A very special corner of Wellington

And THIS is why Wellington is such a lovely capital city.

Makara Beach. Where else in the world could you find somewhere quite so special, and so rural and remote right in the heart of a capital city? 

Makara Beach is a tiny suburb in a rugged and wild patch of Wellington, right on the shore of the Tasman Sea. 


It's not a long drive to get there, but literally within 5 or 10 minutes of leaving our house you feel about as far away from a big city as it's possible to feel. 


The drive winds through farmland and valleys, with fields of cows, horses, ducks and of course the lovely native pukekos...until eventually you get to the very end of the road and see this:


Just stunning!


There's a spectacular 6km walking track at Makara which takes you up and over the clifftops, past an old Maori pa site and some old WWII gun emplacements. 


However, after a late night on Saturday night we were all feeling quite sleepy (and full of colds) yesterday so we decided to take it easy. 


A sunny day spent rock-pooling down by the sea was just what the doctor ordered!  We wandered around the shoreline, clambered up and down rocks and boulders, collected crabs and water snails, pebbles and paua shells in our buckets and took turns snoozing in the sun. 

And when we'd finished, we went for hot chocolates & ice creams at the local cafe, the perfect way to end a day at the beach! 

Winter Sun

July has been ticking along rather nicely here in Wellington, with a blast of what could almost be described as summer weather in the middle of winter to keep us going. We’ve had plenty of sunshine, and even a few afternoons where no jackets have been required!

We all love being outdoors, and the sunshine has allowed the kids plenty of playpark time, me plenty of mountain & walking time and Jake plenty of cycling & running time (although still probably not as much as he’d like!)

I’ll never tire of the views around our suburb – even just walking around the streets it’s breathtaking, and it’s even better from the nearby mountains. I went for a hike early this morning hoping to see snow on the South Island mountain tops in the distance, but there was none. Just blue and  green as far as the eye could see. 

In the meantime, Molly has been a very busy performer this month. The school choir (which she's in) did a performance at Assembly last week (they performed Kiwi classic "Six Months in a Leaky Boat", very cute). And next week her class are doing a singing assembly too so she will be performing again - although this time there are no Kiwi classics and I suspect a Bruno Mars track might be making an appearance but we'll see. Not only that but she's still in the Kapa Haka group and practises with them every Thursday - and if that's not enough, ballet has stepped up a notch as she'll be taking her Grade 1 soon, so there's lots of Hungarian Folk Dancing and barre-ing and chasse-ing going on too. It's no wonder her eyes shut as soon as her head hits the pillow these days! 

Another visit to Himatangi Beach

This post is dedicated to a certain member of the family back in England who, on hearing that we had spent the last few days relaxing up at Himatangi Beach, declared that it sounded exceedingly boring.

Here I will prove him wrong!

Himatangi is a very small village of about 450 houses (about 60% are permanent homes and 40% are baches, or holiday homes). It's about 2 hours drive north from Wellington, up the west coast - just a bit further north from where we got married.

Going there is like a proper blast from the past – there’s no flashy houses, boutique clothes stores and sophisticated coffee bars. Instead most of the properties are basic 1970’s baches and there’s no shops except a dairy*.

In fact, in general, there’s not much of the modern world at all and it’s really quite refreshing. There are no distractions and you make your own entertainment.

So, what do people do at Himatangi Beach? Well, I can't speak for everyone, but this is what we did:

- The beach is very long and at this time of year it’s wild and covered in masses of driftwood. So on the first day we built a teepee out of driftwood. This became our daytime base for the rest of our holiday, and we kept returning to it and adding bits, like a path and a pretend campfire outside.

- The beach was also the perfect spot for lots games of tag and stuck in the mud, long walks and runs. (Other people ride quad bikes or horses on it, or go fishing),

- The dairy sells great thickshakes, coffee and freshly baked scones - perfect for when you need something to pick you up after too many games of tag!

- The kids' playpark is BRILLIANT, especially considering the small size of the village. As well as all the usual stuff, there's a skateboard park (Alfie was lethal on his scooter!), plenty of trees to climb and a BMX track that had Jake pining for his younger days.

- Then there's the Cossie Club (Cosmopolitan Fishing & Boating Club), which is open for dinner 3 evenings a week and is a great place to take the family when you want a break from the cooking and cleaning up. The beef stroganoff was yum - and cheaper than I could have made it myself - and the sofa area with Kids' TV means the adults get to enjoy a couple of beers in peace & quiet.

- Victa the Reindeer. We were delighted to find him still living in his garden on Himatangi Street. He just loves to be fed your food scraps and he gave us endless hours of entertainment after every meal!

- Finally, because it's winter, we also just hung out a lot at the cosy bach we'd rented, sometimes reading books in front of the wood burning stove, sometimes playing rugby or cricket in the huge garden, and sometimes drinking wine in front of a DVD.

So, all in all, a classic Kiwi winter bach holiday (and definitely not boring!).

*In New Zealand, the "dairy" is a small corner store, a little bit like the convenience store in the UK or an American milk bar. It stocks basics like milk and bread, as well as newspapers, ice creams & milkshakes.

Adventures in the City - woolly mammoths, pies and five dollar notes

It’s week 2 of the school holidays and I think I’ve well and truly worn the kids out already.

We started off on Monday with a big trip into the city, as I had discount vouchers for Reading Cinema on Courtenay Place. It was Alfie’s first time at the movies – I’ve never been sure in the past whether he’d be able to sit still long enough or be quiet for long enough. But he’s been extremely hyped up about today for ages, and had been telling everyone in sight that he was going to see Ice Age 4 on Monday.

