snow city

On Tuesday night I cooked a jungle curry with the help of Matt. It included every vegetable that the jungle has to offer. That evening it started raining so after dinner I dropped off Damien, Ronan and Josh at the Ghostface Killah gig at uni then went to Catalyst open mic poetry (I read some haiku from my school zine and Doc offered me some money for a copy!) I then rushed home to pick up a sled from my mother's house since it was scheduled to snow today.

Last year there were two separate bouts of snow in Christchurch. Gina lent me her toboggan so Nick, my sister and I went tobogganing on an empty section in Cashmere. It was action-packed; here is a nostalgic video to prove this!

Nick and I ended up buying a cheap sled last year after the second bout of Christchurch snow, but there was no more snow that year so it sat unassembled in the garage of mum's house up until Friday night. You can imagine how excited I was when I heard it was meant to snow on Saturday!

THIS EXCITED.

Once I had acquired the sled on Friday night I went to work as I had a sleepover shift from 10.30pm. As I went to sleep I thought of this Thom Yorke song.

I slept well at work (no visits from the police thankfully), woke at 7am and saw that the ground had a light layer of snow. I later learnt that the school I've been posted at for teacher training this term was closed for the day due to snow, allowing me some extra time to test out the sled. I drove back to spag junx after breakfast and attempted to save our vegetables and herbs which have been recently relocated to the top of the carport.

A genius plan from Woodham since the back garden gets almost no sun

To save the plants I had to put a stool on a piece of snow-covered wood and carefully  climb on top of the stool to grab the pots. The two plastic containers with lettuce in them were too difficult to get down by myself so I wished my lettuce buddies good luck in the cold. I did save three pots of herbs however before the stool started sliding too much on the wet wood and I decided it would be best quit early and save myself from imminent paralysis.

Funnily enough, our spinach/lettuce/brocolli seedlings in the back garden had no snow on them since they were protected by an overhanging tree. I put a tarpaulin over them anyway for when the snow would eventually fall down off the branches. The fact that our backyard is sheltered from trees in all directions finally paid off; our vegetables would hopefully survive because of it.

As the morning drew on the other humans in my flat finally began waking up to discover the snow. What actually happened was that Damien woke up and ran screaming through the spag junx which woke up Scott and Woodham (Brad is a Sleepysaurus). Woodham shifted his car over so I could fit Bug under the car port as well. I grabbed the sled out of my car and Woodham and I put it together in the lounge.

box!

complete!

success!

Spag junx had run out of milk and someone had an idea to buy ingredients to make self-saucing puddings that evening so we left Brad to man the fort and set out into the snow to go to the dairy and then supermarket. I brought my camera and filmed the next NZ viral video sensation:

When we uploaded the video later we shared it widely in an attempt to get it on the 6 o'clock news but sadly this failed. It has had 456 views in 24 hours however which makes it our second most successful viral video (after Maddie's infamous Pokemon Card Dudes).

Naresh the dairy owner asked to borrow our sled for half an hour to use with his wife and daughter so we left it at the dairy for them. I joked that he should give us milk discounts for our kindness and he said that he wouldn't kick us out of his dairy the next time we came in drunk (note: this has never happened before). As a result of this banter/sled-sharing the relationship between Naresh and spag junx has reached new heights (this was actually discussed in a D&M later that night).

Damien and Scott then went to the supermarket whilst I walked to Ronan/Nathalie/Ollie/Gina/Nicola's flat with James and Woodham. Nathalie, Nicola and Ronan were there so we warmed up for a bit then walked back to spag junx with Ronan in tow. We went via the park and dairy to pick up the sled (Naresh gave us a free bag of chips!)

KEEP OFF the snow playground!

bubble fountain still had detergent in it from the weekend previous

After devouring the chips and a round of HOT DRINKS at home we went to Riccarton Bush. The plan was to walk through the native bush enclosure which would look amazing in the snow.

Scott wore shorts and ankle socks for some strange reason

On the way we met some kids who were forbidden to go outside their property (stranger danger? extreme snow danger?) so we battled them briefly with snowballs. They stood with their heads bobbing over the fence and were good at dodging but not so good at throwing. They didn't want us to go when we continued onwards; it was sad that they weren't allowed outside of their property considering they were at least 12 or so years old.

Riccarton Bush entrance (recently paved, more recently snowed)

We got to Riccarton Bush to discover that the enclosure area was closed due to falling trees. While we were there we heard tree branches snapping and crashing so we left and went to uni with the sled in pursuit of hills. There were a few steep slopes around the carpark but they were unfortunately very short. Matt met us at uni and we went down the library stairs on the sled which was fun, though I sadly bailed at the end due to ultra-high speed and soaked my pants. We were considering trying the big hill near the bookstore even though it was in an area cordoned off due to falling trees. Just as we were about to defy authority and go over the rope we heard a huge crack and a massive branch capable of killing a human fell to the ground in front of us. This put us off attempting the big hill. 

Woodham, Ronan and Matt went back to Matt's flat to go to the mall to get hot kai. Scott, Damien and I went to Ilam fields and had a game of snow soccer with some other students. It was very difficult in the soft snow, but snowballs were a good addition to the sport.

Once home we got warm, made HOT DRINKS and stayed in for the rest of the day. Here is a video of many of the day's events:

More photos!

happy vegetables this morning!