mt victoria, wellington

.... sometimes extends to a bloke playing a trumpet whilst standing on his roof. I guess it's Arts Festival time!

Wellington turned on a beautiful day for the Mt Victoria Festival, and the people came in their thousands. In contrast to the wind and rain of last year, the streets outside Crossways were filled with sunshine, happy people, clowns, gelato, excellent music and great food.

Mark your diaries - this Saturday will be filled with fun and frivolity at the Mt Victoria Festival in Roxburgh Street! The theme of the Festival is sustainability and organic living, and more than 65 stalls are confirmed - including food, sustainable lifestyle and high-quality entertainment.

Here's the map of the Festival, and there's a downloadable version and schedules for entertainment and workshops over the fold.

Next week the moving truck will arrive, and MVRA President Jessica Closson and family will begin the long trip back to the United States to take up new jobs and residence in San Francisco.

Jessica has been a stalwart of the community and the Residents Association since she, her husband Morgan and son Luke arrived in Mt Victoria four years ago. For the last two years, Jessica has been President of MVRA and has led some high-profile campaigns, notably the successful High Court challenge against the resource consent granted to the Pirie Street brothel.

Everyone who has worked with Jessica over the last few years can testify to her energy and enthusiasm for our community. She has done an exceptional amount of work over that time, writing, researching and presenting the many submissions that MVRA makes to local and central government, convening and attending a huge number of meetings, and talking to everyone from concerned residents to creche mothers and councillors about the issues of the day.

Jessica's passion for our community will be sorely missed in Mt Victoria, and we wish her and her family every success in San Francisco.

The Capital Times has a story this week about the intersection of Pirie Street and Kent Terrace, saying that motorists are frustrated at the long delays when trying to exit Pirie Street for Kent and Cambridge Terraces.

As many locals will know, it's potentially a long wait at the lights. The Capital Times explores the idea that recent (well, actually not so recent) changes to the intersection have resulted in much longer delays for Pirie Street drivers. This is put down to pedestrians suddenly being acknowledged as legitimate road users by the traffic engineers. So far, so good - it's an interesting hypothesis, and definitely worth investigation.

Then into the discussion leaps Wellington City Council spokesperson Richard MacLean, who in a flash of lateral thinking proceeds to blame the Mt Victoria Residents Association for the changes and resulting delays! It's a fantastic story - those pesky and pushy residents have been disrupting the flow of traffic due to their unreasonable demands! Blame them!

If only it were true.

Pirie Street residents have reported a significant upswing in the after-hours parties occurring at the Victoria Bowling Club on the edge of the Town Belt over the summer. In early January a very large party with a live band ran into the small hours of the morning, leading us to wonder about how the Bowling Club reconciled its supposedly sporting activities with renting the facilities to partygoers.

Spotted at the entrance to the bus tunnel, in the middle of the evening rush-hour:

Yes, that black dot silhouetted at the Hataitai end of the tunnel is someone running through. After dodging at least four buses ....

... he duly appears at the Mt Victoria end, running like a demon.

Yup - young, male and stupid. He seems to be a living testament to the fact that we are unable to learn from the misfortunes of others.

... get your digital copy here.

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Visit the festival pages to the right for more info, and to get involved...or email tania (at) mtvictoria.org.nz