Yellow admiral butterfly feeding

Interesting day in Christchurch NZ - election day, where we get to vote in who we want to have in Parliament for the next 3 years. At the moment it seems as if one party will govern alone, although we have a one house system of MMP. No upper house in NZ. There are two main parties - National on the right and Labour on the left, and a myriad of small parties, Green, Maori, Mana, Act, Conservative,etc.

The Green party have the largest vote of the smaller parties.

Maori can vote either in their own electorates, or on the general role, and enough people choose to vote on the Maori role to ensure the party a place in Government, and at the moment they are aligned with National, although earlier they were aligned with Labour. It's all very fluid!!

If you don't get an electorate seat you have to get 5% of the vote to get a representation, which is very difficult to do it seems.

We'll see what happens tonight.

With NZ being the first country in the world to give women the right to vote in 1895, I feel I owe it to those people who went before who got women the right to vote to get out and do it!

Then in the afternoon went on the bus ride around the city - pcc was on the bus and took lots of photos so she may have one on tonight. I didn't take my camera, just wanted to look today, may go back again with camera. It's a very strange feeling to see spaces where your memories are in the city I've lived in all my life. I hope they make a good job of rebuilding!

So after all that, I felt like something natural and timeless, so here's a butterfly in the garden feeding on nectar and enjoying the sunshine!