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...

November....

How on earth we've got to the end of November already I shall never know...!

It's been a funny sort of month. Not only did Alfie break his arm, but Jake caught a really bad gastro bug at the start which totally wiped him out for a week or so, and then he managed to pass it onto both children as well. Nice one Jake!

So as well as his broken arm, Alfie also spent a couple of days with his head in a bucket ....and then just as he recovered, our tiny daughter suffered from the same bug - and as usual with Molly she seemed to have it ten times worse than Alfie. She's all skin and bones at the best of times so after the 10th round of vomiting we did have to call the nurse for advice, and it's taken her a lot longer to recover than the others.

So for at least half of the month most of the family have basically been in bed and/or sleeping things off, which means the month's been a bit of a write-off really!

It's only been over the last few days that things have got back on track, so although everyone has lower-than-usual energy levels, we've been trying to make up for lost time!

We had a brilliant bush dinner after gym practice the other night....Alfie & I cooked while Molly did gym and put the dinner into old takeaway containers and brought it with us when we collected Molly. We had a fabulous dinner in the nearby park, followed by lots of climbing trees and collecting "stuff", and when I looked at my watch and saw it was already 7.15pm (on a school night!) I struggled to get them back home as they were having SO much fun! Unfortunately it's now expected that every gym night we are doing a bush dinner....

Last week I had an old friend from Auckland come and visit for a few days, and we had a really relaxing weekend. Her and I had a Mums Day Out on Saturday and took a fun walk around the waterfront, sat on the beach reading and paddling for a while, and had a glass of wine and bowl of chips at a restaurant deck over the water. We also watched a little blue penguin playing around on the harbour front, and a stingray swimming in the lagoon while we had coffee. Bliss.

Jake and I have also been having a little bit of fun with the Dinovember idea this month. Many nights - and sometimes during the day while the kids are at school too - Alfie's dinosaurs have been getting up to a lot of mischief in the house. They've emptied all the jigsaw puzzles all over the kitchen table, they've dressed up in all Barbie's clothes, they've had a messy tea party and they've done some drawing. I think tonight they may be planning on getting all the toilet rolls out of the bathroom cupboard...;) !

It's been a while...!

For many reasons, I stopped writing this blog earlier in the year.

But after being nagged/hassled/begged by a number of friends and family members it looks like the blog is back in business again, so here we go...!

It would be impossible to catch up on everything that's happened since July, but it's been a fun few months. Here's a bit of a summary.

First off, we've settled in to the new house now, and we love living here! The whole place desperately needs a lick of paint (as the previous owners favoured magnolia and terracotta and other 1970's trends), and we'd like to knock a few walls down and move things around a bit, but for now we are more than contented to live in it for a while, see all the seasons out, and then make our decisions.

In July/August we headed off to the UK for a month - our first visit back in 5 years! And although both kids had been before, they were really too young to remember anything back then, so for them it was their first real, memorable visit. As well as getting the chance to spend some special times with their Great Granny, they also got to see where all their other rellies live, visit some real castles and palaces, travel on the Tube, and see squirrels, deer, traffic jams and other classic English sights (!).

Since we got home again, Molly's spent a very busy few months with all her hobbies and activities. She's had gym competitions (3 golds!), a ballet exam (she passed with Merit!), piano concerts, choir performances and other events taking up a lot of her schedule. Gymnastics continues to be her number one love, but at the moment she's very busy in dance rehearsals, about to perform in the musical "The Lion King". She is a wildebeest (?) but seems to be more than happy with this role as she gets to wear glittery horns and a tutu. And as we all know, the outfit is the most important thing.

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Alfie continues to be a sports-mad little boy. As well as tennis and swimming, he's just finished his second rugby season...

He's now taken up soccer for the summer and has been doing really really well so far....until he broke his arm last week (falling off the monkey bars at school).

As for the grown ups in the family.....Jake continues to train hard with his running, biking and swimming, and living in Wellington has been fantastic for him as we have the mountains and the ocean on our doorstep. I am still a bit of a Zumba addict and although I don't always get to go as often as I like (life gets in the way!), rarely a week goes past without at least one or two classes. Work is good - for both of us - with lots going on to keep us both busy.

And that just about sums things up. More to come soon...!

Sydney

People who know us well would probably agree that we've all been in desperate need of a break lately. The combined effects of moving house, catching viruses, and two parents working full time over the last couple of months has all taken its toll and quite frankly we were buggered!

So we've just spent a few days in Sydney and it was just what we needed...

