It was quite good timing as to when we arrived in Nelson, as there's a Saturday market on, so Jacquie took us to that on her bikes (Alice had her own, and I was getting a backie). She first took us to her favourite coffee stall, where the man talked us into getting one of his wholemeal flour, apple, and cinnamon deep fried balls, which we ate at the table next to it (I was sat on the cushion I had from sitting on the back of Jacquie's bike). I didn't think much of the balls, as they didn't taste that much of cinnamon or apple, but they were nice to share between us. After that, Jacquie went to get the stuff she needed from the supermarket, and left us to have a look around.

There were lots of nice foods to sample, although the only thing we brought was some balls made from various seeds, nuts and fruits. We would have liked to have brought some of the muesli that came from the same stall, but not for $12 a bag! We were both quite flattered when one woman said "I only talk to people 20 and under", and it wasn't even a sales tactic as she was a woman giving out bookmarks with the link to some information about human trafficking on. Alice later read up about it, and has found quite a few chocolate companies that sound pretty corrupt, so hopefully we can cut down because of our new found knowledge.

Once we'd finished looking round the market, we went round a bead shop which was near where we had left our bikes. Apparently 'bead' means prayer in some language, which is quite cool. The man who worked there was obviously very knowledgeable about different types of beads, as we pointed out his pictures of African people wearing lots of extravagant jewellery, and so he told us about the Italian beads that kings wear there. Alice started asking him about the Maori designs, and I listened in closely because I thought she wanted one, but it turned out she was asking about them because she wanted to get me one as a birthday present (which I ruined because I was hovering and so she couldn't find out about it without me knowing).

Jacquie took us to where the radio station was doing a fundraising BBQ for lunch- if you paid a donation to relay for life you could get a burger, although Alice just had a plain roll, and then we biked back to her house, where she painted her wind mills she has on the top of her house. The lady next door had been complaining about the light reflecting off them when she was in her bedroom in the afternoon, which seems a bit ridiculous given that there an economical installation, trying to save the planet, and being in bed in the afternoon is pathetic anyway. However once she'd finished doing that (whilst we just caught up on more Wi-Fi in the sun), she discovered it wasn't the main structures reflecting the light, but it was something about the tops going round.

Jacquie had ordered lots of firewood for her fire, which she uses to heat her house up and cook on during the winter months, and so when that had arrived, we helped unload it off the truck and stack it up. We then walked to the park, as Jacquie wanted to take us to the 'Opera in the Park' event there. We felt a bit cheeky as we had waited in line for ages, and then realised we were in the wrong queue, as we hadn't brought the tickets yet, but the line for buying tickets was really short and so we went straight in. We also managed to nab a spot right at the front. We had a picnic of bread, smoked mussel pate (from the market, as the lady running the stall had run out of smoked salmon pate), tomato, and red pepper, and then Jacquie brought some vegetable pakora things and caramelised cashews, finished with blueberries, strawberries and the cake her boyfriend had made during the week.

The jazz band that started was a bit boring, although when they introduced the lady singer on stage, it got a bit better. It was interesting seeing the opera, as I've never seen it being performed before, but because I don't understand what they're saying, I don't think I'll be going to another opera concert in a hurry. The highlight of the musical performances though was a trumpet/ trombone/ saxophone player called James Morrison, who was also quite witty. The orchestra played land of hope and glory at the end, whilst fireworks went off. During the night, Jacquie had got over the local newspaper photographer over to take our picture, and then a girl came over to interview us, and I don't know what came over me but I felt like I'd had PR coaching and so was answering all her questions in a very 'that's what the newspaper wants to hear' way.