Antioxidants, Active Rest and the AB's

I was just lamenting my lack of an appropriate photo  to head up this post, when I realised that actually, I do have some recent pics of the All Blacks. My father and aunt ran into them recently at Brisbane Airport and whipped out the Canon D20.. as you do.

In these pics they are not looking so flash, having just suffered a crushing defeat to Aussie, but last night, all was forgiven. The whole country partied as they snatched victory from France and won the Rugby World Cup 2011. Go AB's~!

Over at our place, there was a little dinner party, with The Programmer and I, Mamasana and her hubby, just returned from service in East Timor. I made a roast chicken dinner and macaroons:

It was a super fun night, and I am so glad they won! Not because I am particularly rugby mad, but because it would have been insufferable to have to live through weeks of blow-by-blow game dissections and attempts to assign the blame to some poor soul, event or entity - probably the coach, the rugby union, the plastic waka or even earthquake stress.    Also, it is kind of nice to have something for the country to celebrate and feel great about. It's been a hell of a year for NZ.

Today was a public holiday - not because of the cup victory, but because it is 'show day', so The Programmer and I headed into town for a coffee and to see how the rebuilding is coming along. I think we both had earthquakes heavily on our minds after hearing the terrible news about the Turkey Quake yesterday. I also needed to stretch my legs having enthusiastically thrown myself into an hour of Zumba rapido yesterday, which I haven't done for a while (ouchy!). 

Apparently there is a container mall going up and I thought we might be able to get a bit closer to town. After all, it is supposed to open next week. I'm .. having my doubts about that.  Before heading out, I whipped up a smoothie using frozen blackcurrants, newly discovered at the Liberty Market organic shop.

It turned out too thick to drink, so I spooned it. 

Full of age and disease fighting antioxidants. 

With that antioxidantising my insides, I was ready to tackle a walk around part of the city cordon. I'm in the process of setting up a separate blog section for Quakytown pics, but for now, here are some of the iconic Arts Centre, which is the historical University of Canterbury.

This first one shows where the turret used to be (the wooden scaffolding), with the actual turret on the ground. 

Now, I'd better go check dinner (which includes kale chips from my garden) and then get back to study. The Principles of Nutrition exam looks major and they don't give many clues as to what might be in it. I'll just have to know everything in the textbook. How hard can that be?