a little plain & simple please

a little plain & simple please

well autum has arrived - we've had 3 days of southerlies bringing cold air up from the antartic and the first snow on our mountains. to me the mountains here need snow on them, they become so much more beautiful. so, autumn's here and we have less than 2 weeks to find a place to live... we fell in love with a little place in the sunshine this week, but there were 4 applicants and we weren't succesful which was really hard. so far we've not found anywhere else right for us so right now we're wondering what god's up to and having our faith stretched...!

here are my belated pictures & post from heading north to visit methven and christchurch to see old friends and go shopping for art supplies. I had 2 days in methven and managed to see all my friends which was so lovely. on to christchurch and I stayed with pol & evelien who live in a cute country house with chickens and cows to look after - they have 2 tame chooks they incubated & reared who like chilling out in the lounge and do a good job of clearing up crumbs on the floor!

in christchurch I checked out all the free galleries and the arts centre. the arts centre is in a traditional stone built ex-school and artists are housed in buildings named 'chemistry' and the like. they've recently added an art installation on the pillars and I loved the colours and pattern - it's a really nice way of adding colour and texture but without clashing with the feel of the buildings and courtyards. I got carried away taking photos in the rain...

in one gallery/shop there was some gorgeous pottery with amazing colours which I took some pictures of... only for one of the assistants to come and berate me for taking photos for about 5 minutes, shouting at me from across the shop about foreigners and (the not) obvious signs they had banning photography... I refused to be chased out by the mean woman's words but nether the less it was a relief to leave the shop, and even more of a relief to enter a weaving and pottery gallery upstairs where one of the artists warmly welcomed me and invited me to 'please touch' the items on display... that's my kind of gallery!

my ideal gallery - "please touch!"