Ooh, shiney!

We'll get onto that at the end of the post.   We're going to start with a few photo's from the night before my birthday and what I did on my birthday.

Sunset the night before my birthday; I need to work on ISO and shutter speed settings I think

Saw this impressive duck on my birthday; this is at the Christchurch Botanic Gardens

I don't know when they put this up outside the rose garden, but it's magnificent.  George is investigating the garden behind it.

Little black ducks with ducklings; it's good to see these wee guys even if they are a bit late in the season.

Grant Thornton building; Thomas was on the 6th floor of this building in the big quake.  It's now on the demolish list from what I heard.

The Re-Start shopping mall; used to be Cashel St Mall; most of the buildings were demolished as they were unsafe.  Ballantynes survived mostly intact and is now up to the new building standards and open for business.

Bridge of Rememberance from the non-mall side, see the big vertical crack?   That's why it's fenced off.

There's also cracks in the main bridge just below the writing on the left, I saw some in the main arch on the left as well as some to the right of Palestine.   Really hope they can save this, it would be wrong if the memorial for those who fell, fell in its turn.

The Arts Centre; that tower used to be on top of one of the buildings.  Couldn't get a photo of where the guild was as it's inside the complex.  Hate to think what it would have been like if they hadn't done earthquake strengthening on it; people would have died in there.

The Museum where we went to see the World of Wearable Art exhibition.   No photo's allowed; though at least one person wasn't aware of that going by the flash.

 There was some good stuff that day, the boys were not so good; they behaved like wee trolls, but WOW was good, though busy and aside from sore feet I liked the walk.

FIL's new dog; lovely young animal.  This was at our nephew's birthday party

My shiny!   This was what Mum and Dad and Thomas got me for my birthday!  Yay!  Downloaded quite a few classics, and 3 cheap knitting books to get an idea of what I think of it.  So far I'm liking it and I'm going to send a few PDF's its way.

The other thing I've been doing.   Making screens for our windows. This will help to keep nasty cat out and all the flies too!   Hard on the thumbs, but very rewarding.

I've spent a fair bit of today in the sewing room.  2 pairs of shorts are almost made; just the waistbands to go on; one is a tad smaller than the other due to me stuffing up on how big the seam allowances are; but that's ok (I hope). 
More knitting done on my CPH too, 6" to the armhole on the back now.

Tomorrow I'll get the shorts finished, might get the remaining 3 screens done and I really want to make a skirt too.