The Busiest Ever Day in Wellington

I thought my last post was going to be the very last Rugby World Cup related post on this blog, but no..... it’s not all over yet!

This week the ABs have been tirelessly continuing to travel around the country for their victory parades, with Wellington’s turn on Wednesday.

When the lunchtime date was announced, my first reaction was that it was a great shame it was during school hours. The kids missed out on watching a lot of the games because many of the most important ones were scheduled late at night – we think to allow people from around the world to be able to watch them. So we were gutted to think that they might miss out on the celebrations as well.

However, Molly’s school quickly sent an email to all parents to say the children would be allowed out of school for this fine moment in history, as did many other schools in Wellington (although I heard one boys school has just given all those who attended the parade a detention).

The media estimates are that over 100,000 people lined the streets of Wellington, despite the crappy weather. This is around half the population of Wellington! To our wee kids this in itself was pretty unforgettable as until recently they lived in a community of only 27,000 (and 2,478 before that!). 

We chose to stand outside The Beehive so we could watch (prime minister) John Key greeting the team, a line up with the sparkly cup, and an unexpected Haka on the steps of Parliament.  

Despite the occasional reminders of being back in London (standing room only on the train, over-crowded streets, etc), the day was pretty phenomenal. WELL DONE THE ALL BLACKS!!!

Go the All Blacks!

What an ending to six and a half weeks of rugby mania. NZ won the RWC2011. Bloody brilliant!

Wellington was host to only a few games, but all the way through there’s been so much going on in the city with bands playing on the waterfront, special kids’ rugby activities at the museum, people of all nationalities walking around town, painted faces, flags EVERYWHERE you look, and there’s been a real buzz in the air for six weeks.

The whole season has been fantastic, and I’ll be very surprised if it doesn’t form a big chunk of the kids’ earliest memories once they grow up.

After a very long afternoon nap today, the final tonight was the first match Alfie actually managed to watch, as he’s always fallen asleep too early for all the others. Having now seen for himself what real rugby is (as opposed to his usual rough & tumble with his mates in the playground), Alfie’s now decided he wants to be an All Black (and a clown) when he grows up and Molly’s going to come and watch him train every day. She is, however, worried that he might hurt himself and asked many times tonight “whoever invented rugby Mum, why did they make it so rough?”

Anyway, congratulations NZ – what a great tournament and a great final! We feel very proud and privileged to have made you our home. 

Alice in Wonderland

The weather forecast today was a cold & wet one, so I decided a day into the city was in order – the kids just love going on the train and I had also planned to take them to the Alice In Wonderland exhibition and Te Papa, the national museum which we all love so much.

But those weathermen often get things wrong (although you've got to hand it to them - it must be quite challenging to get it right in a city like Wellington) and instead we had a glorious, warm and sunny day.

We did pop in to Wonderland where Molly got to play at being Queen of Hearts, Alfie played flamingo croquet (he was surprisingly good, although it took me a while to work out which angle to stand at to protect my ankles from wayward balls) and we all celebrated our "unbirthdays" with some cake decorating.

But for most of the day, we just wandered around the waterfront feeding birds, looking at the sculptures, playing rugby at the Fanzone and exploring.

Ah Wellington.... you can’t beat it on a good day!

A few days at the beach

Well, that was just what the doctor ordered!

A huge big thank you to Fiona, for the loan of her family bach on the Kapiti Coast. We had the best few days ever, and it reminded us of everything we love about New Zealand. 

It was also very nice having Jake back in the family again – he’s finally back from the world of rugby (although he did insist on watching the Wales-France game on Saturday night).

So – we taught the kids how to play cricket, we ate all our meals outdoors, we watched movies (lots of them), we pottered around on the beach, we collected shells (of course!), we built sandcastles, we sat for hours in the local cafe, we read newspapers from cover to cover, we ate well and we drank beer - in the daytime!

It was a very wonderful few days, and I just can’t wait to do it all again!

Girls Day Out

So that's week 1 of school holidays over already - it went so quickly! 

We’ve had a really lovely time this week. While Alfie was at pre-school on Wednesday (he gets shorter holidays) I took Molly for a day out in the city. 

We went on the train, watched The Smurfs at the cinema, then met Jake for lunch, where he treated us to a pie at a nearby cafe – then declared he’d forgotten his wallet (luckily I was present with my credit card).

Afterwards, Molly and I decided to continue the glamour of our big city trip by spending a girlie afternoon wandering around the shops looking at sparkly things. Molly, at the grand age of 5, has now decided that her favourite pastime is looking around Diva and Lush. 

When we got home Alfie continued our day of pampering and hosted a lovely tea party for us on the deck. Awesome hospitality Alfie – thank you! 

Butterflies & Puppy Dogs (and other stuff)

We’re on Day Two of the school holidays and so far all good.

Strangely, we’re already on the third face painting session of the week though. How this has happened I am still not quite sure, but Jake is starting to wonder what kind of animals he will find in the house when he comes home from work each evening. Butterflies, dragons, spiderman, puppy dogs.....

 

Booze

I looked around the house this afternoon and realised that since the Rugby World Cup began, we have accumulated an incredible number of empty bottles.

It’s fair to say that we were both very gutted at last night’s result, but I consoled myself with a cup of tea and Jake was out at the pub. So I am still confused as to how this could have happened...?

Jake could never have consumed that amount of alcohol – not only has he been in Auckland for a very large chunk of the last month, but as you all know, well.... Jake could simply just never have consumed that amount.

I guess it must have been those rats again...?

Rain Rain Go Away

The weather this week has been truly stinky. We have been living in a raincloud.

There’s a saying here in the capital, that you “can’t beat Wellington on a good day”. It’s SO true – on a good day Wellington is one of the best places you could be in the whole world.

But when you’ve had a whole week of very bad days it’s quite easy to forget that...

So this week I’ve been concentrating on all the good things in our home. A lovely bunch of orange lilies which Jake bought me (yes, really!), a little bunch of colourful flowers I picked from the garden, a big bowl of fruit (yes this is still a novelty!) and plates of baking. I finally made the Donna Hay filo pies!

And I mustn’t forget that it’s the rain which makes our capital city so green and beautiful.

Hanging Out Days

I am a very lucky lady because every Monday and every Thursday, Alfie and I have a “hanging out day”.

This means there’s no pre-school and no work, and instead we spend our days doing art, baking, reading, gymnastics lessons, going to the park, the cafe, the library and lots of other lovely things.

I usually collect a big pile of my favourite magazines at the library, while Alfie comes home with a big pile of gymnastics books and DVDs. Sometimes I even get to read a couple of pages!

Our baking repertoire is limited to Alfie’s favourite recipes though, so although I tried extremely hard today to persuade him to make the Donna Hay Spinach & Feta Filo Parcels, he just wasn’t having any of it and we ended up doing funny face cookies instead – far more fun/easy/tasty!

Alfie really looks forward to his “hanging out days”, and so do I!