The Hobbit

"The Hobbit" has taken New Zealand in general and Wellington in particular by the proverbial storm. International visitors are ostensibly streaming into the capital city for the premier of this long-awaited movie and stars (both of this cinematic piece and other related and  unrelated films) were primping and preening themselves for the spectacular 'dance of the red carpet' which happened yesterday - basically all day!

The Hobbit plane has been used to ferry the rich and famous and even did a 'fly over' at 1000ft (which evidently is not that spectacular when one considers that a SAA boeing flew over Ellis Park MUCH lower than that with one or other World Cup Rugby Event) - Needless to say - everything and everyone kiwi has been sucked into the excitement of it all and the newspapers and television are Hobbit flavoured!

The Embassy Theatre in Wellington has had this amazing statue erected beside the hobbit doorway and we watched the huge and incredibly heavy piece being lifted and lowered into place on TV news a couple of days ago. There were some concerns about the weight of the thing being a little more than anticipated, but in the end the lift and lower went without a hitch.

A few thousand people apparently lined the red carpet - all hundreds of metres of it - and some were lucky enough to get autographs from the stars.

 

 

 Sir Peter Jackson - movie mogul, director of the film and fiercely kiwi had plenty of time on the box and although he appeared a tad windswept, he always looks windswept so the windy weather didn't affect his 'do' at all! We were not all that impressed with the 'tacky' takkies! - I guess when one is as famous and can tack 'sir' onto the front of one's name, one can wear the tackiest takkies one wants to and nobody can have anything to say about it!

And the 'funny' which I came across was particularly pertinent for the upcoming festive season!

Dis al!

 

Glass elephants and carrot cakes!

We had a reasonably sized earth tremor here a little while ago - it sounded like an oncoming herd of buffalo, the ground beneath us began shuddering and then there was an almighty bang! Since the epicentre was not too far from Wanganui, we were fortunate that it was pretty deep down. No damage reported from anywhere around us - our 'damage' documented in the picture alongside! The tippled elephant, just far enough away to avoid a domino effect! 

The Edmonds recipe book is evidently 'thee' book for all things culinary in New Zealand - by culinary, I am referring to 'at home' and for the 'masses'! A while ago, they ran a competition to find the most loved and most popular recipes from this iconic cookbook and then published a whole new book of 'classics'.

Yours truly decided that it was a 'must have' in our kitchen and here is the carrot cake (recipe found in the section of family favourite cakes) which turned out quite well and was beyond delicious!  Rich and full of nuts with the most decadent icing -  Not for anyone counting points or following low fat sugar free diets! Will be baked again - just waiting for a good special occasion!

Dis al!