In less than three weeks we fly away from our home of some fifteen years, New Zealand, to start an adventure living in Santa Barbara, CA, USA. Our new adventure may be for just a year, three years, or possibly more. In this past week we flew up to Auckland, from our home in Wellington, […]
blogging
Things I’m Loving – Visitors to Welly from Napier!
It’s been a lovely week of new friendships. We’ve had Jen, and her son Billy, staying with us all week from sunny Napier (though she tells me they’d seen nothing but rain for the past couple of weeks). Wellington has only thrown them one seriously typical weather day – the rest has been calm with […]
Changing times
Our two computers in the house don’t seem to be enough at the moment. Miss 6 and 9 command them whenever they can – even Miss 2 requests her favourite ‘Starfall Phonics’ or ‘Peppa Pig’. The hours Miss 6 and 9 stay up till at night also encroaches on any blog time I used to […]
Weekend highs, simmering lows and why bother to blog?
I don’t feel like writing at all at the moment, but I look back through the archives and all the memories and I feel I must ‘carry on’. I feel I must record every moment of magic, to remind myself of what life is all about and leave the drudgery in the gutter to waste. […]
Coming out from Underground: Friendships in real-life, Facebook & blogland
I’ve been hiding away for a while. Energy to even think about scheduling time to see friends, let alone do it, has escaped me. I am so grateful for patient, caring friends. I’m also so thankful to friends I’ve made through blogging, who send me uplifting messages first thing in the morning, late at night […]
Exceptional, enabling, ever ready…
It’s all about ‘E’ on the home-schooling front this week. 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 the LONG ‘e’ sound there)… There’s nothing better than grinding up fresh […]
Thank you dear family! What an amazing Mother’s Day!
Thank you for a special greeting when I was woken at 5am this morning (all happy sounds – but Alice and Sophie decided to greet the day early!). Thank you Charlotte, for your amazing recipe – which I waited patiently all day to taste! Thank you Sophie for the beautiful ‘bouquet’ picture you so beautifully […]
Q & A
London City Mum tagged me for this meme, based on The Guardian’s Life & Style Q&A. I rarely partake in these, but having read London City Mum’s answers (and laughed a lot), I thought I’d have a go… (can’t promise to make you laugh, but you might see a different side of me after you’ve […]
Us MAD Bloggers
I’d rather read blogs than magazines. I prefer reading about real lives than watching soap operas. The television is reserved for movie nights. My MacBook gets a lot more viewing hours. And I love writing. I’ve always loved writing. I prefer writing my thoughts to speaking them. I’m one of those people that would rather […]
Lyrical Sunday Theme (Week 12): My home town (supporting Blog4NZ)
From 21-23 March people are ‘blogging for New Zealand‘ to let the world know that the recent earthquake in Christchurch hasn’t stopped New Zealand from being ‘open for business’! You can follow people’s contributions on Blog4NZ or via ‘Blog for New Zealand on Facebook‘. With this in mind we’ve set this week’s Lyrical Sunday theme […]
Being outmaneuvered by an 11 month old
Blogging is taking a back seat whilst I formulate a strategy to cope with my suddenly very mobile 11 month old. Just when I thought my life would get a little easier – with Sophie joining Charlotte at school – Alice has stepped up to a new level. This week she has gone from taking […]
The day Vegemitevix came for a BBQ
It was with great excitement that the day finally arrived when Vegemitevix, Kiwi expat blogger extraordinaire, and her ‘Englishman’, came to our house for dinner! Well, dinner sounds way too grand… it was a hastily thrown together BBQ – with the potatoes nearly forgotten about and the salad pre-bought from the supermarket and chucked in […]
Showing some visitors to Welly a good time
When Sophie asked what we’d be doing after Kindi on Monday I told her, ‘We’re going to be showing some visitors to Wellington around.’ Sophie likes to know all the facts and was quick to ask,’Who?’. When I told her I’d never met the visitors before she practically gasped, ‘Strangers?!’ and then told all the […]
Every day has its highs and lows…
but when the lows are met with humour and acceptance, rather than resistance and annoyance, they are much easier to deal with and quickly forgotten. I have a saying that is frequently used in our home, ‘It’s in the past, put it behind you and move on’. I use this a lot when the children […]