Mt Kau Kau

I thought it was about time I posted about Mt Kau Kau.

It’s one of our regular haunts here in Wellington – there’s a kids playpark at the base which we absolutely fully utilise to the max and there's a very lovely little cafe at the bottom too. 

When we're feeling more active, I love walking up it - I take my iPod and completely switch off from everything, which is a really lovely feeling these days (despite the occasional rather dubious track which has somehow made its way onto my playlist, eg Pants by Lenny Henry??). 

Meanwhile, Jake runs up and down it several times a week as part of his mountain endurance training something-or-other......to be honest, I’m not exactly sure what it is he’s doing. All I know is him and his friend are constantly running up and down mountains in preparation for some ultra marathon next year, and that it also involves much purchasing of sports gels, power drinks and new shoes.

It’s not actually a very high mountain. In fact we often wonder whether we should be referring to it as a hill or a mountain? (What’s the actual definition of a hill, I wonder?) Anyway, Kau Kau is just 445 metres above sea level, but it’s pretty steep and rocky and muddy so it’s quite a challenging walk/run. 

Having said that, the kids have managed the climb twice now (although Alfie’s efforts were rather pathetic and involved a lot of carrying) and when I'm on my own I can get up to the top within half an hour.

At the top you get brilliant views of the city, the harbour, the wind farm, and the numerous mountain ranges which surround Wellington. On clear days we can also see right across to snow-capped mountains in the South Island. 

Beware anyone who visits us in Wellington and is looking for a relaxing time - we WILL be taking you up Kau Kau!

Wedding Clothes

This weekend (in amongst a billion and one other things), we’ve been hunting for wedding outfits.

Buying for the bride is supposed to be the hardest bit, isn’t it? Except today we spent FOREVER looking for Jake’s trousers. Seriously. What is it with this skinny fit trend? Whoever invented it really didn’t have Jake’s best interests at heart!

Buying Molly’s outfit is going to be lots of fun, and we had a great time looking at accessories today.

Clothing for Alfie has been left as Jake’s responsibility – I did see him looking at some very cute shirts in Pumpkin Patch, but I have serious reservations about the jeans idea Jake!

As for myself, thanks to my lovely Granny back in the UK who has offered to buy my wedding dress, I tried on some completely gorgeous things today, although of course it’s all top secret so I can’t possibly post any pictures here.

Instead I’ve posted some pictures of beautiful Wellington city which I took as I was walking from shop to shop trying on dresses.......until I suddenly came across the rest of my family eating upside down ice creams on the waterfront! 

Makara Beach

Recently, Makara Beach has become one of our favourite secret places to hang out in Wellington. It’s so hidden away from the rest of the city and it feels wild and isolated and just “west coasty”.

On Sunday morning we said to the kids “What do you want to do today?” and their reply was absolutely, most definitely, Makara Beach.

So, despite Jake’s dislike of winding roads, we headed out west with big buckets (to collect stuff in), ready for some pottering around and wading in the rock pools.

There are always paua shells, pumice stones, screw shells and other pretty things to collect, and there are always water snails, barnacles and other interesting things to find in the warm rock pools.

I’m actually very pleased I have two small children because I love exploring and collecting bits and pieces but I’d never get away with doing all this stuff otherwise!

This particular visit was extra special because the weather has warmed up enough now to paddle and lie in the sun (desperately trying not to fall asleep!).

The Busiest Ever Day in Wellington

I thought my last post was going to be the very last Rugby World Cup related post on this blog, but no..... it’s not all over yet!

This week the ABs have been tirelessly continuing to travel around the country for their victory parades, with Wellington’s turn on Wednesday.

When the lunchtime date was announced, my first reaction was that it was a great shame it was during school hours. The kids missed out on watching a lot of the games because many of the most important ones were scheduled late at night – we think to allow people from around the world to be able to watch them. So we were gutted to think that they might miss out on the celebrations as well.

However, Molly’s school quickly sent an email to all parents to say the children would be allowed out of school for this fine moment in history, as did many other schools in Wellington (although I heard one boys school has just given all those who attended the parade a detention).

The media estimates are that over 100,000 people lined the streets of Wellington, despite the crappy weather. This is around half the population of Wellington! To our wee kids this in itself was pretty unforgettable as until recently they lived in a community of only 27,000 (and 2,478 before that!). 

We chose to stand outside The Beehive so we could watch (prime minister) John Key greeting the team, a line up with the sparkly cup, and an unexpected Haka on the steps of Parliament.  

Despite the occasional reminders of being back in London (standing room only on the train, over-crowded streets, etc), the day was pretty phenomenal. WELL DONE THE ALL BLACKS!!!

Go the All Blacks!

What an ending to six and a half weeks of rugby mania. NZ won the RWC2011. Bloody brilliant!

