Sock, drop and roll.

Okay so here is a gratuitous photo of the sock progress. I seem to have been out every night in one way or another for the past month or more, so apart from when I go to Monday night Knitting Circle, not a lot of knitting is getting done. Still, it's getting there. Tomorrow night I am babysitting the cutest baby in Hataitai instead of going to the Knitting Circle, but he goes to bed pretty early so I'll probably still be able to get some rows done.

Yesterday I went to two very different but great things. One was a show at Downstage Theatre called Mark Twain and Me in Maoriland which I won't go on about, but I'm so glad I went. It was clever, funny, moving, had beautiful imagery, strong performances, and raised some really important questions in terms of New Zealand's history and the relationship between Maori and Pakeha. I went to the late afternoon performance and I almost wanted to go again to the evening one. I don't think that's ever happened before; normally no matter how much I am enjoying a show I'll always end up checking my watch to see how long it has got to go, this time I would have been quite happy for them to start all over again!

However, if I'd gone again to the evening performance I would have missed out on this:

The Richter City Roller Derby's 'Stop Drop and Roll' bout. Heavily influenced by seeing the movie Whip It a while ago (I wrote about how much I loved that movie here), I made my step-sister and a couple of her flatmates come along to watch it with me. Obviously, it wasn't quite as intense as the movie makes it out to be - there is pushing and bumping and falls but the girls last night seemed to be as much about having a good time as they were about winning. It was a lot of fun and relatively easy to follow in terms of rules. I loved the costumes and the names of some of the players - here you can juuust see a sign for Braxton Kicks:

The TSB Arena was pretty much full which was amazing as it can seat 4000+. They ran out of beer at half time. There were a lot of people. Here are some action shots:

Both teams, Brutal Pageant and Smash Malice, are home teams but I have to say I liked Brutal Pageants' outfits best and they ended up winning so clearly my preference had an effect.

Here are both teams posing for photos at the end:

While I enjoyed watching the roller derby and it wasn't quite as much of a contact sport as I thought it was going to be, I don't think I'd ever be brave enough to get on the track. For one thing, I'd have enough trouble staying up on roller skates without trying to race in them, let alone having people trying to block me and bump me over with well-timed hip swings! I'd definitely recommend going as a spectator though, if you ever get the chance.