Catching the Magic

Two Brits in Aotearoa bringing up three little 'Kiwis'. Our children: Our future. Haere Mai!

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Education sites we ♥

I hope she’s not thinking about me as much as I am about her

September 27, 2011 BritMumInNZ 12 Comments Sarah, Sophie

My beautiful, free spirited, energetic, bright young Sophie. I love you with all my heart, as I do Charlotte and Alice. You probably won’t understand the depth of my love for you until you are much, much older. But a parent will do anything for their child’s happiness. When you started school at the beginning […]

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Exceptional, enabling, ever ready…

August 30, 2011August 30, 2011 BritMumInNZ 10 Comments Alice, Charlotte, Dan, Sarah, Sophie

It’s all about ‘E’ on the home-schooling front this week (more about that over at my ‘Many Paths to Learning‘ blog space). Whilst Sophie’s busy drawing extraordinary elephants, and exploring the earth with Alice, I am focusing on enhancing my energy levels to ensure I am enabled to entertain, educate and endure. How? Coffee (note […]

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Things I’m Loving

August 5, 2011 BritMumInNZ 12 Comments Alice, Charlotte, Dan, Sarah, Sophie

Friendships near and far, always in my heart and often in my thoughts. Living in a city that feels more like a village, because of the nature of the people that live there. Winter sunshine and early signs of spring with ducklings and daffodils already seen! Beautiful scenery and clean air. Wellington, its hills, bays […]

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Thing’s I’m Loving… Decision Made!

June 3, 2011 BritMumInNZ 14 Comments Loving & Not Loving, Sarah, Sophie

There’s been a niggling, nagging feeling for a while now that someone moved the cheese. We could have stayed and waited it out, to see if another delivery of the good stuff was going to arrive – but we probably would have got awfully hungry, lethargic, zoned out and depressed. From time to time life throws […]

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Sophie has a ‘cold’… (warning – school rant!)

May 12, 2011May 12, 2011 BritMumInNZ 20 Comments Sophie

but we know it’s not ‘that’ bad. The reality is… she’s just started her second term of her school life. She’s moved classes and has a new teacher. There’s now twenty children in her small classroom. The children in the class are all getting used to each other and a new teacher.  Five, of the […]

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School too easy?

December 1, 2008December 4, 2008 BritMumInNZ 8 Comments Charlotte

UPDATE: Date Posted: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 Quick update – had a great meeting with our Charli’s teacher and it’s just so great to keep the lines of communication open and nip little problems in the bud before they escalate. We are so happy with the support the school is giving us. They really are […]

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An Olympian in the making?!

August 12, 2008August 24, 2008 BritMumInNZ 2 Comments Charlotte

The girls have been very excited about the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Charli’s school are incorporating the games into their classes over the next two-week’s and she came home very excited yesterday. We got on-line and found tons of great print-offs and ideas; from learning the history of the games to modern day events. We’ve been […]

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Making Real Friendships

April 15, 2008November 27, 2009 BritMumInNZ 1 Comment Sarah

Making real friends as an adult isn’t always easy (On the garden wall’s post ‘Stalking Frally‘ sums up many of my encounters of new friendships). I’ve made some beautiful friends over the last ten years I’ve lived in New Zealand; but sadly most of them have moved overseas. With renewed energy I put myself ‘out […]

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There She Blows!

October 16, 2007November 28, 2009 BritMumInNZ 1 Comment Sarah

We got lucky and saw the whale today! The day started with Dan catching a bus to work, at 8.10am, and then Charlotte shouting at me, ‘Telephone! Telephone!’. I pelted downstairs (as I keep forgetting to set the ring tone to ring more than six times) and just grabbed the phone in time (to cheers […]

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Letting Go, Nearly

August 7, 2006May 27, 2010 BritMumInNZ Leave a comment Charlotte, Sarah

Charlotte started Montessori Pre-School last week. We lasted one week!

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Welcome to the ramblings & photographs of a British expat Mum living mostly in Wellington (aka *coffee capital of the world*), New Zealand, since 1997.

This blog is a way to preserve sanity whilst raising children, capture the magic in the chaos, and share tales with family, friends, fellow parents and expats.

Along with my British born husband we have been bringing up our three Kiwi born daughters in the land of sheep, kiwi fruit and fine wine, since 2003 (with a brief 16 months living in Santa Barbara, California - where we home educated our daughters). We both first landed on New Zealand soil in 1996 (hubby) and 1997 (myself) - as fresh graduates from the UK wanting to live and work overseas... our 'OE' turned into something a lot longer and more life changing than we could ever have first anticipated!

Thank you for stopping by (if you would like to know more visit the 'About' page!).
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Recent Posts

  • Walking the Paekākāriki Escarpment Track February 1, 2021
  • Patuna Chasm | A river walk like no other! January 24, 2021
  • One week into 2021 January 10, 2021
  • Festive greetings from Aotearoa! December 23, 2020
  • Term 4 and winding down to the last days of school for 2020 December 1, 2020
  • ‘HELLO’ November 24, 2020
  • A spring holiday in Wanaka and Queenstown’s outdoor playgrounds! November 1, 2020
  • End of Term 3! October 2, 2020
  • Before the pandemic! ‘Six’ the musical in Sydney September 26, 2020
  • I miss her, Mum, even though she’s not gone. July 23, 2020
  • Our ‘bubble’ of 5 million has done it! June 9, 2020
  • Reflections on coming out of seven weeks of lockdown in New Zealand May 13, 2020

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Sarah Lee's books

The Toll
it was amazing
The Toll
by Neal Shusterman
Dear Evan Hansen
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Dear Evan Hansen
by Val Emmich
A Map of Days
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A Map of Days
by Ransom Riggs
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The Absolute Book
by Elizabeth Knox
The Furthest Station
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The Furthest Station
by Ben Aaronovitch

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