Autumn Leaves

There’s been a real Autumn-ey feel to life this week.

Late March in New Zealand is the equivalent season to late September back in the UK where I grew up. I remember it as a time when we’d just started the new school year, a chill in the early morning air, kicking up crunchy, fallen leaves as I walked to school, the trees becoming bare...

Here it’s the same but different.

Our school year started in January/February so we’re nearly at the end of the first term already. The trees remain green – in fact, very green due to the amount of rain we get! – and they will do so all winter. There are very few trees here which will end up with bare branches, which I like.

But there are still some falling leaves around and the kids had a ball this week collecting them and admiring all the colours. Truly beautiful reds, pinks, oranges, yellows, lots of green, and even a few black ones (which delighted Alfie as black is his favourite colour). 

The kitchen table has been covered in leaf rubbings over the last couple of days – it’s Alfie’s new favourite pastime.

In the meantime, we went to a local school gala last week and Molly managed to totally kit herself out for the Autumn/Winter with a complete new wardrobe of second hand clothes (all for $5!).

She just loves choosing what to wear each day from the big pile. Sometimes it matches, sometimes it doesn’t.

Her teacher loves to see what she turns up in each day and has forecast that Molly will one day in the future become one of New Zealand’s best known fashion designers and we’ll all be watching her creations at WOW.