that they might eat.  They went to bed fairly promptly and were soon asleep (only to be woken later by the earthquake).

This morning Fainjin told me all about the things he had learned and kept asking to go back to the observatory.  I’m sure we will.

© UpsideBackwards 2012.

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A weather charm

We haven’t had the driest summer here.  In fact it has been soggy verging on sodden.  I realised today that the children have been singing not-quite-right words to a song again, and once again I rather like the result:

Rain, rain, go away,

Come and get another day!

© UpsideBackwards 2012.

After the storm

This weekend we have had calm, sunny days, and the temperature has crept back into double digits – a marked contrast to earlier in the week with the snow and gales!

It would have been a great shame to waste such glorious winter weather, so this afternoon we took the kids and their scooters (and Babess on a parent-pushable trike) for a good long walk.  We were out for about 4 hours, exploring rock pools, clambering over things, rocketing along the straight bits, and sitting staring out to sea while eating chocolate.  We walked all the way around to the next village, where we got icecreams (and sat staring out to sea eating those) and played at the playground for a while.

Eventually we caught busses home, where the kids proceeding to hoon around the yard on their bikes and scooters, whooping and hollering.   Funny, I had thought they might be tired…

© UpsideBackwards 2011.

Snow!

We – along with the rest of New Zealand – have had crazy wild weather this week.  A “once in 50 years” weather event, several days of intense cold, hail, sleet, graupel and snow.   We’ve had lightning and thunder, heavy rain, bitterly cold gales and heavy seas.  The weather has been the top story for all the tv news programmes and the newspapers all week.

Where we live, the snow hasn’t settled, but it did snow, to the children’s great delight.  The hail did settle, at least until the rain melted it again:

That's me, struggling down the driveway on the ice

Pearl wrote about the storm:

SNOW!

Pure white, cold snow drifting, crisscrossing down to settle on the turf.  Wet, wet snow dropping on my glasses.  I can barely see the hills for the snow is so thick.  I see people, running, running across the turf laughing, shouting with joy seeing, watching the first snow in forty years.  Big and little snowflakes settling all over my hands, my sweatshirt, my feet.  Thinning, thinning, slowly stopping.

 

Hailstones falling on my arm

© UpsideBackwards 2011.

Sunset magic

Over the past couple of days, we have had a terrible winter storm.  Lots of New Zealand that doesn’t normally get snow did get snow, and places where it’s not uncommon to have snow got more.  At our house there was no snow, but we got sleet, and cold cold rain, along with biting winds.  The higher hilltops did get snow.

Today was a crystalline, sparkling post-southerly-storm day.  These are my favourite winter days.  Days like today almost make the storms worth enduring.

So tonight, Pearl and I met The Dad and the little ones and we all came home “the long way”, driving around the coast.  It was gorgeous.  We pointed out the snow-capped hills, discussed how deep the snow might be even when from a distance it looked like a “dusting”, and wondered how cold it would be.

The sky took on a pinky-orange glow, and the glowing green sea displayed perfect curls of surf topped by luminescent white foam.

As the orange sunset deepened and The Dad and I agreed that the only thing more perfect would be to (finally!) see some orca (we didn’t), Babess piped up in a puzzled voice:

“How does the colour stay up in the sky?!”

© UpsideBackwards 2011.