Matiu Somes Island

Matiu Somes Island is a small island in the middle of Wellington Harbour. Wherever you are in Wellington and no matter which angle you are looking at the harbour from, you're pretty much guaranteed to see Matiu Somes somewhere in your view.

The island used to be used as a quarantine station for people arriving by ship with smallpox, TB and other infectious diseases, and in more recent years was used as an animal quarantine station. These days it's a scientific reserve managed by the Department of Conservation, who do an excellent job of keeping out the pests and looking after the native flora & fauna.

Jake has been fortunate enough to spend quite a bit of time on the island - for "work" reasons - and Molly's been on a couple of visits as well, but we've been trying for ages to go as a family and spend the night there. (DOC have a couple of houses which you can rent for the night - they're basic but very comfortable and well equipped).

Our last planned trip to Matiu Somes Island was cancelled on the day, due to a big storm which meant the ferries couldn't get across.

This trip almost went the same way! The night before we were due to sail, a huge storm whipped up with gale force winds, and the first ferry of the morning was cancelled.

When the ferry company decided to go ahead with the 12 noon sailing, I wasn't quite sure how I felt. The winds were strong and the water was very choppy, and the trip there was consequently kind of reminiscent of a roller-coaster ride...

But we made it there safely, and wow am I glad we did - it's so beautiful! 

When you first get off the ferry you have to go into the Whare Kiore (quarantine building) for a briefing from the DOC rangers, while you get your bags inspected and clean your shoes. Everything has to be thoroughly checked to make sure you're not bringing in any rats, cats, bugs or other pests with you. 

At one point I feared we would be denied access, as Molly's "Fur Real" pink kitten had gone off in her bag and was making all sorts of jerky movements and squeaky noises. Luckily the ranger understood! 

We were finally given the all-clear and headed off to our DOC house for some lunch. Here's our first view, walking up to the house in the moody weather!

Luckily for us it wasn't long before the storm cleared and we got the chance to go out and explore. The scenery around the island was AMAZING!!

It doesn't take long to walk around the whole island as it's so small - and so pretty too!

But as much as I enjoyed the daytime exploring, what I really wanted to do was head out at night to see some of the island's nocturnal wildlife - little blue penguins, Wetas, Skinks and Tuatara. 

It doesn't get dark until around 10pm at the moment, which doesn't make dark night excursions easy with kids in tow. Luckily we had travelled in a reasonably large group which allowed for one person to stay in minding the children (we had four under 7's with us) while Jake and I headed out with our head torches on. 

OK, so here's my first confession......I am quite scared of the dark - and it's REALLY dark on Somes Island at night. 

Second confession.....I am also very scared of Wetas. 

So every time I heard a rustling in the bush or saw a shadow moving, I jumped and shrieked and gripped Jake's arm a bit tighter, which made Jake jump and shriek too. Apparently I was so bad that he's now declared that he will never be going out at night with me again..... :(

And after all that, all we saw was a very large snail!

In the morning the weather had fully cleared, so we went out exploring again before our ferry ride home. 

This time we saw several Skinks - yay! We also saw Kakariki (red-crowned parakeets). But no Tuatara, Wetas or Little Blue Penguins this time - which means we WILL be back...

Happy New Year everyone!

I never know what to call that period between Christmas and New Year, but it feels like it should have a name?!

It's that week when I always think time is going to stretch on forever and  we're going to enjoy lie-ins, leisurely mornings with coffee and the newspaper, the last of the present opening, day trips, endless hours at the beach, runs, swims and bush walks, playdates and barbeques, as well as productive times in the house and garden, time for completing that long "To Do" list that's been lying around all year.

The reality is always a little bit different. It's only 7 days after all!

But it's been a great week despite us not quite achieving all of the above! It's been a very sociable time and barely a day has gone past without us hosting or being hosted at a lunch and/or dinner. In fact, I can't actually remember the last time I cooked an ordinary dinner for just the 4 of us.

Jake even made a pavlova!

Although I hadn't expected this to actually happen, we also finally got a few DIY jobs completed around the house this week - although I have to say this was only because of the help of one very lovely friend who came round one day for a barbeque clutching his toolbox and got stuck into all the outstanding jobs for us - I think he knew that if he didn't do this, all our DIY jobs would probably still be there this time next year!

