a little work, and a little play

have i mentioned before that i love the south island?

the conference went well - good talks, well organized, good food.  always nice to catch up with others in the field and make some new acquaintances.  in this case, some of whom could be imminently useful career connections, but we won't dwell on that.

just to do things out of order, i'm posting weekend photos first, even though there will be a whole separate entry about friday's activities.  but i've had a request for banks peninsula pics, so here they are.  we were not lucky enough to have snow (probably a good thing, given our stunner of a rental car, whom we soon dubbed 'craphonso'), but i can't really complain about the weather.

it was perfect for holidaying at our friends' bach in wainui, being both cool enough for a wood fire most of the time, and sunny enough for that classic kiwi holiday pastime, backyard cricket.

it was also good for observing local wildlife, some of which was pleasantly minding its own business, and some of which drew our attention by flying into the window.  i'll let you guess which was which.

luckily the little guy was all right - when we first checked him out, he wouldn't move one of his feet, but we gave him a rest in a safe, warm spot and he gripped strongly with both before we released him into a local grapevine.