Other stuff I love about winter in NZ

Tamarillos 
Tamarillos are quite a strange fruit. I first came across them in Auckland years ago, and New Zealand is one of the few countries who produce them commercially. They are considered by some to be a bit of a Kiwi icon, and the name itself is apparently derived from the Maori word for leadership (Tama)

They are related to tomatoes, capsicums (peppers) and eggplants (aubergines), but as for the taste, I would describe it as a cross between a tomato and a passion fruit. Kind of weird. But they’re in season right now and they’re great in muffins.

My Piano
We’re all indoors just a little bit more in the winter. We still try to get out as much as we possibly can (basically if it’s not raining, we get out), but the earlier sunsets mean extra indoors time. And this means I actually get to play my piano a bit in the winter. I’ve been playing a bit of new stuff lately. Loving it.

Friday Nights
While our summer evenings were all about ensuring one of us got up the mountain before sunset (Jake for a run, me for a walk) while the other one put the children to bed, Friday movie nights have become a bit of a winter tradition. We all stay indoors, the kids stay up late, and we have dinner in the lounge room in front of a DVD. Puss in Boots, The Smurfs, Ice Age, that kind of thing. Although I must admit that by the end of the winter I think I will be craving a grown-up film!

(For those who’ve noticed the picture - yes, 9 years on and we still haven’t bought a TV cabinet!)

Cuddles on the Sofa 
Sleepy cuddles on weekend afternoons with hot water bottles and blankets. Need I say more?!

Baths
OK, strictly this is nothing to do with NZ as you can have a bath virtually anywhere in the world, but as we lived in a house with only showers but no bath in Alice Springs, it’s still has novelty value for me and it’s definitely a favourite thing of mine for winter. Even better when the bath is cleared of all toys and grime, and is surrounded by candles and a glass of wine instead...

Which brings me on to...

Red Wine
NZ produces GREAT wine! We should know – we drink enough of it.

I usually drink white for the majority of the year, but Winter is definitely all about red wine. We still have a little bit left over from the wedding but unfortunately 50% of it has gone cloudy/fizzy. We’re not sure why. (Could it be that we’re simply not drinking it fast enough?)

Reading

Since we first left the UK nine years ago, we have become huge fans of libraries. With an ex-pat perspective we can now see what we took for granted for all those years: that Britain has the benefit of phenomenally cheap books. What you can pick up for £1.99 in a British supermarket could cost you $30 here. So although we used to be big book purchasers, we have hardly bought a book since and for the last nine years we’ve been using the library instead. 

Alfie and I usually go every Thursday and we usually come out with a big bag of novels (for me), rugby books (for Alfie) and wildlife books (carefully selected by Alfie for his big sister). I am about to go and snuggle up in the window seat and read some...

A Winter Weekend in Wellington

We managed to completely stuff up our plans for a fun Sunday today, by not thinking straight yesterday: we took the kids for a massive swimming session and then out to a dinner party in the evening.

They did well, despite being incredibly tired from the swimming, but we made the mistake of forgetting to look at the time. 10pm came and went and other people (with much older kids) were heading home to put them to bed, and we suddenly realised that ours were pretty much standing up with their eyes closed and it was really way too late for our 4 and 6 year old to be up.

So we rushed home and put them to bed, but unfortunately then came a sleepless night (itchy eczema from the swimming pool), which resulted in everyone getting up late this morning and Alfie missing his weekly rugby practise.

(Alfie wasn’t bothered – he was too busy being grumpy from a lack of sleep).

But we also missed the conservation work we had planned to do this morning (helping plant Rata trees), which seriously upset Molly. 

So we ended up going for a walk in Otari-Wilton Bush, to try to compensate. We’re so lucky to have this on our doorstep. I just love the Maori carvings at the entrance, and there are seemingly endless walking tracks and heaps of native trees, ferns, plants and birds.

Molly brought her “New Zealand Birds” book and practised looking up all the birds she saw using the Index (it was slow going!). Alfie began well by helping spot the birds, but within half an hour he’d lost all energy and was on Jake’s shoulders.

Meanwhile Molly managed to find fantails, Kererus, sparrows, blackbirds, Tuis and an un-identified orange bird. She was one very happy girl! 

Jake then lost energy too (hardly surprising, given the extra 18.5kgs he was lugging around), so we dragged ourselves back to the roadside and into a great nearby cafe, which manages to keep a very peaceful atmosphere (despite a large number of children), and does very good coffee and lolly cake for the kids. 

Lolly Cake is a bit of a New Zealand institution – the simplest recipe ever and kids love it. I haven't made it for years but watching our two devouring it this afternoon has inspired me to buy a pack of malt biscuits and a pack of Eskimos this week and make a roll!  

A Day In The Life of Alfie

I thought I’d capture a typical day in Alfie’s life on film today, so I brought the camera everywhere.

Our day began early this morning with some very enthusiastic reading.  Alfie brought home his first “reader” from pre-school yesterday, and insisted on reading it to us FIVE times before breakfast. Molly and I were pleading with him not to read it a sixth time, and luckily a bowl of porridge plonked in front of him seemed to do the trick by temporarily distracting him.

