63/366 - Home-built pizza oven at friends' pizza party

Not a particularly great photo, but the only one I took today!! The pizzas were delicious by the way :)

62/366 - Little acorn

61/366 - Combined Schools' Kapa Haka day at Waimea college

Mapua School Kapa Haka group

Canon EOS 400D with 75-300 mm lens. . .

60/366 - The Twilight Attack of the Giant Praying Mantis!

Spotted on a house roof, during a twilight dog walk in Mapua. . .

59/366 - Tahunanui beach, early evening

58/366 - Reflections in the swimming pool

I took several of these shots, as the patterns absolutely enthralled me. I was there to take photos of SJ and a friend scuba diving, but guess who got distracted?!! Using Canon camera with 75-300 mm lens.

57/366 - Takahē

We visited Zealandia wildlife sanctuary today and I took several photos of these beautiful and very rare Takahē birds. There are only just over 200 left in the country and therefore the world, and for many years they were thought to be entirely extinct. However, in January 2011 two were released at Zealandia and this is one of them! For more about conservation efforts to save the takahē, look here.

Photo taken using Canon EOS 400D camera with 75-300mm lens (no tripod).

56/366 - "Shadow Puppet" at the Embassy Cinema, Wellington

Sonny Jim spent several minutes fascinated by dancing around watching his shadow on the tiled floor of the Embassy Cinema. . . where we watched the Hunger Games.

55/366 - Cuba St bucket fountain, Wellington

Photo painstakingly(!) manipulated using "color splash" iPad/iPhone app. Yes, that is the way it is spelled, although of course, I usually add a "u" to my colour!!

54/366 - Corned beef tin bull - by Michel Tuffery

At Pataka, Porirua. I love the irony of this sculpture - a bull made from corned beef tins. . . once filled with its fellow bovines.

Edited after visiting Te Papa: Apparently Michel Tuffery also sees it as a statement about the influence of colonialism in the Pacific. Imported corned beef has replaced a lot of local Pacific foods, and as we all know, corned beef isn't exactly the healthiest of concoctions!

53/366 - What we made at "Pottering About" last week

Knitapotamus/"Just wait til I've finished my row" mug by me, rainbow plate and bowl by the Wifie

52/366 - Webb-Ellis in Mapua

The Webb-Ellis cup on tour around the country, visits Mapua School

51/366 - Hops in Motueka

50/366 - Stretch test

Irma checks the mozzarella is ready to be removed from the pan

This afternoon I attended a course where we got to make mozzarella in pairs after having watched a demonstration, and also learnt how to make ice-cream and kefir too. Now on  the look out for a second hand ice-cream making machine!

49/366 - Robertson's Nelson Trolley Derby

Pre-race nerves?

Grim determination. . .

Cruising towards the finish

The Nelson Trolley Derby - whereby a bunch of people from 6 years upwards hurtle in homemade wheeled, unpowered contraptions down a hill at up to 70 km per hour! Lots of thrills, spills and excitement! So entertaining, there is even a movie being made about it! So many photos taken (137!) - I couldn't just share one!!

48/366 - Friendly furball :)

47/366 - Paint Your Own Pottery!

You can see Wifie's and my efforts in the foreground. . .

46/366 - Frodo Yawning - aka Frodo the Wolf Dog!!

Photo by Sonny Jim

I have broken my own rule (about taking each photo myself) today - but SJ's photo was just too good an opportunity to miss! He took the photo on his iPod this morning, and managed to capture Frodo mid-yawn, which makes him look like the world's fiercest dog (instead of the friendly furball that he really is!)

45/366 - Bath time!

Ceramic plaque by Shona McLean, from the Laughing Fish in Mapua. 

This is on our bathroom wall. . . and it got to 10.35 pm before I realised I hadn't taken a photo today, so had to scout around the house looking for something to snap!

44/366 - Living the high life?

View out of the plane window on the way home from Dunedin

43/366 - What I made in Dunedin!

I have had a fantastic time at the Unwind Fibre Retreat in Dunedin. The above photo shows my first ever spindle spinning (in the background), my first ever attempt at Coptic book-binding, and my entries into the "Hearts and Owls" competition. My owl even won a prize!!

42/366 - The Rongo Stone, Anderson's Bay, Dunedin

I first learnt about this stone a couple of weeks ago when I was at a workshop on the Treaty of Waitangi. Since I knew I would be in Dunedin only a couple of weeks later, I was determined to find it. It's a memorial to all the Māori men from Parihaka (in the Taranaki) who were wrongfully imprisoned and used as forced labour to build various things around Dunedin including the Anderson's Bay causeway. Many of the men died whilst in Dunedin, and their descendants brought this Rongo stone all the way from the Taranaki down to Dunedin as a memorial to them, unveiled in 1987 by the late Sir Paul Reeves. This was a bit of a pilgrimage for me, and it was very moving. Huge thanks to J for driving me out there to find the stone. . .

41/366 - Dunedin Town Hall

40/366 - Fire alarm at Mapua School

It just so happened that I was working at Mapua School this morning when they had a real genuine fire alarm - not just a practice drill! One of the fluorescent lights in a classroom was smoking, so the fire alarm went off and everyone had to be evacuated to the school field until the all clear was given over half an hour later. High drama indeed!

39/366 - She loves me. . .

Did you ever used to play that game as a child, where you pick a dandelion clock and then blow it away bit by bit, saying "She loves me. . . she loves me not. . . she loves me. . ." etc. Whatever you say after you've blown the last seed away is the solemn truth about the object of your affections! Or so the school yard story goes ;-)

Photo taken using macro setting of Canon EOS 400D, flash indoors in electric light.

38/366 - Random flower, Queen's Gardens

37/366 - Fresh rain on harakeke (NZ flax) and palm tree

I only took two photos today. I snapped these shots a few metres away from each other right next to my office this morning, using my iPhone, then tweaked them with my snapseed app this evening.

Like a parent with two children, I just couldn't choose between them - so it's "two-for-the-price-of-one" today!!

36/366 - First plant your child in a playground, then water well. . .

SJ and K have fun with a water fountain in Stoke

35/366 - "Just out of reach" at the Cancer Society Relay for Life 2012

2 year old "K" tries to catch an elusive balloon

34/366 - Invasive invertebrates certainly know how to build a good-looking home!

Polistes Chinensis - Asian paper wasp nest on our fence

More info on identification of paper wasps in Aotearoa-New Zealand.

33/366 - Welsh cakes for St David's Day

Freshly baked today, to celebrate St David's Day - a tradition I grew up with. 

"Dydd gwyl Dewi Sant, pawb!" = Happy St David's Day, everyone :)