Things that make you go YUM!

My weekend went by in a flash (with some thunder thrown in for good measure) but I got all the things done I wanted to.

I visited the French-style Farmers' Market in Parnell and ate some yummy food, including one of these lemon tarts. I love lemon.


I went to the Crafternoon Tea Market in Kingsland during the torrential downpour that occurred at about midday.


When I got there I had no cash but luckily I had an obliging Guy who went for the 5 minute run in the rain to get me some. He came back drenched but I think it did it him good.

I bought these super cute (and cheap! Only $3 each!) cards by a little vintage. The dolls are even cuter in real life.


I couldn't leave without buying one of these tiny balls of yarn, a little golden nugget of cotton goodness (bigger balls of the hand-dyed cotton are available from HappyGoKnitty):


And Guy (whose purchasing of jewelery for me to date is a pair of Tinkerbell stud earrings from Disneyland - not that I'm complaining) bought me this awesome ring by Little Bird Designs (also ridiculously cheap, $10!):


And I wished I had a garden for these tea cup bird feeders (I didn't catch who the maker was):

You can see from the water in the cup that it was a decent amount of rain in an hour.

Then we just so happened to have time to go to Devonport so I could be reunited with my crush and take it home with me. I mean look at it. The colour is enough but you should feel how SOFT it is...


On Saturday night we went to Avenue Q. It was so cool to finally see the show live after about 3 years of listening to it and to see the amazing puppets. I love puppets (I went through a stage a few years ago where I really wanted to buy a hand-rod puppet [like the muppet puppets] from America...I know, I know, everyone wishes they were as cool as me). I was little disappointed by some of the Avenue Q actors - their singing wasn't as strong as I would have liked/expected, but there were some stand-outs. The women who played Kate Monster and Christmas Eve were fantastic. I just felt some of the guys let the show down a bit - especially the American accent of the guy who played Princeton. But overall, I'm really glad I went. I kept forgetting just how many great songs there are in the show and then another would start and I'd be like, 'Oh yeah, I LOVE this song!'

That's me and my imaginary puppet outside The Civic. I was also unintentionally channeling Kermit the Frog in my choice of accessories...

Then last but not least, we went to Euro for dessert to do some MasterChef New Zealand stalking. Which failed because, irony of ironies, Kelly (the runner-up who now works there) was at The Food Show in Wellington for the weekend (not that we asked for her, we saw an ad in The Dominion Post saying 'Come to The Food Show this weekend to meet Kelly from MasterChef NZ' while on the plane to Auckland on Friday night). But Kelly or no Kelly, it was so worth it.

This is the warm chocolate pudding with white chocolate and raspberry ice cream. The presentation was beautiful - the pudding had a brushstroke of gold across the top! And when you cut into the pudding it oozed warm chocolate. It was so amazing. Guy almost died of taste happiness - he wouldn't stop going on about it.


This is 'Spoons of 2012' - mascarpone ice cream with feijoa jelly, organic yoghurt and gorgonzola honey egg, berry fizz, and honey sphere with lychee air. The lychee air was basically flavoured bubbles and apparently the gorgonzola was disgusting - it was like a tiny poached egg so couldn't really be shared, I just took Guy's word for it. But it was our adventure in gastronomy for the day.


We felt a bit like peasants in the big city as when we sat down the waiter pointedly asked whether we'd like tap water, then paused and added 'Or you can have sparking or still water.' Of course we went with the tap water. The service was great though, I actually felt a bit claustrophobic with all these people running over every five minutes to ask whether we'd like another drink, how our dessert was etc. But it was nice. I had a Honey Bear Sour cocktail which was yum and went straight to my head. If only I was rich enough for cocktails to be my drink of choice all the time!

My weekend finished in a bit of a panic - somehow 'flying out at 12pm' turned into 'need to check in by 12pm' in my head, so I got to the airport 15 minutes before my flight. Luckily I only had a cabin-sized bag but it had knitting needles in it with my half-done leaf from last Monday on them! Guy had gone to park the car as was going to hang with me until my plane left (he's staying in Auckland with his family for the rest of the week) so had no idea an Air New Zealand lady was running with me through the airport to make sure I got onto the plane in time. The conversation went like this:

Nice Air NZ lady: Are you okay?
Me: I thought my flight was at 12.30pm! It's actually at 12pm...But it's okay, my bag is only cabin-sized. Can I still board?
Nice Air NZ lady: How much does the bag weigh? 7.5kgs? That's okay, it'll pass, quick follow me.
Me: But I have knitting needles in my bag! Can I leave them at the service desk for someone to pick up?
Air NZ lady: What? No, you don't need to do that, you can take them on the plane. Now run!

So there you have it. APPARENTLY, you can take knitting needles in your carry-on. Despite what it says here (in the first bullet point). Can you get them out and use them? I didn't try, the nerves I get flying were heightened by being late and then the man sitting in front of me fainting which caused a drama as the plane was taxiing to the runway so I just clutched the arms of my seat and tried to read the Air NZ magazine.

But I don't think I'll use this experience to try to take knitting on the plane next time I fly; as much as I think knitting on the plane would help to distract me from worrying about dying in some horrific plunge to the earth, I don't think it's worth the risk of the security person saying, 'Ahhh, sorry, I'm going to have to confiscate these' (like the time I had an illegal butterfly knife in my bag, but that's a story for another day) and me losing whatever it is I have been labouring over.

So, apart from my little airport drama, it was a good (short) holiday. When I got back to Wellington I had rehearsal from 3pm - 8pm, so today, I had to come back to work for a rest...