Christmas 2012

We've just had a seriously fun Christmas!


We began celebrating on Christmas Eve, all of us feeling slightly weary and in need of rest after our tramp in the Rimutakas.

Despite his tiredness, Jake decided to go for a 2 hour run in the mountains in the morning, while I made a Christmas cake and a cheesecake and prepared all our barbeque food.

When he got back we all headed down to the waterfront - which was way quieter than usual, with most things shut for Christmas. The weather was hot and humid, so we slowly strolled around, stopping for coffee and ice cream, watching a stingray in the water and playing by the water fountain before we headed back home to get some respite from the sun.

That afternoon /evening we had another family around for a barbeque.

In honour of my Polish roots we made a decision a long time ago to always eat fish on Xmas Eve. Last year we had fish & chips on the beach and this year we were due to have salmon on the barbeque. Unfortunately due to the complete hectic-ness of our lives recently, the salmon didn't get bought, and we had pork, chicken kebabs, sausages and burgers instead. The thought was there though, and we will eat fish next year!

Meanwhile the five kids stripped off and spent hours on our waterslide, while the adults opened beer after beer / wine after wine to keep cool - so much so that Christmas morning was unfortunately a bit hangovery, ooops.

Christmas Day followed the same theme, with temperatures in the 30's again. In fact, according to our local newspaper Wellington hasn't had a Christmas Day this hot since 1934! We had breakfast and presents outside on the deck, the kids were super-excited and squealing, and before long there was wrapping paper everywhere.

After lunch, we decided to head down to the beach to test out Alfie's new present from Molly, a boogie board. So we hopped in the car, cranked up the air conditioning and drove down to Oriental Bay where we found a few Santas kayaking!

Not only that, but someone had put a Christmas tree up on the beach so the whole place looked awesome!

We all jumped straight into the water with the Santas - thank goodness for New Zealand's cool sea temperatures! Jake had a bit of a swim, I had a splash and a paddle, Molly made a sandcastle and Alfie thoroughly enjoyed his new toy.

Unfortunately Jake made a bit of a schoolboy error with the sun cream, and forgot to apply it once he took his t-shirt off. Within a couple of hours he closely resembled a giant lobster rather than the Daniel Craig look he was going for (and 2 days later he's still in a lot of pain, so we're being very careful now never to make that mistake again).

We'd invited some friends over for (another) barbeque on Christmas afternoon/evening, so out came the beer, the wine, the barbeque, the cheesecake - and of course the water slide again! - and we all spent the rest of the day relaxing with good food, plenty of sunshine and good company.

On Boxing Day we opened more presents and headed down to the local park for a bit to play rugby and paddle in the stream to keep our feet cool, and luckily it wasn't too long before the rain came and gave us a massive break in the humidity levels.

We headed home for a bit to get ready to go to our friends' house for a Boxing Day lunch, with Molly and Alfie both starting to bicker and show signs of exhaustion.  Then all of a sudden it was 4 o'clock and we'd missed the lunch! We'd all fallen asleep for a long afternoon nap. Doh! We're really, really sorry Jerry and Katie...

Seeing as there was no way we were going to get the kids to bed early after such a long nap, we rounded off Christmas by going into the city after dark, to see the Telecom Tree lit up at Waitangi Park. It's usually surrounded by outdoor bean bags so you can sit for a while and watch the changing colours, but due to the rain the beanbags weren't there - and neither were any people! Afterwards we went to Midnight Espresso, one of our favourite little places on Cuba Street for a hot chocolate and a very late night for the kids.

So - all over for another year, but what a great time we had! Merry Christmas everyone - we hope you had a good one too!

The Orongorongo Track

This weekend we initiated our kids into the world of overnight tramping, and took them on a 2 day hike in the Rimutaka Ranges (a native forest just a short drive east of Wellington).

We used to go tramping a lot (before kids) and we've been wanting to get back into it for a long while, but when Molly and Alfie were little it was fairly difficult to do. Many people had told us that the Orongorongo Track in the Rimutakas was a great one to start your younger children with, so it was with lots of excitement and a little bit of trepidation that we set off on the track on Saturday morning.

It was a drizzly but warm and muggy morning and the kids were simply BURSTING with excitement to start with. They set off up the track faster than we could have hoped for, holding hands all the way (so cute) and for the first hour or so we made great progress!

I must say, I hadn't expected the upward climb as all our Wellingtonian friends had told us it was a flat track. As a very hilly city, "flat" obviously means something very different to the people of Wellington! But it wasn't too steep really, it just undulated gently up and down - with a couple of short, steeper parts in places.

