We hired a cabana by the pool for the day and lapped up the sunshine, swimming and friendly service. Since it’s off peak here we had the pool mostly to ourselves for the day and, as my nine year old daughter rightly said we were, ‘living the dream’! I felt like an Egyptian Queen (albeit […]
Month: October 2012
Things I’m Loving… whilst keeping my head shifting time zones
I’m sat in the dark in a lovely villa in Santa Barbara and the clock tells me the time is 3.30pm on Friday 28 October. The computer I’m typing on is still set in UK time and tells me the time is 11.30pm on a Friday night. Over in New Zealand, where we are destined […]
Goodbye England – leg one of our return to NZ complete (thank goodness!)
Our taxi swept us away to London Heathrow at midday yesterday. The emotions of saying goodbye were quelled with the thought of ‘Chicken’ Grandma & Granddad visiting us in New Zealand, almost ten weeks to the day of our departure from England. As we made our way from the taxi, laden heavily with baggage, a […]
Autumnal fun in England this past week
Our time in England is drawing to a close. Tomorrow we chase the sun to the United States, where we’ll spend four nights in Santa Barbara, before journeying back home to New Zealand. In the week and a half we’ve been here the autumn leaves have really started to turn in earnest. The trees are […]
PRICKLES | Lyrical Sunday
I’ve temporarily shifted hemispheres and seasons – from spring to autumn – from New Zealand to England. I’m walking country lanes untrodden by my feet for many years. I’m finding treasures I used to know so well – seasonal markers of the year in England. On Saturday I came across a sweet chestnut and it […]
Silent Sunday
Things I’m Loving…. Special times with old friends & family
Nearly a week since we landed in England, all the way from our home in New Zealand, with a couple of nights stop over in San Francisco. There’s been no need for big ticket attractions, as simply shifting from spring to autumn in a matter of nights – and wooden houses to brick – is […]
A poem to old friendships – Old friends are like gold…
Yesterday I caught up with one of my dearest old school friends, today I’m visiting a friend I lived with at Southampton University, who now lives in the beautiful, historic city of Winchester. There are so many old friends I’d love to see in the short week and a half we are here in the […]
Old – The Gallery
I’m here in England after five years away – there is so much ‘old’ and I’m loving it! Old are the photographs in my parents house… Of generations before. Love this old photograph of my Grandma and her sisters (she was one of seven!). Old is the land and the marks of history left upon […]
Impressions of ‘home’ after five years away from the UK
I feel like a tourist. Every brick home, red telephone box, pub, thatched cottage, red robin, squirrel and deciduous tree, turning with the autumn tide, make me want to grab for my camera. Holly bushes, berry laded bushes for the birds through the winter, acorns littering the garden – I am seeing autumn in England […]
NZ to UK, via San Francisco stop-over, with three little Kiwis
It’s been five years since we’ve done the long-haul flights from our home in Wellington, New Zealand, to the UK (and having just done it, I now remember the reason why we left it so long before doing it again, it’s bloody hard work!). It had to be done though. With the talk of us […]
Fishnets – Lyrical Sunday
Latte Junkie posted a photograph as the inspiration for this week’s Lyrical Sunday. I found myself sat in ‘Players’ restaurant, at the end of Pier 39, in San Francisco writing the following poem. My two year old was asleep in the buggy next to me, whilst my six and nine year old had a wonderful […]
Out of here!
I’m going to be living every minute of life to the max over the next three weeks (and sleeping when I can). They’ll be little time for blogging so I’m hanging up my dressing gown (which is what I mostly blog in!) and taking off on a bird in the sky. Up to Auckland on […]
I’ve discovered what fuels those surfers at Lyall Bay…
After months of hearing about Ekim Burgers, via my friend ‘Latte Junkie‘ (who frequently makes the half hour plus drive from Upper Hutt to the orange caravan at Lyall Bay, on Wellington’s south coast), I finally sampled the goods. The moment the home-made tomato-cumin relish, drizzled on a cup of chunky wedges, entered my mouth […]