Wellington was host to only a few games, but all the way through there’s been so much going on in the city with bands playing on the waterfront, special kids’ rugby activities at the museum, people of all nationalities walking around town, painted faces, flags EVERYWHERE you look, and there’s been a real buzz in the air for six weeks.

The whole season has been fantastic, and I’ll be very surprised if it doesn’t form a big chunk of the kids’ earliest memories once they grow up.

After a very long afternoon nap today, the final tonight was the first match Alfie actually managed to watch, as he’s always fallen asleep too early for all the others. Having now seen for himself what real rugby is (as opposed to his usual rough & tumble with his mates in the playground), Alfie’s now decided he wants to be an All Black (and a clown) when he grows up and Molly’s going to come and watch him train every day. She is, however, worried that he might hurt himself and asked many times tonight “whoever invented rugby Mum, why did they make it so rough?”

Anyway, congratulations NZ – what a great tournament and a great final! We feel very proud and privileged to have made you our home. 

Alice in Wonderland

The weather forecast today was a cold & wet one, so I decided a day into the city was in order – the kids just love going on the train and I had also planned to take them to the Alice In Wonderland exhibition and Te Papa, the national museum which we all love so much.

But those weathermen often get things wrong (although you've got to hand it to them - it must be quite challenging to get it right in a city like Wellington) and instead we had a glorious, warm and sunny day.

We did pop in to Wonderland where Molly got to play at being Queen of Hearts, Alfie played flamingo croquet (he was surprisingly good, although it took me a while to work out which angle to stand at to protect my ankles from wayward balls) and we all celebrated our "unbirthdays" with some cake decorating.

But for most of the day, we just wandered around the waterfront feeding birds, looking at the sculptures, playing rugby at the Fanzone and exploring.

Ah Wellington.... you can’t beat it on a good day!

A few days at the beach

Well, that was just what the doctor ordered!

A huge big thank you to Fiona, for the loan of her family bach on the Kapiti Coast. We had the best few days ever, and it reminded us of everything we love about New Zealand. 

It was also very nice having Jake back in the family again – he’s finally back from the world of rugby (although he did insist on watching the Wales-France game on Saturday night).

So – we taught the kids how to play cricket, we ate all our meals outdoors, we watched movies (lots of them), we pottered around on the beach, we collected shells (of course!), we built sandcastles, we sat for hours in the local cafe, we read newspapers from cover to cover, we ate well and we drank beer - in the daytime!

It was a very wonderful few days, and I just can’t wait to do it all again!

Girls Day Out

So that's week 1 of school holidays over already - it went so quickly! 

We’ve had a really lovely time this week. While Alfie was at pre-school on Wednesday (he gets shorter holidays) I took Molly for a day out in the city. 

We went on the train, watched The Smurfs at the cinema, then met Jake for lunch, where he treated us to a pie at a nearby cafe – then declared he’d forgotten his wallet (luckily I was present with my credit card).

Afterwards, Molly and I decided to continue the glamour of our big city trip by spending a girlie afternoon wandering around the shops looking at sparkly things. Molly, at the grand age of 5, has now decided that her favourite pastime is looking around Diva and Lush. 

When we got home Alfie continued our day of pampering and hosted a lovely tea party for us on the deck. Awesome hospitality Alfie – thank you! 

Butterflies & Puppy Dogs (and other stuff)

We’re on Day Two of the school holidays and so far all good.

Strangely, we’re already on the third face painting session of the week though. How this has happened I am still not quite sure, but Jake is starting to wonder what kind of animals he will find in the house when he comes home from work each evening. Butterflies, dragons, spiderman, puppy dogs.....

 

Booze

I looked around the house this afternoon and realised that since the Rugby World Cup began, we have accumulated an incredible number of empty bottles.

It’s fair to say that we were both very gutted at last night’s result, but I consoled myself with a cup of tea and Jake was out at the pub. So I am still confused as to how this could have happened...?

Jake could never have consumed that amount of alcohol – not only has he been in Auckland for a very large chunk of the last month, but as you all know, well.... Jake could simply just never have consumed that amount.

I guess it must have been those rats again...?

Rain Rain Go Away

The weather this week has been truly stinky. We have been living in a raincloud.

There’s a saying here in the capital, that you “can’t beat Wellington on a good day”. It’s SO true – on a good day Wellington is one of the best places you could be in the whole world.

But when you’ve had a whole week of very bad days it’s quite easy to forget that...

So this week I’ve been concentrating on all the good things in our home. A lovely bunch of orange lilies which Jake bought me (yes, really!), a little bunch of colourful flowers I picked from the garden, a big bowl of fruit (yes this is still a novelty!) and plates of baking. I finally made the Donna Hay filo pies!

And I mustn’t forget that it’s the rain which makes our capital city so green and beautiful.