After a while the cloud melted away and the sun came out, warming us up and tiring Alfie out. We soon had to revert to giving out jelly beans every kilometre, counting all the 23 bridges, and singing Christmas songs at the top of our voices to keep him going (much to the amusement/horror of the other trampers we passed).



Some friends had taken their children on the Orongorongo Track a few months ago and had taken 4.5 hours to get to the hut. We'd expected a similar timing as our children are roughly the same ages.

So we were amazed to find ourselves completing the entire 6.4 kms in just 2 hours and 40 minutes! (In hindsight, we were perhaps a little harsh on the kids as we had only allowed them one 5 minute stop in the entire walk).

The next major excitement came when we first spotted our hut in a clearing in the woods. The Department of Conservation own and maintain hundreds of huts, cabins and lodges throughout New Zealand and all the ones we've stayed in so far have been great. This one was no exception. Turere Lodge was in a simply amazing setting by the river - the view from our bedroom window was like something I normally couldn't afford to pay for in a hotel!

After dumping our backpacks and wolfing down some lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon paddling around in the river. Despite the now-very-warm day, the water was * freezing * cold but the kids managed to while away the whole afternoon wading up and down.

The hut has brilliant cooking facilities - a fully equipped kitchen and a barbeque outside, so you only have to carry your food and sleeping bags. We had a late-ish dinner as the sun went down and then we all crashed out and fell asleep by 9 o'clock.

Lucky we were early to bed, because Alfie woke up several times in the night scared because he didn't know where he was, and by ten to seven we were all awake and ready to get started on Day 2.

We had breakfast and some leisurely mugs of hot chocolate at the hut and then set off on the 6.4 km hike back. Day 2 was similar to Day 1 with some river paddling and jelly beans featuring highly, apart from the fact that it was now 28 degrees and there was no cloud. The weather, the lack of sleep, and the fact that the kids were still tired from the previous day's walking made it much harder on the way back. But despite allowing a 10 minute lunch stop this time (!), we made it out in 2 hours 30 minutes, faster than the way in!

We've all returned home very tired today - especially Molly and Alfie - but we had the most fun we've had in ages!

For anyone thinking of tramping with children,  we say GO FOR IT! The tramping is relatively easy and the DOC huts are perfect. Just don't forget your jelly beans!

End of Year Chaos

Our lives have been ridiculously full lately. 

Full of Christmas planning, Christmas shopping, parties, concerts, school functions, the village fair, social events...etc, etc, etc. 

The local outdoor swimming pool is now open for the season, so we’ve been hanging out there a bit, enjoying the weather. 

We’ve put the Christmas tree up, decorated the house, written letters to Santa – and visited him at the local mall too.

It’s not all been kids’ stuff though. We went to our friend’s 40^th party last week, which was a lot of fun, and we also held our annual Christmas drinks party at home at the weekend (we always try to hold one wherever in the world we are).

We had a great day on Sunday supporting Jake on his new ocean swimming hobby –the kids spent all afternoon collecting pipi shells and jellyfish (luckily not stingers!) on the beach, while the adults relaxed with a beer and strawberries – it was all great until Jake whipped off his wetsuit and revealed his speedos (it kind of ruined the relaxed moment ;)

Not so special was when I was stung last week by an Australian Paper Wasp. Typical that I managed to survive a year in Central Australia without getting bitten or stung by anything, and then I move back to NZ and an Aussie insect gets me! 

Within 24 hours my entire upper arm had swelled up to double its normal size and it itched and burnt like crazy all at the same time. Since my weekend was so packed I had to make do with a mild antihistamine from the pharmacy rather than getting to the doctor’s for something stronger – it made the torture last a little longer, but it’s slightly less inflamed today so at least I’m finally on the mend.

On top of all this we also have two very tired children – as I think all Kiwi kids are at the moment. Not only are they completely worn out from all the extra goings-on at this time of year, but sleep has become a big issue in our household and it feels like we’ve regressed a few years!

Gone are our pleasant evenings where the kids are in bed asleep by 7pm. Thanks to the warm, muggy nights and the late sun, our children aren’t managing to get to sleep until 9pm ish – but even though they’re not able to get to sleep they’re actually extremely tired which means our evenings are spent dealing with tantrums and meltdowns and tears and other such behaviour. Grrrrrr!!!

But despite all this, I must quote some excerpts from their school reports, which they both received this week and made us very proud.

