Christchurch 2023

 

                                                

Hannah and I have just returned from ten fabulous days in Christchurch - this is the fourth time Hannah has attended the British Ballet Organisation Dance Days, a week of full on dancing for Hannah - ballet, jazz, tap and contemporary classes ending with a gala performance.  

After an early morning start to catch our flight in Palmerston North, we arrived to a drizzly, cold day in Christchurch. Once settled in our accommodation for the week, we headed to the mall for the girls to do some shopping and to get our groceries for the week. This year we had a group of 14 to cater for - breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Sunday was a day of dance competitions, called the Theatre Awards, this is where the students perform their solo, duo or troupe dances.  Hannah performed her solo dance beautifully and then her group's jazz dance came runner up in their category. Several of the girls received certificates for outstanding performances. Long day, seven hours of dancing to watch lol.

Come Monday, once the girls headed off to their classes at 8am, us Mums were free for the day until it was time to head back and get dinner ready for everyone, the girls finished their day at 5.30pm. 

This year the weather was a lot better than previous visits - most days were fine and only a bit of rain one or two days, jolly cold though, just like home.  

We easily filled our days, checking out our favourite places and discovering new places to visit and eat.  The Tannery is always lovely to visit - and the sushi place there is just delicious.  

We did lots of steps every day, making the most of the fine weather.  

The week flew by sadly, and before we knew it. Friday had come around. It's become bit of a tradition for all the Mums to have brunch together before we head to the Gala Performance. This year we found a new cafe to try, Brigittes in Merivale and my Eggs Benedict with salmon was divine.

A 'family" photo before we checked out, some of the other Mum's and girls had already left to catch flights home.

I just love hanging out for the week with these lovely ladies, while our daughters are dancing.

Like previous years, on the Saturday morning, we changed accommodation and headed to the apartment in Cathedral Junction, where we stayed for two nights.  Now it was time for our girls to have a bit of shopping time and fun.

The Riverside Markets are always fun to visit - there is so much delicious food on offer, its always hard to decide what to choose!

Saturday night's dinner from Little High Eatery - this place was so cool, it has nine businesses with different cuisines to try, and lots of shared seating. 

This year's visit to Christchurch coincided with Matariki here in New Zealand. Matariki is the Maori name for the cluster of stars known as the Pleiades. It rises in mid winter and marks the beginning of the Maori Lunar calendar. We were able to visit the Tirama Mai light festival experience, which was a lot of fun.

We had such a fun filled weekend with our friends, outlet mall shopping, Starbucks, movies and catching up on some sleep.

And lastly for today, my friend Sonia and I were able to visit Art & Frame, and Broomfields, love both of these stitching shops.  A few charts from my wish list, new fabrics and needle minders which I can never resist!

I spotted the knitted up model of this hat and thought it would be perfect to wear when I'm out walking with Diesel. More dishcloth cotton too, such a vibrant colour. 

We had a great flight back on Monday afternoon and I was able to enjoy a day at home before starting back at work on Wednesday.  Roll on Dance Days 2024!

See you soon xx

Christchurch July 2022

Hannah and I are now home from a fabulous trip to Christchurch. We spent ten days there as Hannah was attending the 2022 British Ballet Organisation's Dance Days. 

We had a great flight south, about 1 1\2 hours, and arrived to a sunny but freezing day in Christchurch.

Before Dance Days started, Hannah also competed in the Theatre awards section, and did so well, very proud of her. Here is Hannah with her dancing teacher Miss Deb, and some of her friends, they all did amazing!

At the end of the week, there was a gala performance put on by all the students that attended and this is an absolute pleasure to watch - how it all comes together, the music is amazing. After the performance, there was an awards ceremony, and trophies are given out in the different genres of dance, and then overall, for each level, top students and scholarships to attend next year are given out.  Hannah was awarded an Excellence Award for Tap, and several of our girls also received trophies, including Junior and Intermediate Student, 11 trophies in total for our little dance school. There were lots of happy tears I can tell you, such a high to end the wonderful week for the girls.  Hannah has worked so hard with her dancing in the past twelve months, through another lock down, classes via zoom, exams by video, we were absolutely thrilled for her.

Then it was time to head into the city for our two night stay at an apartment above Cathedral Junction, with our friends. 

Regent Street by night.

We had a fun filled weekend, even though the weather was pretty miserable. Outlet mall shopping, Starbucks, ice skating for the girls, birthday celebrations for one of our friends, and catching up on some down time and sleep

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Checking out one of our favourites, Riverside Market 

My lovely friends, we so enjoy getting to hang out for this week together while our daughters are dancing, 

Of course, we had to find a few craft shops!  Broomfields has recently reopened and wow, if you get the opportunity to visit this lovely place, it's amazing. 

We found Outlaw Yarn this time, and it has some beautiful NZ wool to buy, patterns, samples to see, amazing too.

We also checked out Art & Frame, where you could really spend a small fortune but I was very restrained this visit, ha ha. Here's my goodies I came home with:

We flew back to Palmerston on Monday afternoon, good timing as the weather turned atrocious in Christchurch on Monday night, with lots of flooding. We're already looking forward to Dance Days 2023!