Hanging Out Days

I am a very lucky lady because every Monday and every Thursday, Alfie and I have a “hanging out day”.

This means there’s no pre-school and no work, and instead we spend our days doing art, baking, reading, gymnastics lessons, going to the park, the cafe, the library and lots of other lovely things.

I usually collect a big pile of my favourite magazines at the library, while Alfie comes home with a big pile of gymnastics books and DVDs. Sometimes I even get to read a couple of pages!

Our baking repertoire is limited to Alfie’s favourite recipes though, so although I tried extremely hard today to persuade him to make the Donna Hay Spinach & Feta Filo Parcels, he just wasn’t having any of it and we ended up doing funny face cookies instead – far more fun/easy/tasty!

Alfie really looks forward to his “hanging out days”, and so do I!

There's a rat in me kitchen....

Last year we survived a mouse plague in Alice Springs, not to mention the hundreds of Redback Spiders who lived in our backyard (and occasionally inside the house) and the daily risk of coming across a deadly snake or two. We got used to it, and it was just all part of living in the desert.

When we moved back to New Zealand, we thought we’d left all the creepy creatures behind. However we chose to live right in the bush, and living in the bush has its own hazards. Recently, a family of roof rats have chosen to make their burrow under our deck and are now invading our kitchen every night – it’s the yuckiest wildlife experience we’ve been through yet!  Not only are they eating all our food and contributing to a rising grocery bill, but they are also leaving poo and wee everywhere and contributing to extra long hours of cleaning and disinfecting things. 

Big thanks to the guys from Pest Proof who are now on their 4^th call out to our house yet still remain calm and positive and totally happy to deal with my slight hysteria.

Other than that, September has been the weirdest month. One day we’ve been in an almighty hail storm, the next day we’re in the garden wearing T-shirts.

Thinking back to our Auckland days, September’s always been an unpredictable month in NZ. The great thing about the month of September is the promise of summer....it’s not too far away now.

Life at the moment is full of school and work and ballet and tennis and gymnastics and viruses and rugby and wedding planning. We’re happy (apart from the rats).

Goodbye Grandy Andy & Nana Hazel!

Andy and Hazel left us last night and flew back to Auckland, so it’s an empty(ish) house again.

I don’t think they ever expected to be in Wellington so long, nor did they expect to see so little of the city and so much of the hospital. But Hazel is on the mend, and we have our fingers crossed for her that the rest of her trip runs smoothly without any more incidents!

Thanks for coming A&H, we had a lovely time with you and I know that Molly and Alfie enjoyed some very special moments with you both. 

Kidney Stones, Rubbish, and More Rugby

Andy & Hazel have been staying with us this week, and were all set to fly off to Dunedin today.

However, yesterday poor Hazel managed to vomit her way around the Botanic Gardens and eventually ended up in hospital with a kidney stone. She now remains in hospital for a second night while Andy has flown off to watch the rugby in Dunedin (you’ve got to get your priorities right hey!)

So it’s been a funny old day today. We visited Hazel in her sick bed, wandered around the Wellington waterfront, meandering in and out of the rugby fans, we had a great game of netsocby (a cross between netball, soccer and rugby) in the park, and we ended up helping out at a Beach Clean Up in Island Bay.

Molly and I worked hard to fill a bin liner with rubbish, while Jake supervised from a wall. Meanwhile Alfie accumulated his own very large collection of rubbish in a pile at the edge of the beach. When we attempted to transfer his pile into our bin liner an almighty tantrum began because he wanted to keep all his treasured items of broken glass, bottle tops and paper. It took a lot of cajoling to persuade him otherwise, but the promise of staying up late for tonight’s game did the trick.

But our little boy was so tired that he passed out not long after 7pm. So it’s adults only watching the telly tonight. Happy Rugby World Cup everyone! 

The Rugby World Cup 2011

I think it’s fair to say that New Zealand is completely consumed with rugby mania at the moment.

Every time I leave the house I see All Blacks flags on cars and on garden gates. Every time I open the newspaper or switch on the radio or TV they are talking about rugby.

Even Molly’s school is obsessed – she’s been in constant rehearsals for a “Big Event” performance in a couple of weeks time, and this week she had to prepare a short talk for the class on her choice of any team in the Rugby World Cup (she went in dressed in her old school uniform yesterday, carrying a plastic wallaby and a toy snake - no prizes for guessing which team she chose to talk about).

Also yesterday, Alfie’s pre-school decided to paint each child’s face with the flag of a country who’s playing in the RWC. Not really fully understanding his background, the teachers randomly chose Argentina for Alfie. This was clearly an incredibly unfortunate choice for our little Falklands-born boy, although he is still too young to appreciate what it means and is unwilling to let it be washed off. Bath time soon though....!

Anyway, I have no idea on how to avoid the RWC phenomenon, and so to hell with it – if you can’t beat them...

