Whilst on a sunshine holiday, in the midst of New Zealand’s winter, we enjoyed a fantastic day-trip to Singapore Zoo, along with Chinese Grandma and Granddad, who flew in from the UK to meet us for a holiday. The Zoo is set in a rainforest (so take an umbrella!), though there are a vast array […]
Gardens by the Bay, in Singapore, opened to the public in 2011. It is an amazing development, which brings to life a vision of creating a City in a Garden, as described in detail on the Gardens by the Bay website. Towering over the gardens is the ‘Supertree Grove‘, which made me think of the […]
Coming from a New Zealand winter the heat and humidity of Singapore was both welcoming and – at times – exhausting. However, plentiful air conditioned spaces and a great apartment to sleep in meant we were given respite from the heat – failing that we simply sought out water; by way of drinking it, playing […]
It’s been over ten years since I last visited Singapore, in 2005. That visit was accompanying my hubby on business, with our first born daughter (at 19 months of age). I’d also travelled before children, back in 2002 (which was an entirely different experience!). On Sunday night I will be flying to Singapore again, with hubby […]
It’s been a wonderful few weeks of holidaying in the countryside of the Wairarapa, enjoying the build up to Christmas, and our daughter Sophie’s Boxing Day Birthday, catching up with friends and enjoying the long light evening’s of summer. Our oldest daughter finished school for the year at the beginning of December and we’re loving […]
We left the caravan park in north Wales on a Saturday morning, after a wonderful family reunion and holiday at Hafan Y Mor Holiday Park, taking the whole day to drive to Cardiff in south Wales. There were no three lane motorways, just single lanes of traffic, flowing in both directions, the whole drive. It […]
It’s been a fortnight since we returned from the UK to the US. We are heading back to New Zealand to live at the beginning of October, but for now we’re in limbo; between the two places we love. I haven’t felt like writing anything much, but have tried to fit in a little reminiscing about […]
Guess where we are? Known as ‘The Happiest Place on Earth’! Disneyland! This visit I am the happiest I’ve been visiting Disneyland California, and it’s not just because of the dashing man by my side (though of course he is a big part of the reason!). It’s also because our Miss 4 has finally reached the […]
My Facebook feed was flooded with lovely messages of ‘welcome to the club’ and ‘forties are the best’ this weekend. It’s been like reliving turning eighteen again, as I’ve watched friends slightly older than me party into their forties and then, last weekend, it was my turn. It was a fabulous weekend away in Santa […]
There’s nothing worse than flu to knock a person off kilter. It’s worse when the whole family, children and all, are affected. It’s forced us all to slow down and write off the first week or so of this New Year. The only silver lining for the adults, particularly me, has been a forced detox […]
They arrived today! Our wonderful New Zealand neighbours. Our children are ecstatic and it’s magic for us adults to see them all together. Their ages span from three to ten, but all five children (three of them being our crazy girls) are like a little family in their own right. They mix up play between […]
Driving up the West Coast of California, north from Santa Barbara, we made a pit stop at a place in the country called Avila Valley Barn for a ‘Fall’ experience Californian style. The youngest of our family was the most enthralled. She tore into her roasted sweetcorn with the appetite of a cowgirl that had […]
On our trip to Auckland and the winter-less north, we found one place where it snows all year round – ‘Snowplanet‘. We’d been before, over three years ago (when Alice was just a few months old, bundled in a front pack and a snow suit). This time round Alice was old enough to have a […]
A highlight of our holiday was ‘Puzzling World‘ in Wanaka. Dan and I had visited it over ten years ago, when the original maze was there, but since then an amazing array of attractions have been added. The maze is challenging, with 1.5km of passages. I’m sure I saw a sign saying ‘On average a […]