All posts tagged: Wellington

Weta on a Wet Day

Last week it was raining, and I was hurrying off to give a lecture on textiles.  As I dodged raindrops down the sidewalk, heading for my car, I almost stepped on a peculiar New Zealand native, the weta. What is a weta?  It’s kind of like an awesome, freaky, spiney, scary grasshopper. Oh, and some of them are 4″ long, and that isn’t counting their legs or antennae.  With those they are almost a foot long.  And they can weigh as much as a sparrow.  And the males hiss and bite when threatened. Luckily, the weta I found was a more common, garden variety female Wellington tree weta (I think – my weta identification skills are pretty rudimentary), but even the garden variety weta need protection, so I reached down to pick up the weta so it wouldn’t get squashed on the sidewalk. Unfortunately for me, my weta decided it liked my leather gloves, and didn’t want to let go. What was I going to do?  I had a weta on my glove that I …

Marine minutiae

A friend and I took a walk along the seashore.  At first we looked beautiful scenery, the rocks and rippling waves, the swirl of clouds in the sky. Then we looked down, and found a world of life, tiny and vibrant, hidden amongst the scenery. It started with a crab, no bigger than my thumbnail: I saw him run across a rock, and we picked him up to marvel at his tiny eyes, the curling antennae, the olive-black carapace both smooth and bumpy at the same time. There were more crabs on the rocks, glistening in the late afternoon sun, trying to blend their greens and blues to the golden rocks, and running sideways for safety when they felt they had been spotted. There was other life on the rocks, also practicing camouflage, but unlike the crabs unable to flee, so protected by their hard shells. I don’t know what the prehistoric looking armoured thingees with little snakes wrapped around their edges are.  Oddly enough googling “rehistoric looking armoured thingees with little snakes wrapped around …

The Sunday market in Wellington

I’ve been going to the Sunday vegetable market in Wellington ever since I first came to Wellington to study, some 8 years ago.  Mr Dreamy and I love vegetables and fruit.  We have a massive fruit bowl, and if we got to design the ideal refrigerator, it would be 50% vegetable bins. My vege buying habits are just as extravagant, but my market going has changed a little since 8 years ago.   I’ve moved from the Aro Valley market which was near the university housing, to the waterfront market, which is more convenient to where we live now. Also, it has way better views. The market has changed a little too.  When I first shopped there, it was a mad dash for cheap vegetables: long lines at every stall, all the veges sold by bulk resellers, and no time for chatting and visiting. The market has slowed down a little since then, has diversified, and gentrified. Now you can sit in the sun and eat a breakfast bought at the market, or stop for …