We've also had a couple of mammoth sessions on the garden - with our very willing little helpers joining in! We pruned, weeded, mowed, and cut down a massive Privet Tree out the front - firstly because it was starting to dominate the garden and also because it is classified as a pest/invasive species and causes bad hayfever as well, so we decided to just get rid of it.

Of course, no jobs are ever fully completed in our household, so although the tree is down, it is now laid across the front door and all visitors have to come in the back gate instead. Hopefully we will have disposed of it by next Christmas (!)

The weather's been a completely mixed bag lately, with some hot sunny days, some heavy humidity, and some cloud and rain. (Today is gorgeous, but we've been told to expect gale force winds tomorrow - no one can say the weather here is boring!).

So on the cooler days we've been exploring new walking tracks.

We found a new secret pathway up Mount Kau Kau one day, and another day we walked all around the coastline to Pencarrow Lighthouse - it was about a 15kms return trip so the kids slept well that night!

Here's one of the reasons I love New Zealand: we're in the nation's capital city and we can walk around a coastline like this, sharing the beach with a few sheep!

The next day we probably should have taken it easy and given the kids a rest... 

...but instead we went out biking on the Hutt River Trail in 27 degree heat and ridiculously high humidity levels.

To start with the kids just LOVED it - but by the end they looked completely shattered! 

The trail goes for 28kms but we "only" did about 10 or 12 kms, stopping on the way for a bit of a paddle in the river to cool off, and again for some lunch, and again for a play in the playground at Avalon Park. 

For the last day of the year, we let everyone rest and recuperate by taking a trip down to Makara Beach, one of our favourite family spots and in my opinion one of the most special places in the whole world. We pottered about in the rock pools collecting crabs and water shells, had a picnic, played "tag" and generally relaxed......a great way to end 2013.

Happy New Year everyone!

Christmas 2013

Christmas began VERY early for us this year, with a wake-up call from Alfie at 5.30am, just TOO excited to stay in bed any longer. And 10 minutes later Molly was up too. Grrrr....! 

So we hauled them into our bed, made a cup of coffee and enjoyed watching them empty their stockings for a while. 

We have a bit of a  Christmas-morning-at-the-beach tradition in our family. Ever since we first moved to NZ we've made a point of bringing a pile of Vegemite toast, a flask of hot chocolate and a couple of presents to the beach first thing in the morning after we wake up. This year, we were there by 7.30am! (I should point out that this isn't the earliest we've ever been to the beach on Christmas morning - there was one year when we were there by 6.05am!). 

There was still a bit of a chill in the air at this early hour, so we busied ourselves hunting for starfish on the rocks and making a sandcastle..

But the temptation proved too great, and it wasn't long before we were all having a paddle!

Then it was back home for brunch...

And some present opening...

Oh the excitement of so many presents! It was bedlam for a while! So we engineered some quiet-ish time - it didn't last very long but it was enough for us to finally all finish our Santa jigsaw puzzle....We've been slowly doing it for the last few weeks.

After that we all had a Christmas nap! Ah...bliss....! Then it was Christmas cake time...

Things quickly deteriorated after that! First there was a huge family Nerf Gun fight....Alfie's owned a couple of Nerf Guns for a long while, but Santa brought some mini ones this year and Molly got a girl version of her own too, so the pace has been picked up and there've been some fairly full on Nerf battles this Christmas, including several fat lips!

And the Nerf Gun battle then morphed into a family water sprinkler session. Sorry to everyone in Wellington if you were wishing for a peaceful Christmas - we screamed a lot!

After we dried off there was more present opening. I love my new bird house - thanks kids!!

Molly and I prepared the Christmas ham for dinner...

And then it was movie time before bed. Happy Christmas everyone!

The Last Week of Term

...and school has just finished for another year!

This school year has passed by SO quickly. I still can't believe it's over. #indenial.

The last week or two at school went by in a blur of fun for both kids, full of sports and games and hikes up the mountain and play sessions at the pool and candy canes and Christmas cards and Secret Santas and visits to next year's classrooms and zero actual real work at all.