With Jake up in Auckland for the opening game last night, the kids and I ordered pizza, got our flags out and settled down to watch the match.

Molly quickly got into the spirit of things, picking up on the rules and the scoring system faster than I ever did (I still struggle with the difference between kicks), shouting and cheering “come on boys” every time the ABs had the ball, and developing a complete beyond-her-years infatuation with Dan Carter.

Meanwhile the little rugby fanatic of the house who has recently started playing rugby every day at pre-school and chanting the haka at every possible opportunity actually fell asleep before the national anthems even began...

Jake's adventures with trees and the Welsh rugby team

Well what a great weekend! 

I (Jake) did a massive run on Saturday morning and most of it was up hill, we then spent the rest of the morning around some friends house, sitting in the sun and drinking coffee while Andrew (my running partner) and I recovered. 

In the afternoon we were doing some jobs in the Northern Suburbs and decided to get some fish and chips and sit on the cliffs watching the fishing boats come in – a little bit nippy but great end to the day.

On Sunday I decided to walk the talk and took the kids tree planting as part of the Living Legends event. The kids loved it and were really helpful, they planted (only the nice looking plants – per Molly's instructions), collected the rubbish, ate the sweets handed out to them and Alfie under Dad’s instructions very very nearly ate a worm.

We then stayed after the trees (2,500 of them) were planted to have a sausage sizzle with my work colleagues.

I then managed to squeeze in the first bit of the RWC 2011 events by taking the kids to the Welsh training sessions – Molly couldn’t work out why Wales were playing against Wales – I did say that was probably the only game Wales would win ;-)

Spring has sprung!

We’ve had a tough week, in and out of the doctors with viruses and eczema flare ups so we were delighted this afternoon when spring began quite suddenly!

We’ve got sunshine, we've got flowers everywhere in our garden, beer in the fridge and happy kids who are really enjoying the fact that they can potter around in the garden after school.

It’s especially great that they can do art outside without running the risk of their crayons melting and Alfie is particularly pleased that he is allowed to hunt for “cute” (?) spiders now we are no longer living in Australia.

I indulged myself a bit when we got home from school today and spent the afternoon sitting in a deck chair in the sun with a beer & a magazine while I watched the artwork, spider hunting and various other antics. These moments are surely what life is all about....

Mark and Sam etc.

What a lovely long weekend we've all just had with the Campbells Bay Downings. It was so nice to have someone to show all the sights of Wellington to - even though we don't really know them very well ourselves yet!

The climb up Mt Kau Kau, our closest mountain, was great - we had perfect hiking weather and the view was stunning. For anyone else planning to visit us, this is now on our must do list so remember your boots!

I especially loved the "accidental" visit to a wine bar  - thanks for doing the dinner Daniel! And the many coffees and the games of Boggle were just what the doctor ordered after a busy few months (although perhaps a little too relaxing for a certain Dad and a certain Great Uncle who took the opportunity for a little Nana nap!)

Big congratulations to Little Miss Molly who managed to get round a very long tour of the Beehive (Parliament buildings) with Wendy and Sam without any complaining at all, and re-counted the whole tour at school on Monday.

Meanwhile Alfie had his own adventures up at Palmerston North which involved a water fountain, a lot of bubble bath, and the need for Dan to jump in and perform a rescue operation. Thanks again Dan. (His shoes are still wet!)

Mark, Sam, Eve, Dan and Joe - thanks so much for your company. It was lots of fun and we really enjoyed having you to stay. Please come again soon!

Winter in Wellington!

When we left the Falkland Islands in 2010, we genuinely believed that we would never live in a snowy environment again. Unless the remote chance of a fantastic job offer in Wanaka or Queenstown came up (because we’ve always said we’d jump at the chance of living there).

But yesterday a majorly cold weather front came into Wellington and we had real snow that actually settled all around us, not just on the mountain tops but properly on the ground.

This is a very unusual event in Wellington – people who’ve lived here for 30 or 40 years are saying they’ve never seen anything like it - and it’s being referred to by the local media as Wellington’s “once in a lifetime polar blast”. 

Unfortunately Wellington’s a very hilly city and not really set up for this weather. Last night, motorists were trapped, cars were sliding backwards down the steep roads, people were abandoning their vehicles and walking home.  It’s pretty chaotic out there!

When we lived with snow on a regular basis a couple of years ago, we became desensitized to how magical it is, and it often just seemed inconvenient - especially with two very small children who really needed fresh air and outside play.

But as the kids are a bit bigger now, it was different last night – different also because it is most definitely out of the normal weather range we’re all used to these days.

There was just huge excitement in the family when the snow started falling. We had a snowball fight and built a snowman, and the kids were still talking about it when they woke up in the morning today.

The snow is coming down fast and heavy again now, so I’m off to switch the heating on....brrrrr!