Travels in New Zealand and beyond, going back to 2003!
School finished on the Thursday before Easter with a very touching Easter Service in the Wellington Cathedral, especially as our oldest daughter sang in the ‘Choral’ and our youngest with the ‘Princess Singers’ choir. I popped into my youngest daughter’s classroom afterwards and saw this beautiful nature arrangement. Good Friday morning was a relaxed start…
This Easter we are far away from our home (though home, for my husband and I, is forever split between the UK and New Zealand). By home, I mean our literal home, the property we own and have lived in for eight years. Our little patch of New Zealand, on Wellington’s south coast. The place…
My enduring memory of Easter Sunday 2012 will not be the excited sounds of children and chocolate, or the frustration at having to mediate over a fair collection of hidden eggs in the garden (to which I sulked off in annoyance at the ungratefulness and read the Easter story, out loud). My enduring memory will be…
Wellington put on a show for Easter Saturday. It was an incredible day of sunshine and no wind. Perfect for entertaining Auntie Claire and enjoying some action in the outdoors. We enjoyed an action packed day on the waterfront. She went out on a kayak with Sophie, whilst I kayaked with Alice. Out on the…
Beautiful nikau palms growing in a safe reserve on the Kapiti coast. The nikau is very slow-growing. Research conducted in lowland forests near Auckland found it takes 40-50 years to begin to form a trunk and about 200 years to reach 10 metres tall (ref. DoC). These beautiful palms, with rich green fronds and brightly coloured…
Easter at the beach, chocolate eggs hidden out of reach. Driftwood adventures, hide and seek, Waking to the sound of the sea to peek – At foil wrapped eggs nestled in the dunes. We dance and sing to Ukelele tunes, play ball and tag, till our breath starts to lag. We quench our thirst with…
Loving the most INCREDIBLE sunsets on the stunning Kapiti Coast. Loving that so much pleasure can be drawn from NATURAL toys – pebbles, driftwood, flowers in the sand dunes. LOVING playing in the surf, a stone’s throw (literally) from the beach house we’re staying in. Loving the CREATIVITY that springs forth when time permits. This…
There have been sunsets of significance, in my life, many times before. But on this Good Friday, it was more. As a child I’d grimaced, at His gruesome death. I still can’t understand the cruelty, that people can inflict. The hot cross buns, that tasted yum, did not sit well, in my tum. I knew…
It’s that time of year when the weather toys with us and we flit from board games and bagels to ice-creams and boules at the speed of a flying frisbee in a southerly gale. Last night the chest of board games was dusted off, hardly touched since last winter. Charlotte and Sophie reveled in the…
Most of the Easter weekend, aside from consuming chocolate, was spent at the swimming pool. On Friday and Saturday we visited our local pool in Kilbirnie (the Wellington Regional Aquatic Centre and Spray Pool) and on Monday we went to the wave pool in Porirua. Both the girls are loving swimming and started lessons again…
Marzipan, food colouring and a dash of inspiration…
The clocks rolled back an hour whilst we slept and brought an early start to Easter Sunday. Charli was first awake, wombling into our bedroom at what would have been 7am, but was now a sharp 6am. “Can I go hunting for eggs in the garden?” she excitedely asked. It was dark, she was wearing…
The Maori people identify the unfurling Punga fern frond or ” Koru” design, with values of youth, strength and vitality, life unfolding, the family or WhÄnau, its care and protection. It seems, therefore, a perfect symbol with which to celebrate Easter in New Zealand. Charlotte came up with the idea of Punga art for Easter,…
A special Easter parcel arrived from Chicken Grandma and has kept the girls busy creating decorative Easter eggs (a fabulous Marks & Spencers kit), masks and baskets. With Charli off school due to a virus and eye infection the timing of the parcels was perfect. The girls are in their element being creative and turning…