Alfie:

“Alfie is an active participant in both group and mat time and has been a pleasure to teach. He particularly enjoys construction and ball games. Alfie is progressing through the reading programme and....he is currently reading emergent level books. Alfie’s passion for learning is evident when he engages in physical activities.” 

(Note the recurring theme of active and physical for Alfie!)

Molly:

“Molly is a quiet, helpful and considerate student who always makes responsible choices. She is reading accurately, at a level that surpasses the expected level for her time at school. Molly takes pride in the standard of her written work, checking the success criteria before handing it in. Molly has produced some detailed artwork this year and her art has been used as a model for others on occasion. It has been a joy teaching Molly this year."

(Awwww, well done Molly! x) 

Concert Season

It’s a crazy time of year.

Over the last week we’ve had daily Christmas/birthday/end of year/leaving parties to go to (in fact often it's been more than one a day) and our children have been in so many concerts and performances that the muscles around my mouth are aching from smiling so much and my hands are sore from clapping! 

Molly’s school Christmas concert last week was beautiful - 140 children all dressed up, dancing and singing. Molly had spent the morning sleeping off the last of her various viruses and was clearly still a little bit sleepy during the concert, but she desperately wanted to be there and she really did give it her absolute best effort, despite still not having much energy.

Alfie’s pre-school Christmas celebration the next day was fun and I LOVED it. He had the very important job of holding up a cardboard box racing car during one of the songs – the kids had made up their own version of The Twelve Days of Christmas, which went something like this: 

“On the first day of Christmas, Santa gave to me....ten skateboards flipping, nine spidermen climbing, eight racing cars, seven Dora glasses, six watches ticking, five toy snakes.....four fairies dancing, three teddy bears, two unicorns and a bath tub full of chocolate”. Cute!

Molly also had her ballet concert last week, in which she was AMAZING and such a joy to watch. The theme was modern music/dance in the 21st Century, and I think she really enjoyed performing to something a bit fun and different.

At the end of the show the girls in her class were all presented with their Grade 1 certificates (she passed!) which was a very special and proud moment for her (and us too).

And today she's had her end of year gymnastics display. The older girls in her gym club were amazing, and I actually felt like I was watching real Olympic gymnastics!

But Molly's group are the youngest in the club - so they did a basic forward roll, backward roll, handstand routine to the Chariots of Fire theme tune. Very cute!

Triathlon Man - and a lot of viruses

It’s been a really tough couple of weeks in the Hughes-Downing household.

First, Alfie came down with Croup. On day 3 I woke up to find him struggling to breathe, so I rushed him into the doctor’s to be told we’d got him just in the nick of time and if I’d left it until the evening he’d probably be in hospital on a nebuliser.

Thanks to steroids, he made a relatively quick recovery at home .

On the day he started feeling better, Molly came home from school with a fever and sore throat and then on Day 4 she woke up unable to walk or use her legs at all.

Cue some serious panic from me.

Thank goodness for New Zealand’s “Healthline”, which means we have trained nurses at the end of the phone 24/7 any day of the year. One phone call later and a few questions from the nurse and I was told to get her straight down to the emergency after hours doctor.

Here came the problem: we are a one-car family and Jake was at the other end of the city, with the car, doing his first Triathlon and therefore not answering his mobile phone (why I even tried it I have no idea, but my brain wasn’t working too well that morning). Instead, I called a couple of friends to see if they could take us but it was 7.30am on a Sunday morning and unsurprisingly I got no replies from anyone.

One very expensive taxi ride later, and she was diagnosed with a combination of influenza, bronchitis, laryngitis and a mystery virus which had affected her muscles. That's a lot of bugs for such a little girl! 

Two visits to the doctor later and we finally got the antibiotics we needed to get her back on track. Yesterday she even managed to get dressed and we got her outside in the garden for a bit. I’m hoping she might even get back to school tomorrow (she’s had a whole week off already). 

Oh - and for those who are wondering.... Jake really enjoyed the triathlon, completed it much faster than he'd hoped for, and managed to come first in his age group/category! (I shouldn't really point this part out, but I can't resist: he was actually the only person in his age group/category!) 

Things I'm Loving...

Just a little list of some of the things I'm loving at the moment...

New Zealand’s Wildlife
Recently I’ve had to remain content with watching giant orb spiders (yikes) and tuis (beautiful birds) from my window – I don’t mind as they are amazing to see, but Jake’s been having a far cooler time over on Kapiti Island this week (another work trip) and sent me this awesome picture of a kaka who jumped onto his knee and tried to grab his lunch.

