> It’s that time of year again – the Rheinland-Pfalz Austellung (State Fair) hits town and I wouldn’t miss it for the world. First of all, I now get tickets…
> Guest photographer: Andreas Los This is the Mainz Sand Dunes (Großer Sand) Nature Park, 70ha in area and one of the most significant in Europe. It was formed during…
>Icecreams at the Eiscafe Italia in Heidesheim. Great icecream, brilliant espresso Summer is definitely just around the corner….. Posted using BlogPress
> These are “Seelen” – translation: Souls – that a baker sells on the market on Tuesdays and Fridays. They’re a southern German speciality, made from spelt wheat and rather…
> It’s pretty cool when you get back after 4 weeks away on the first day of spring and it really IS spring. Temperatures zoomed up to mid-teens over…
> Or just schizophrenic? There are moments that define that “you’re back”. In New Zealand, it’s having fish and chips and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc on the wharf…
> Just PRETEND that this is a sunset, OK? Poetic license It’s actually been the morning view from bed for the best part of the last month. Will we miss…
> Everything’s OK as long as you go with the flow. If you get served the worst fish and chips you’ve EVER had, just accept it. If someone promises…
> Kitty and Charlotte go to Nelson Intermediate. If you’re lucky, you’ll experience them singing acapella on Trafalgar Street in Nelson. They’re really quite good. If you hang around and…
> Went to see my mate Houghton at the Boat Show at the Viaduct Basin in Auckland on Sunday. He’s the very proud owner of “Raindance”, an 80 year old…
> The International Dateline lets me do two posts today. I bet you’re all just squirming with delight….. Christine Boswijk is one of New Zealand’s major artists. (They don’t hand…
> Words fail me…. (No they don’t) The Suter café is consistently good – imaginative cooking, decent coffee, affordable wine and cultured customers. And some REAL sights……
> You’ve probably by now cottoned on to the fact that we’ve been encroaching on Meg and Ben’s “Nelson Daily Photo” territory for the last couple of weeks. What you…
> We have excellent neighbours. Erika and Siegfried, the 163 year olds and the Famous Reporters from across the road in the Fatherland. And these folk from Mapua: Frank (2nd…
> You can say that again…! WoW was/is the World of Wearable Art show (an opportunity for fashion designers to push the envelope to the point of perforation ..) that…
> Great people, great food, great art. Posted using BlogPress
> I’ve always liked boats, but having lived in landlocked Germany for the majority of my adult life, it’s been a fairly remote attraction. The closest I’ve got in…
> Owen and Kaye Pope bought an over-run farm in the Moutere in the late 1980s. Rampant raspberries amidst the wilderness Kaye made some jam, they took it to the…
> No-one makes better whitebait fritters than Robin Fullmer. Period. Especially at 4:30 am when you’ve been invited around to watch an All Blacks game in the northern hemisphere on…
I have a friend who’s an artist. Mostly ceramics, but she also paints. Her husband‘s also a ceramicist – completely different field, mind you – and she started trying…
This is my mate, Steve Fullmer, potter extraordinaire of Tasman. (Website here, Facebook here) New Zealand’s premier award for ceramic art used to be the Fletcher Challenge. Steve won it…
> Now, is the “Boatshed” the restaurant or would that be the “Boathouse”? And where do they have Friday night concerts and open a café during the week at…
> Don’t do it and you’ll be sprouting melanomas within minutes. Slip on a t-shirt, slop on some sunscreen, slap on a hat. That’s the mantra that you see all…
> Cameron and Maria turned up with yesterday afternoon (plus a rigger of beer from Golden Beer) when they came around for sundowners and nibbles. All from their own 5000m2…
> Mapua Wharf has a bit of a chequered history. There’s been a wharf here since 1915, primarily to ship out the pip-fruit harvest from the orchards in the area.…
> Upper Moutere is cool.It’s so country that you’d almost expect a horse-hitching rail outside the village store, but a heavy duty 4wd gives you an idea. The town started…
> The place we’re staying at is really quite well set up, but there are some essentials that every good kitchen needs. And – given that we’re here for almost…
> These guys were on the Nelson Market on Saturday, playing “The Entertainer” at a a rate of knots and just RAKING it in. The kid on the electric piano…
> The Nelson region is firmly rooted in agriculture. These days it’s renowned for wine and olives (which are relatively new crops), but there have always been apple orchards. Since…
> The Nelson region has over 100,000 hectares of production forestry. The port exports over 800,000 m3 of timber annually. So why would a vessel loaded to the gunwales with…
This is kina, the Māori name for the sea urchin or Evechinus chloroticus. When they’re all dressed up with spines and stuff, there’s a distinct similarity to a hedgehog…
Mainz Daily Photo 