Our school has a great community and the parents are very involved, particularly in all the fun stuff - so this week I've felt like I've been up at the school more than I've been working. One day Alfie's class had a special lunch. The next day the whole school had a family picnic. Then there was a special swimming session for the parents to watch. Etc etc.

I love being able to join the kids at their school events, but it takes a toll on my workload and I've had to spend most evenings this week at the computer instead - it's not really how I want to spend my evenings at this time of year, but a glass of wine beside me always helps a bit!

Somehow, despite all the excitement and activity, both kids have managed to find unbelievable amounts of energy after school all week, and every day they've been begging me to go to the local outdoor pool. We're very lucky to have this on our doorstep - although it's unheated and completely freezing, therefore you rarely see adults in it, but the kids always have a blast!

In the middle of all this excitement, Molly had her end-of-year ballet show. This year's show was The Lion King and Molly was a water buffalo. One 3 hour dress rehearsal and 2 performances later and she was exhausted but buzzing! The show was fantastic, and we were so proud of her!

Back at home, and both kids are really appreciating our lovely backyard now we've got such long summer evenings. Alfie in particular loves kicking and throwing things around. Our poor neighbours must be getting so fed up with throwing his soccer ball back over the fence every day. His afternoons usually go something like this: he gets the toys out of the garage and starts off playing soccer. When all the balls are gone over the fence, he gets out the badminton set, and once all the "cuttleshocks" are stuck on our roof, he gets out the frisbee. And so it goes on...

As if all that wasn't enough, Molly's been staying up late each night blowing bubbles....

and sneaking strawberries off the bush!

So now we're on the first day of the school holidays. At 10.45am this morning I was enjoying a little cup of coffee after a big gardening session, while Alfie hit some more "cuttleshocks" onto the roof...

and Molly - who didn't even get out of bed until 9.40am - is STILL in her pyjamas, conked out under the tree. I think perhaps we are all in need of a rest for Christmas!

And the countdown to Christmas begins...

Christmas has actually started now...!

Molly kicked things off last week. She's a member of the school choir, and every year they go and perform Christmas carols at the local church. This year she doesn't have a school concert (that's something only the "juniors" do - ie years 1 and 2) so a few of us mums snuck into the church choir concert instead as an alternative.

"Aotearoa Christmas...mmmmmm......under the Pohutakawa tree.....celebrations in the sun...la la la"

And also last week Alfie was in his school Christmas concert.....it was just too cute!

"Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way, Christmas in New Zealand on a sunny summers day, Hey!"

Last weekend we went to Wellington's annual Santa Parade - what fun! Afterwards we sang Christmas songs with Santa in the park and Alfie got to meet a Storm Trooper!

And we've just put the Christmas tree up at home.

Mind you, it very nearly didn't happen, as our old stand had been left behind when we moved house and our new stand didn't fit the tree we owned. Those of you who know Jake well might want to sit down before you read the next part in case you faint....

.....Jake did some DIY and made the stand work!!!

So we now have a tree which stands up - you just can't breathe on it in case it falls over.

Does anyone else have to hold themselves back after their children have finished decorating the tree? I always really want to rearrange everything! But I've managed to restrain myself so far, and we have kept this year's tree in a true child's style - complete with all the bare patches and crumpled home-made favourites!

When Does Christmas Start For You?

It's interesting how the Christmas season begins at different times of the year, depending on where you live.

I do remember in the UK that all the shops were full of Christmas decorations and playing Christmas songs from Sep/Oct onwards. The TV and newspapers were showing Christmas adverts for months before the event itself. The radio stations were continuously playing the same Christmas songs over and over for weeks before. People kept telling me that they'd finished their Christmas shopping in early November.

Or maybe it just felt like that? Either way, I know it started way to early and I was already bored of it all by December!

Strangely, when we lived in the Falkland Islands it went completely the other way and felt like Christmas didn't begin until Christmas Eve! (Or was it just me who felt this way?)

In NZ Christmas usually begins around about the beginning of December, and I quite like it this way. I haven't really been exposed to much commercial Christmas stuff yet, apart from a few pieces of junk mail this week. My normal radio station's still playing One Direction, Pitbull and Katy Perry. There's a poster up the road telling us to come and sing carols on our picnic blanket on the 15th of December. Alfie's got his school Christmas concert this week. But other than that, not that many signs of festivity yet....