We also took the kids to the Marine Education Centre at Island Bay last weekend, and it truly blew us away! What an amazing place. Molly was completely in her element as she was allowed to touch and pick up different species of star fish, kina*, anemones and crabs. I definitely recommend this place if you're in Wellington and are interested in marine life. 

  

Springtime

New Zealand really comes alive at this time of year and we've had so much sunshine. OK so it means the garden’s getting out of control, the grass is ankle high (and the lawn mower's broken, dammit) and I’ve got my work cut out with all the weeding - but thanks to a very cool water slide gift from Mark and Sam I've found a great way to keep Alfie occupied while I do the gardening...!

Also we have so many more hours in the day now, as the sun rises early and doesn’t set until about 8.30pm. Beautiful sunsets over the mountains, peaceful early morning walks...ahhhhh, I’m just loving it!

Living by the Bush, Mountains and Sea 
You can't beat Wellington for its setting, and I really, truly appreciate having the bush and mountains on our doorstep.

Jake's been enjoying the odd swim in the sea in his lunch hour this week, while I have been doing quite a bit of bush walking (actually, make that bush-pottering-around) with Alfie.

Often we end up at Tyers Stream where Alfie can happily spend hours poking around looking for crayfish and mayflies, or if not then he'll find some mud to squidge around in, some fallen branches to drag around or something to hang off. 

The Funny Things Kids Say
At dinner time yesterday Alfie asked “Mum, can you buy me a hearing aid for my birthday please?” First I had to double check that he’d actually really asked me for a hearing aid and it wasn’t just another misunderstanding of his Kiwi accent...but yep, he really does want a hearing aid for his birthday. His reason? Because then when people boss him around he can turn it off. (What a great idea!)

The Brother & Sister Friendship
Although he claims not to like girls, Alfie often describes Molly as his best friend. They're so close in size that we often get asked if they're twins - Molly thinks it's hilarious. I love how they do everything together and look after each other so well.... xx

*The kina is a type of sea urchin which is endemic to New Zealand. It’s a traditional Maori food, a spiky looking thing with a beautiful green shell. I love them (to look at, not to eat).  

Tramping in Wellington

If walking (or "tramping") is your thing, then Wellington is a pretty perfect place to live in. There are bush reserves, coastal tracks, heritage trails and mountain walks all around the city.

Over the last 18 months we’ve become regular users of some of these tracks and trails, but we have been a little guilty of using and re-using the same few favourite tracks.

So this week, Alfie and I decided to explore some new ones.

We looked through the website www.tracks.org.nz and chose the Piwakawaka Track because....well honestly? Just because we thought the name sounded cool!*

It starts off as a pretty easy walk along a well maintained track which climbs up gently to an open area where there's a big water tank and some other equipment (for weather monitoring??). Alfie thought this was the coolest thing ever and asked lots of questions - how does the water get in, how does it get out, what's it for, etc - although unfortunately I couldn't answer a single one of his questions! (If anyone can help me out here, please feel free to provide information in the comments field below!)

Lucky the track was good as the little guy decided it was generally far more fun to be piggy-backed up it instead of using his legs. I got a good work out, but I'm not used to carrying 20 kgs on my back and  I collapsed in a heap at the top.

The views from the top were awesome and we spent a long time poking around looking at the city, the Westpac Stadium, the airport, Mount KauKau and Matiu Somes Island. I'd brought a flask of coffee with me and just as I thought to myself what a great spot it would be sit down and enjoy it, Alfie found the next part of the track - some downward steps and decided it was time to shoot off down them.

It didn't take me long to realise that lots of steps down means lots of steps back up again on the return journey - most likely with 20 kgs on my back. So we didn't go much further, and Alfie was forced to use his legs for the rest of the walk as it was mostly downhill. I'd love to do a bit more of the track though, so will have to train him better for next time - or develop my own muscles a bit more!

* The word "piwakawaka" is the Maori word for the New Zealand fantail bird. 

The last couple of weeks...

Part of my job is to ghost-write a weekly newspaper column about marketing and technology, and in the process of my research for an article this week I discovered that the first message ever sent over the internet (back in the 60’s) was “LOG”. It was in fact meant to read “LOGIN” but the computer system crashed before it was completed.

This really summed things up for me about working in my field as an online marketer, as I had just lost a whole section of a really important report I’d been writing when my laptop decided it didn’t really like working so hard and shut down. Grrrr! I was grateful that the sun was shining so I put things on hold and went for a big run to de-stress. (OK, it was actually only a 31 minute walk-run but a "big run" sounds so much better!) 