We are very proud that he’s moved up to reading real books and I can’t fault his enthusiasm, although if I have to listen so often then I do wish the storyline was a little more gripping!

Anyway, after dropping Molly at school, we went to the Mall to buy a birthday present – Alfie seems to have a party to go to every Saturday at the moment and his social life seems more aligned with Paris Hilton than a little boy. Anyway, he had great fun choosing a present and decided he would like to make his own monster card.

Then all of a sudden Alfie decided that he would actually rather like to go for a haircut (?).

This was fantastic news, as I’d been trying to persuade him into the hairdressers for weeks but he had been quite certain that only Daddy would be allowed to cut his hair. So we waited and waited and waited but still Daddy didn’t get around to it and Alfie was beginning to look like a cross between a girl and a punk. Therefore I was extremely relieved today to walk into Supercuts with my girl-punk and come out with a proper handsome boy (and a lollipop courtesy of Supercuts).

This called for a celebration, so we went to Muffin Break for a latte and a Ben 10 juice.

This was followed by Alfie’s regular gymnastics class, which he’s been doing for about a year now. I am going to blame the sugar content in the lollipop followed by a Ben 10 juice for this, but Alfie was super-wired-up at today’s class.  None of his usual good listening, good behaviour and good gymnastics.

Instead he and his buddies gave their coach a real run for her money, by bundling each other, lying on top of each other, tripping each other up, and generally not listening to instructions as much as they possibly could. It was so bad that I had to ask her not to resign at the end of the class.

I attempted some quiet time at home afterwards, but Alfie’s idea of quiet play wasn’t the same as mine, and eventually I had to give in and play Battle of the Bey Blades and car racing with him.

It was with great relief that I watched the clock turn 2.40pm and packed away the toys so that we could scooter down to school to collect Molly. 

Once home, Alfie finally came down from his sugar rush and relaxed on the sofa for a few minutes watching a Ben 10 DVD, but it didn't last long, and while I was cooking dinner I discovered that he'd turned into a cat named "Tom" - this unfortunate game continued throughout dinner, his shower and story time, and I have just finally put the little kitty to bed.

Phew! 

Queen's Birthday Weekend

While our friends and rellies over in England have, by the looks of things, been wildly celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee this weekend, it’s a little ironic that here in New Zealand we always have a public holiday on the first Monday in June every year.

Officially it’s supposed to be for “celebrating” the Queen’s birthday, but truthfully we don’t really celebrate the Queen’s birthday –all the shops use it as an excuse for Queens Birthday Weekend Sales, and the rest of us all just enjoy an extra day off work!

Still, in honour of the Queen’s Jubilee and to honour our British roots, we decided to spend a bit of time this weekend trying to teach the kids a little of what the royal family is all about. We got as far as making paper crowns and decorating red, white & blue cupcakes and then it all deteriorated as they started to argue about whether to go out on their scooters or watch a Ben 10 DVD.

The scooters won and we spent a very lovely sunny afternoon yesterday on Wellington waterfront trying not to knock too many pedestrians over (Alfie), as well as digging holes on a beach (for me to fall into).

Queen’s Birthday weekend is always at the very beginning of winter, and is the last public holiday we have in NZ until spring. We were lucky with the weather this weekend but the South Island is forecast to get snow this week and it looks like the North Island is in for a temperature drop as well, so I took advantage of the Queens Birthday Weekend sales and bought myself a new puffer jacket which is so puffy I actually feel like I'm  wearing a sleeping bag - here's hoping I will feel warm this winter! 

Winter in New Zealand

Molly’s school have a theme this term. They’re learning about Te Ngahere (the bush). This is including learning about the native plants as well as the wildlife. Those of you who know Molly well will understand how well this theme suits her.

Today at school drop off I was greeted by 21 sheets of green painted paper in the classroom. Apparently the children have all been out in the school grounds drawing the native trees, and today they are going to paint one of them.

Inspired by this, I decided to take a series of photos out of each of our bedroom windows today, for this blog post. 

It’s the first official day of winter today, and I just love how New Zealand stays so green and lush even at this time of year. It’s so diverse and stunning and we are very lucky to live here.

Other things I love about winter are:

• Hot water bottles in bed. So cozy!
• Seeing snow on the top of the mountains in the South Island in the distance when I go walking in our local mountains, so beautiful!
• Home-made soup - I’ve been trialling a lot of different recipes lately. Favourites so far include spicy pear & parsnip, and roasted pumpkin, chickpea & feta.
• My new bread machine (a wedding gift). It’s so nice to have one again after a while without. The timer switch means we get up to a delicious smell at weekends, I have finally perfected the foccacia recipe, and all that bread goes well with all that soup!
• Zumba classes to warm me up (instead of make me melt, like they did in the summer)
• Taking the kids outside to see the stars before bed and/or playing in the dark with glow sticks and laser lights!
• Wrapping up warm and going for a big walk along the beach, with a flask of hot chocolate

I am aiming to do each and every one of those things this weekend!

Meanwhile, Jake has (finally) bought a new bike, after almost a whole year of research. Big apologies to all the friends and bike shop staff who he pestered so regularly for advice – we owe you one!