So life continues for us as normal, ie an endless round of work, school, playdates, sporting activities, coffee, wine, more coffee, more wine, etc etc!

Jake's just back from doing the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge - a 160km circumnavigation of Lake Taupo in the central North Island. After months of hard training he was stoked to complete it in 5 hours 18 mins and said it was a beautiful ride - but he also says he won't be doing it again!!

Meanwhile Molly is trying to follow in her Daddy's footsteps, and has signed up for the Weetbix Try-athlon in March! So we've been doing a bit of training at weekends...(she tends to give up after about 50m so I fear she's got a very long way to go until she's ready!)

She's also decided that she wants to walk up Mt Kau Kau, our local mountain, every Sunday (?). She's been up two weekends running so far - so now I have a lovely little hiking buddy. Long may this enthusiasm continue!

And at this time of year we've got lovely long, warm evenings and we've been enjoying some beautiful sunsets in our back garden. Next we need to finally buy some outdoor furniture so we can sit and enjoy instead of stand - but we're getting there, so watch this space...!

We're just starting to get a little bit into the Christmas spirit now as well. I wrote and posted most of my international cards this week, and the kids left letters to Santa by the chimney the other night.

At this time of year, all schoolkids are always exhausted (End-of-Year-itis) and Alfie & Molly are no exception, so we're trying to do a few more relaxing after-school activities in the lead up to the end of term. We've got the Christmas jigsaw puzzle out and it's been engrossing the kids most afternoons...

Of course, relaxing afternoons don't always go to plan and today the jigsaw puzzle activities deteriorated suddenly into a massive water fight!

Followed by complete hysteria...

Edible Garden

There's such great excitement in our household at the moment, because this is the time of year when the garden comes alive. From Alfie's perspective this is good news as it means there's lots of food which is nearly ready to eat!

When we first moved into this house, we thought we'd inherited a very dull backyard....the front garden is full of native plants and is very lovely indeed, the side of the house is packed full of big Camelia trees and rose bushes - but the back garden was just green, green, green.

Green lawn. Green trees.  Green plants. A tiny bit of white here and there (mostly in the form of zillions of daisies all over the lawn, which seem to come up within 30 minutes of mowing it). But not much other colour.

So for quite some time now, my To Do List has included pulling out some of the green stuff and re-planting it with some colour and some natives - but it's quite a long way down the To Do List (coming well after Get A New Roof Because The Existing One Leaks - but that's another story!).

On the plus side, we did inherit a fabulous herb garden full of thyme, rosemary, mint, (dead) basil and sage. I use the mint, the thyme and rosemary all the time - but does anybody know what on earth to do with sage??

A couple of months ago, I planted out some lettuce, spring onions, silverbeet and strawberries in some old car tyres, and we now have a plentiful supply of salad which usually covers our needs for at least half the week. Molly often grabs a piece of lettuce to eat as she walks past and even Alfie understands that lettuce from the garden is precious and is to be eaten and appreciated without complaint!

The strawberries are the biggest source of excitement in the family though. We have two little strawberry patches in the garden, one at the top and one at the bottom (I wasn't sure where would get the most sun so I tested both), and now they're starting to turn red, both kids are bursting with excitement. I am predicting some serious arguments in the not-too-distant future about who gets there first. That's if the birds don't beat them to it (I must buy some netting this weekend).

We've got a huge mound of rhubarb just outside the kitchen, but despite being raised as a child on copious amounts of rhubarb I actually have no idea what to do with it. How do you know when it's ready to pick? What do you actually do with it (apart from crumbles and stewing it with sugar)? If anyone can shed any light on the Mystery of Rhubarb, please feel free to comment below, as I'd hate for it all to go to waste - thanks!

Meanwhile my little lemon tree isn't doing too well! I was about to give up and pull it up, but this week new green leaves and shoots have started to appear so I'm going to hold out for a bit longer, give it a bit of TLC and see what happens...

Finally, the pear tree. This pear tree was the subject of many conversations between us and the previous owners who considered it to be one of the key selling points of the house. Apparently it is going to be raining pears in our garden come the Summer. So far we have two teeny little ones growing, so we're watching and waiting with baited breath...