The last couple of weeks have involved a lot of very hard work by me and my laptop, and some late nights. 

But they’ve been a good couple of weeks, full of sunshine and happy times with the kids as well. The good weather means the car’s been left in the garage a lot and the scooters are being put to good use...

After school we’ve had lots of time relaxing in the garden (and sometimes not so relaxing). And on our “hanging out days” Alfie and I have enjoyed several lazy morning take-out coffees/fluffies in the park followed by a bit of pottering about in the stream getting muddy.

Alfie’s started tennis lessons this term and I must say he seems to be extremely good at it, he's a sporty little thing. A small class of just three boys means he gets plenty of attention from the coach and plenty of turns hitting the ball. 

Molly continues to practice dancing all the time, everywhere she goes. She's happy but is starting to get that "end of the school year syndrome" where she's extremely tired and is definitely in need of the long summer holidays (only 6 weeks to go now).  

Oh – and she's also made herself some pretend boobs. 

Work-Life Balance - and a lot of dancing

It’s been a big week for our little girl. On Thursday morning she took her Grade 1 ballet exam, which is a huge deal and a massive achievement for a six year old (well, I think so anyway!)

The level of emotion, excitement and hype in the dressing room beforehand was enough to make any adult burst into sobs, so I wasn’t surprised when Molly’s eyes welled up in panic tears a moment before she was due to go into the exam studio. 

But she managed to compose herself again a few seconds later, went on to do her exam successfully and came back out again smiling and giggling.

The hairstyle (using 75 hair clips, 6 hair bands, two hair nets, a tub of gel and half a can of hairspray) remained in place for the rest of the day as she wanted to show it off at school in the afternoon, and was kept in place until Jake came home from work at 7pm.

The next evening was followed by more dancing at the school Halloween Disco. I don’t remember going to any discos until I was at intermediate school, aged about 10. But these days they start them early and Molly’s been to about 4 or 5 already. I’m still not entirely sure that the playlist was completely appropriate for her age group (eg I’m Sexy and I Know It – but luckily Molly has interpreted the lyrics as I’m Sixteen and I Know It), and it’s crazy to watch the kids dancing and singing along to all the pop songs, word perfect.

The disco was preceeded by a “getting ready party” at her friend’s house where six girls squealed and shrieked for a couple of hours while they put their outfits and make up on, and was followed afterwards by a sleepover at her friend's house where I believe four girls squealed and shrieked until 10.20pm. They got up this morning at 5.30am – therefore Molly is a bit of a mess today! 

Meanwhile, I have taken on a number of extra freelancing projects lately which means I’m going to be working full time, 40 hours a week, for the next 3 weeks or so. Yikes!

I know, I know, people do it all the time. But Alfie’s only at pre-school for 15 hours a week and this is where the plan falls short. In order to fit the work in I will need to drop some other stuff out of my life for a while, eg cleaning, cooking, shopping, laundry, paperwork, school drop offs and pick ups, and taxi-ing to and from the kids activities. And house hunting? Ha ha, that’s not going to happen any time soon! I guess I also need to strike off the list zumba, coffee/cafes, playing the piano, walking up the mountain, reading, blogging and anything else that usually makes my life fun! 

Alternatively I could just reduce my sleep time down to 3.5 hours per night. I can handle that for a month, surely? Wish me luck... 

We ♥ Auckland (and Wellington too)

We love our new home town of Wellington. The size of the city suits us, its facilities are great, the people are awesome, the setting amongst the mountains and beach is stunning...and our list goes on and on.

But we do often miss our old home on Auckland’s North Shore. We miss the lifestyle and the people. So we’ve been talking and dreaming about a visit there for months now and have been keeping an eye out for low air fares. When a local bank ran a competition recently and Jake won $150, we put this question to our kids:  shall we buy new toys or shall we buy flights to Auckland. Phew – they chose Auckland!

So we made our trip last week. After we got over the initial shock of arriving in such a big city (no sarcasm intended here – Auckland may be a city of “just” 1.4 million, but in New Zealand terms that’s pretty massive and no other city in NZ comes close to that sized population. Not to mention the fact that our homes for the last 5 years have been in tiny, remote communities in other countries. So anyway, traffic, crowds of people larger than 1000 in one place, and lots of skyscrapers are a little out of the ordinary for us these days).