So the day comes and we finally walk into the dark theatre and within 3 steps Alfie stops in his tracks and says “Mum I’m scared”. I cajole him in to his seat and all the way through the movie he repeats “I’m scared, can we go home now” approximately every 2 minutes. Hats off to him though – he still managed to stay in his chair for the whole film.

(Molly and I enjoyed it though – it’s a great movie!)

Afterwards, we went to meet Jake for lunch, where Alfie suddenly completely forgot how scared he’d been and proudly boasted to Dad how he’d been to see Ice Age 4.

Whenever we meet Jake from work for lunch we always go to a cheap local pie cafe. For some reason it’s Molly’s favourite lunch venue (apart from sushi). And Jake and I don’t mind it either - they may be completely and utterly unhealthy, but you can’t beat New Zealand pies. So we hung out in the armchairs eating and chatting for a while. And this is where things went wrong...

While we were sitting there, Jake gave the kids some holiday spending money, $5 each. This is more than our children have ever been given to spend in their lives (usually it’s the occasional $2 to go to the dollar shop with!) and in hindsight it was a bit overwhelming for our Molly!

Alfie spent his money quickly, choosing a rocket ship folder to put all his artwork in. Molly however appears to take after her father when it comes to making decisions.

We spent the next 2 hours walking up and down Lambton Quay and visiting the same 3 jewellery/accessories shops over and over again. I never want to see any more clip on earrings, friendship necklaces, hair bands, etc in my life!

Molly absolutely could not decide what she wanted to buy. Poor Alfie was dragging his feet up and down the road, and only broke down after the 4^th time at Equip “Mum, why does Molly want to go in here AGAIN??”

Once I’d fed and watered him, and calmed him down, Molly then had a meltdown and there were tears everywhere as she poured her heart out about how she couldn’t choose what to buy and didn’t want to go home without spending her money from dad.

Alfie acted great as big brother and quickly draped his arm around her, saying “It’s ok, Moll-Woll, I’ll help you choose”, wiping her tears away – so sweet!

But it was clear that we’d over-done our time in the city, so I steered us towards the train station for the ride home – and Molly STILL has that blessed $5 in her purse! 

What an awesome weekend!

Wellington sure put the weather on for us this weekend, and it’s been a little piece of what the doctor ordered for all of us!

We spent most of yesterday up at Lindale Farm on the Kapiti Coast, feeding all their animals. Molly, Alfie and I were super excited and squealed every time an animal slobbered all over our hands (me and Molly), stuck its tongue out to grab food (me, Alfie and Molly) or ate our arm instead of the food (Alfie).

Meanwhile Jake acted as the grown up among us and remained cool, calm and collected as the chaos and noise grew louder and louder.

Once we’d cuddled and fed a collection of lambs, sheep, rabbits, piglets, cows, donkeys, goats, llamas, rats and other assorted animals (some of which we weren’t even sure what they were!), we grabbed a Japanese curry from a nearby foodstall and sat in the sun and watched some Taiko drummers performing outside. If you’ve never seen this ancient Japanese drumming before, then look out for it – we were all transfixed and it’s AMAZING!

After several hours we made our way back home for the last of Molly’s school holiday swimming lessons. 

Our little superstar made us SO proud when she graduated from her current level after just one week (it normally takes a lot longer at this level). She picked it up so quickly, and I’m sure it’s partly because we did it during the holidays when she had more brain space available, rather than after school. She was very proud too, and insisted on a photo outside the swim school with her ribbon and prize lolly!

This morning we took Alfie to yet another birthday party and then Jake, Molly and I had some very special time together. It's not often it's just the three of us these days, and when it is Molly keeps us so entertained by her constant chatter and observations on life. We enjoyed a lovely relaxing time out at Ohariu Valley, looking at horses and watching eels in the stream.

I also managed to squeeze in a beautiful walk this weekend. Just me and my iPod. I just went up and down the streets in our suburb this time (rather than my usual mountain hikes), watching the sun set and the sailing boats in the harbour. We do live in a very beautiful place. 

Winter School Holidays

Well, it's the winter holidays again and we're well into the swing of things! Last year we all spent the winter holidays in bed with a serious case of the flu, so it's been great to be able to enjoy our time together this year.

We did get off to a shaky start when on Day 2 there was a magnitude 7 earthquake not far from Wellington – it hit us just as I was going to bed and consequently I hardly got any sleep that night and Day 3 was a bit of a write off for me! The quake was quite deep but it was still the scariest and largest one I’ve been in so far and not something I enjoyed at all. Our house was ok and luckily there’s not been any real damage to anything (just reports of things like tea bags and painkillers falling off the supermarket shelves, and I do know of at least one father who was clutching at his flat screen TV set while he watched the cricket during the shaking rather than looking after his kids, but at least the TV was ok!)

Anyway, after a super hectic Term 2 at school, we decided to keep this week fairly simple and relaxing, but we’re on Day 4 now and we’ve packed a lot in already...

We've barbequed our lunch in Otari-Wilton bush, then explored a bit - and got very muddy! I love how Australia and NZ have free gas barbeques in their reserves and public parks. We used to do it in Australia all the time and it was great to reinstate the tradition here.

Molly’s been on a school holiday swimming programme so she’s been at the pool every afternoon learning how to stick her bottom up and down (the beginnings of butterfly stroke apparently!)

We’ve been to see a show by BJ Bear (yes unfortunately that really is his name, but the kids LOVED him).

We’ve been to several playparks (of course!) and for fluffies at our favourite local cafe.

We’ve had friends over for playdates.

We’ve had long arts & crafts sessions at home with playdough, beads, scissors, pens, etc (not all at once!).

We've baked - we made alien cupcakes! 

Looking forward to the rest of the holidays now!

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!