We arrived in Nelson this afternoon after a really excellent lunch, the best restaurant meal I’ve had in New Zealand. We’ve rented a small house, and it feels very strange indeed to have a house, with two levels and multiple rooms, all of which are accessible. A preview of a more settled future perhaps? Then, as I was working in the sitting room on the upper floor, I saw red-orange clouds over the sea, and soon realised there was a fire. Indeed, there is a forest fire just outside Nelson and there were Blyton-esque notices about the residents of Teapot Valley being asked to evacuate. The sky was startling, the sun dim and red through the smoke, and the cloud reflected the setting sun long after twilight.
I had a few bad moments at work, and then gave up and joined the Gentleman Friend and his mother for the half hour walk over the hill and into town, which lies on the other side from the sea. This is an older part of Nelson, a steep hill with old, expensive houses looking over the ocean. One of them had a rather strange construction in the garden, a white plastered enclosure set with tiles with Arabic calligraphy and depicting the alam of Imam Hussain. It looked like a mosque with a small minar in one corner, but since the minar was blackened with smoke I assume it was a pizza oven or a barbeque or something. I must say, I found it faintly disrespectful.
I read a series of articles via Metafilter on humane fish killing. The needle through the spine seems a faff, but I have thought that fishing is rather cruel. Line fishing where you release your catch even more so, perhaps, but generally it’s not a good way to go.
Anyway, we walked over the hill and along a dry grassy slope and into Nelson town proper. The dinner restaurant was, unfortunately, a sharing plates restaurant which I really dislike these days as I find it hard to say or even think of what I want when I am with others.
We then strolled around the Nelson cathedral, went to the supermarket for breakfast supplies including a couple of avocados and a banana to persuade them to ripen, and back.
On the way back there was a particularly dramatic contrast between the parts of the sky that were covered in smoke and those that were clear. I suppose the wind must have been quite determined. The southern cross shone very brightly there. Strange to see unfamiliar constellations.