Anyway, after the first hour, we all settled right back into it, and enjoyed 4 days of re-visiting old haunts. Our old beach. Our old playpark. Our old house. Our old friends. Our old high street. Our old cafes. Our old walking routes. Molly didn't remember much from her early years, but the kids both loved it and we certainly packed a lot in and wore them out! It was just like old times, and surprisingly hard to leave at the end. 

After numerous debates about if and when we should move back up to Auckland one day, we were starting to feel quite confused. So when we flew back into Wellington yesterday I think Jake and I both felt some degree of relief when the scenes from the aeroplane windows began to fill our hearts up with that lovely feeling of being "home". Although this does all leave us in the slightly odd position of not really understanding where home is anymore...  

Food Additives

Our friends from Auckland have been staying with us for the last 6 days. They have two children, roughly the same age as ours, so with four under sixes in the house you can imagine how our days could have revolved around mealtimes, snacktimes, hunger, etc.

However, our friend’s little boy has a number of food intolerances, mainly surrounding additives like preservatives and artificial colours and flavours. So our food choices had to be made very carefully.

We're not a family who usually has great stocks of chippies (crisps to you English readers!), burgers, sugary drinks and such like in our cupboards. Although we do normally stock up on a few treats when we've got visitors coming! But anyway, I thought we'd be fine serving up most things we normally eat. 

With the help of my friend, I went through our fridge and cupboards and pulled out everything that had these additives in them and I was fairly gobsmacked to find how much I had underestimated our consumption of food additives.

Vegemite, hummus, pesto, rice crackers, gravy powder, tortilla wraps, ham, dried apricots, mustard, sausages, margarine – all our staple foods had to go!

(Ironically, our sugary strawberry jam and our stash of chocolate were free of additives and ok to stay!)

The need for our food to taste more sophisticated, look more pretty and keep fresh for longer is a relatively new phenomenon. It’s only really arisen in the last 50 years, but it seems to have skyrocketed in the last decade or two. Thousands of additives have become so normal and commonplace in our lives that we very often don’t even realise they’re there. The food industry is a fairly profitable one, and is using these chemicals to keep costs down and sales up, but I just wonder at what cost to our health?

Anyway, the consequence is that our kids have pretty much been on a detox for the last 6 days! I can’t promise that we’ll be able to remove all additives from our diet from now on with immediate effect (as that would mean an awful lot of our food supplies would need to be thrown out), but I’ll certainly be checking my food labels a lot more from now on.

The Wairarapa

It’s school holidays again, already! (Where did that last term go?)

We kicked things off this time with a few days holiday in the Wairarapa, a beautiful region north-east of Wellington which is famous for its vineyards, farming and wild coastline. For a change, we’d decided not to stay at a beach house this time, but chose to stay on the most delightful farm about half an hour inland from the coast - we had a little tin & wood cottage next to the farmhouse, very basic, but just perfect for us. 

On arrival, the kids belted out of the car and just ran and ran for hours around the farm, while Jake lay down on the sofa and read the paper and I tried to explore a bit. Unfortunately I didn't get very far as I was bullied by 3 large cows who blocked my pathway and gave me evil menacing stares, as if they were daring me to walk any further. I chose not to risk my life and returned to the cottage where I found the kids still running around (now caked in thick mud) and Jake still on the sofa (now playing games on his iPhone). 

By day 2 we were well and truly into the swing of things. The kids were now proudly responsible for feeding the farm's pet lamb 3 times a day and checking the chicken pen for fresh eggs,  and had both decided they wanted to remain on the farm for ever and never go home again.

But I persuaded everyone to explore a bit more and we managed to get down to the river, where we found the biggest pile of driftwood and set about making a teepee, digging mini rivers, and having stick throwing competitions. 

Meanwhile back at the farm we all completely and utterly enjoyed the feeling of being away from everything, with no phones, no internet and no TV. We played tennis, walked around the farm collecting big bags of pine cones, had pine cone throwing competitions (!), read books, drew pictures, and had plenty of very much needed sleep. 

The Wairarapa is an extremely beautiful and wild part of New Zealand and we feel very lucky to be living so close to it. In fact, much as we love our home city, we found it very difficult to return to Wellington - Molly in particular was in tears when she had to say goodbye to "Lamb Lamb" (named by the farmer's 2 year old Grandson, not by us!).

It was a great trip - big thanks to Karen & Clayton at the farm for making us feel so welcome! Next I need to plan loads of distractions for the rest of the holidays to take the kids' minds off their dearly missed animal friends!