Celebration

Today we were invited to a lunch gathering by the lovely couple from Hong Kong who were granted New Zealand citizenship on the same day as hubby.  They wanted to say thank you to the friends and colleagues whom they have met since arriving in New Zealand and who have become special to them.  We felt privileged to be included and it was a most enjoyable few hours. It was tipping down with rain when we left the restaurant and that’s continued into the evening.  That’s winter for you.

As we walked through Commercial Bay (shopping mall) to catch our bus over to the North Shore we saw the art work on the left in the blip, which is part of the Matariki celebration (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matariki). We spotted the owl on the right in the blip as we had a quick look around Birkenhead before lunch.

There are 4,404 new community cases today, and the seven-day rolling average is 5,154 compared to 5,914 last Saturday. The number of people in hospital is 356, including 3 in ICU. Another 11 deaths have been reported, bringing the total number of deaths to 1,401 and the seven-day rolling average to 13.