Floral delight

Posted by on 13 October 2011 | 0 Comments

The weather has been absolutely fabulous and Southland is a picture of greenery and flowers. Showcasing the flowers well was the Te Anau Spring Flower Show, apparently the second biggest spring show in New Zealand for entries, which was held this past weekend.

I really have the utmost admiration for the perfect daffodils produced and lovingly showcased at the show and people come from all over to enter these and many other beautiful examples of flowers.

However, my greatest memories of daffodils are of the ones my mother had growing throughout the orchard on our farm.

I had the privilege of watching the netball last week - the Silver Ferns v England at the ILT Velodrome and I was impressed on two counts. Well done to those who have done a fantastic job of setting up the velodrome to host these sorts of events after the stadium collapsed last year, and congratulations to a top New Zealand team of young women, who were certainly impressive in their demolition of England. Let's hope they keep that up when they play Australia soon.

At the moment I wouldn't want to be someone who is not keen on rugby as it is everywhere - you simply cannot not know that the Rugby World Cup is on in New Zealand and it's getting very exciting. These next two weeks will hopefully be memorable and successful for our All Blacks.

I was out to dinner in Te Anau on Saturday night and there was a crowd of Welsh and French supporters in the restaurant watching the two quarterfinals on the obligatory large television screen. When their two teams won, the roar of excitement could have been heard a block away.

It shows that there are still a lot of visitors travelling throughout New Zealand and watching the games on the television - that's good for our towns as well.

Go the All Blacks!