Invercargill

A few days down in the deep south, in Wallacetown and Invercargill.   The place where I was born and lived for the first 19 years.  A place that is mostly cold and wet, although there are sunny times, as on the day we arrived on this visit.  Blue skies and sunshine.  Invercargill is also very flat, and the south westerlies whip around the main streets.   

Shona's new wood burner certainly threw the heat out, which I loved.  It brought a red glow on my cheeks.   I hasten to add it was definitely the fire and not the red wine, which can also have the same effect.   Perhaps the scarf was overdoing it a bit.

Alec the cat wearing his Christmas hat.  Definitely not happy about the hat.

George, the very fat and fluffy cat, stretched out on the carpet, ready to attack with his sharp claws, should one foolishly stroke his tummy.

A very wet view through the large sliding doors.

Despite the rain we wanted to take some photos of the area.

Anderson's Park, the house standing out clearly in a beautiful parkland. Sadly the house, which holds a wonderful art collection, is closed until the required earthquake strengthening work is carried out.

The park contains some of the most beautiful rhodendrons and azaleas, I have ever seen.  I walked across the sodden lawn to capture a picture of this huge rhodendron.

The flame coloured azaleas.

More colourful rhodendrons.

This small enclosed garden in the park will be a blaze of colour in the summer.  A lovely retreat in which to spend time, on a sunny day.

Wisteria, in full flower, covering the arch, which leads into the small garden.

The next stop, Dee Street in Invercargill, deserted on a wet Sunday.  Sadly the heart has gone out of Invercargill, due to large chain shops scattered around the outskirts of the city centre, taking customers away.   The earthquake strengthening law does not help as it either makes old buildings unusable or landlords put rents up in order to cover the costs.  When I lived there, Dee Street was always full of shoppers, especially on Friday afternoons, when the farmers and their wives came into town.

The Grand Hotel.  Once a flash hotel offering expensive accommodation, it then became a place offering student accommodation, and looked very run down.  But now it is a hotel again, and features prominately and positively on the internet.    I can remember standing on the street, as a child, with hundreds of other people, and waving to Queen Elizabeth when she appeared on a balcony.

Angle parking, with a large strip of road behind the cars to allow drivers to reverse out safely.   Both Dee and Tay Streets are extremely wide.  There is even a nature strip, with some very lovely trees, in the centre of the road

A view towards the old post office, now serviced apartments.  No doubt the closing of the large post office and the banks nearby did not not help with the decline of the city centre.

We visited Suzanne's school, where she is a teacher.  It was great to see her classroom, very colourful, and to marvel at the small class sizes, about 18 children per infant class compared to the 30 children per infant class in England.

The school had organised a very creative project to raise money for a new covered playground.   Local artists gave their time to develop art projects with each class, which were then auctioned, together with some of the artists work.  The artists either donated paintings or took a proportion of the sales of their paintings.

It was a paper auction, in that bidders entered their number and price on a sheet of paper, which was attached to the wall by the painting.  The bidding stopped at 4 pm on Sunday afternoon.

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The crowds disappeared, and we had a clear view of all the lovely art work.

Despite the weather, we had a very busy few days visiting family members.  We also had a couple of large family gatherings at Shona's, with lots of sharing of memories and laughs.  A very precious time.