Free range Friday

It’s been a week of sunshine in Wellington. Summer officially starts on 1 December and the weather sure is hotting up in preparation. This past week we’ve been enjoying the fun of the season in the garden and at the beach. It’s also been busy with organising Christmas post to the UK and trying to do a sort out of cupboards and clothes in the girls rooms (never ending…).

Here’s a few highlights from the past week (in no particularly order – we’re free ranging it this Friday!)…

• Nurturing the veggies and tending to the flowers.
• Defeating green fly and white cabbage butterflies from destroying our peas (ongoing).
• Enjoying the satisfaction of playing on a freshly mowed lawn (which I never would achieved without the help of Frances to mind mobile Alice).
• Ice blocks and cold drinks.
• Discovering at the grand age of 36 a taste for avocado (which Alice has also decided she loves and never leaves me with much on my plate).
• Running through sprinklers.
• Splashing in the paddling pool.
• Jumping on the trampoline under the shade of the Pohutukawa tree soon to bloom.
• Impromptu visits to the beach.
• Seeing Alice love the beach and crawl straight into the surf (with an ice-cream splattered face) like it was a giant bath (arrgh!).

• Delight in watching Sophie catch her first wave on a boogie board and see her really live in the moment.

• Watching Charlotte relax after school and enjoy being free in the fresh air.  Happy that she has no more than two scheduled after school activities.  Looking forward to having her around in three week’s time when school breaks up for the loooooong summer holidays 🙂

• Afternoons with friends at the playground.
• Walking around barefoot.
• Windows and doors flung open.
• Rescuing our one legged bird that flew in the house and couldn’t get back out (eek!).
• Cleaning up feathers and bird poo after our one legged bird friend got trapped in the house.
• Ignoring a bee that got stuck in the lounge and calmly wishing it would find its way back out.
• Cleaning out the cubby house and calmly ignoring a big spider that froze whilst I cleaned up and gave me a deathly stare.
• Admire hubbie for cycling to and from work (and looking very fit!).
• Wearing long, floaty skirts.
• Discovering a box of forgotten summer dresses for Alice to wear (many with matching bloomers and hats!).
• Hanging out the washing in the sunshine, knowing it isn’t going to rain and folding it away on the same day, bone dry.
• Writing Christmas cards and thinking of friends and family across the miles.
• Drinking coffee (lots of it).