The river

This is my local river, the Heathcote.

It's close enough to be handy but not so close as to flood me. And like the rest of Canterbury the light down by the river was dull and flat.

Large for more

I had an interesting experience today. I went to my local Westpac Bank branch to pay a fine (yes Dad, that's the one where you described me in an email as "... we now have a criminal in the family..".

;-)

I don't bank there and hadn't been into it since it was rebuilt post-quake. The curious thing is it's almost completely unusable. There are a couple of small meeting spaces with sliding glass doors for privacy. That's good. There are always a couple of self-help screens and that's good too. But most of the space is useless, taken up with fake grass with Cape Cod style chairs and pretend rooms with seating like a cafe booth. Who would sit there and why?

But the one teller thing able to do a transaction, well that's hidden to the side of a non-descript background. Some minutes passed and I was asked to come around and pay my fine by eftpos. The bank person had to move out of the way because there isn't enough room in the telephone box arrangement. She was holding half the electronic gear because it doesn't fit!

In other words there isn't enough space to do the business side of things.

Completely bizarre.

I laughed. The sole bank teller told me she was only able to do the function required because the no one was using meeting in the space next to her inadequate set up. When the sliding door is closed and a meeting is in progress she struggles to use it at all.

And with that I exited the weird space that is the St Martins Westpac Branch. It's some sort of cross between an empty cafe, set from an outdoors expo and one of those awful TV programmes where someone blind folded recreates the interior of your home ;-)

If I move myself now I might just finish my packing and get to bed at a decent hour.

Yes, hpx is away over Easter. There will be fishing, walking and good times :-)

See you on Monday (or Tuesday).