Catching the Magic

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

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travel with kids

A place to play in central Copenhagen

July 19, 2014August 20, 2014 BritMumInNZ 5 Comments Adventures, Playgrounds & Parks

We stumbled across a lovely playground in the centre of Copenhagen on a hot summer’s day. A paddling pool invited the children to splash around and cool down. Ride-on bikes lay about for children to freely play on. A welcoming hut had toys outside, akin to a pre-school, but all the toys were for passing children […]

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Tivoli Gardens Copenhagen – Mr Disney’s Inspiration

July 18, 2014August 20, 2014 BritMumInNZ 3 Comments Adventures, Holidays, Playgrounds & Parks

After living in California for a year and being very fortunate to have visited Disneyland, it was wonderful to visit Tivoli gardens – the place that first inspired Walt Disney to set about creating Disneyland.   From the moment we walked into the gardens and amusement park it was very clear to see how Mr […]

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Scenes from the bus in Copenhagen

July 16, 2014August 20, 2014 BritMumInNZ 4 Comments Adventures, Holidays

I took my three daughters on the ‘Hop-On Hop-Off Copenhagen‘ bus tour (though we didn’t do much hopping; as the children were very happy on the open air top-deck of the double decker bus). If I wasn’t managing three children of different interests, ages and sensitivities, I would have spent all day hopping on and […]

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Arriving in Copenhagen

July 9, 2014February 18, 2019 BritMumInNZ 2 Comments Adventures

Copenhagen Airport greeted us Sunday evening, as the sun was setting. It was a light and airy welcome, with barely a wait to clear customs and collect our baggage – just what we needed in our still jet-lagged state; after flying from LA, USA to London, UK, the day before! Our flight from Terminal 5, […]

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24 hours in England

July 7, 2014September 18, 2014 BritMumInNZ 4 Comments Adventures, Holidays

We touched down at London Heathrow early afternoon on Saturday. Our flight from Los Angeles went smoothly enough – after a delay boarding the plane due to a fatality on the incoming plane from New Zealand. Thankfully, we had access to the Air New Zealand lounge, which was so much more pleasant and peaceful than […]

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

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