The 4 days were spent pretty much just relaxing and sleeping and enjoying not *having* to do anything. We had the added bonus that our very lovely friends who we met back in the Falkland Islands joined us there - they now live a few hours drive away from Sydney (BRILLIANT to see you again Johnson family!!).

Sydney is an awesome city, and is one of my favourite places. I've spent a lot of time there over the years and have a lot of good memories - I lived and worked there back in 95/96 as a backpacker, I visited for work in '98, I went on a luxury weekend in 2004.....but I'd never been back since we had kids.

And I can now confirm that it's not quite the same experience!

But it was absolutely brilliant in different ways. Manly Beach became our base - it's the perfect location for a family as you have the beach on your doorstep and public transport to see the sights is mostly possible by ferry. In fact, the ferry rides were one of our highlights and we spent a great deal of time on them, day and night, just cruising around the harbour getting to places...
 

The kids' highlight was going on the cable car to Taronga Zoo...

We played a lot on Manly Beach. Our kids were fascinated by the golden sand as we don't get yellow sand back home....and we also put the volleyball nets to good use! 

On the second day we had fish n chips at Watsons Bay and watched a beautiful sunset over the harbour...and I reminisced about doing exactly the same thing as a twenty-something during my backpacking era!

What a great trip! See you again next time Sydney!

Mummy-Daughter Time

Aside from our weekly keyboard class, we don't often get the chance for Mummy-Daughter time, so it was awesome to spend a couple of hours yesterday after school playing in a local reserve together.

Molly loves being outside, and loves climbing trees...

She loves hanging from things...

...and she loves collecting bits and pieces of nature, making "things" out of flax.

Up another tree...! 

She might love her clothes and jewellery, but she's a real outdoorsy kid at heart. 

A Summer House

For some reason, in our new villa it always feels like summer. Even when there's a hurricane lashing about outside. Compared to our old place, this home has a really summery feeling about it.

After school the kids are loving their new sunny playroom, which so far has been a place to read, draw, play keyboard, make car tracks and play animal hospitals....Alfie x-rayed a stuffed dog the other day and diagnosed it as having a piece of cauliflower stuck in its brain. Molly then nursed it back to health and taught it to play the piano.

She's really into her music lessons at the moment, both recorder and keyboard...

Molly also can't seem to stop reading at the moment and gets through a big pile of books every week. She reads in the playroom, in the kitchen, on the toilet, in the car, while she's walking.....and we often find her reading by torchlight under her duvet a long time after lights out. 

Meanwhile, I have a lovely sunny workspace, which is keeping me motivated and productive during a VERY very busy period...

Both kids have been doing a lot of science at school this term, and have been practising their favourite experiments at home. Molly made a lava lamp the other day out of oil, water, food colouring and headache tablets. And Alfie still loves to bake (apparently this is classed as science).

And on wild weekend evenings the kids are enjoying watching Australia's Got Talent in our cozy lounge room.

Meanwhile, Jake's been very slowly recovering from a mystery virus that won't seem to go away. 

Although he's been feeling very run down for weeks now, his biggest frustration at the moment is that it's been stopping him from running/biking more than 12 kms a day and doing more than 400 lengths in the pool every week. 

In the meantime he has been very successful in using the aches and pains as an excuse for the kids to stay up late and give him back massages before bed...

Things I'm Loving About My New Home

We're settling in slowly to the new house. Things are coming together - but not very fast! The garage is still filled with boxes. The playroom is still half filled with boxes. There's a lot we can't find. But it's coming together!

Meanwhile, here are a few pictures of some of the things I love about our new home...

I love the outlook from my sunny kitchen table (which is a good thing too as I spend a lot of time here!). We eat here, I make phone calls here, I work here, I supervise homework here...

I love some (but not all!) of the lampshades the previous owners left behind...this is one of the good ones but there are a few I need to get rid of too! 

I love the stained glass window in our lounge room - so pretty! 

I also love sitting by the fireplace in our lounge room on these chilly winter evenings...

For years now, I haven't really done baths - as much as I love to do it, I haven't really had the time to lie around soaking in bubbles. (NB I do still wash though - I just use the shower!). But we now have an extra long (1.8 m) claw foot bath and I have already managed three indulgent, long soaks since we moved in! Bliss....

Outside, I love the knarly old Pohutakawa tree outside our bedroom window - the kids love to climb it, and the Tuis love to sing in it, but I just like it to look at it.

I love the views of the mountains all around us....

And I love my flourishing herb garden - there's plenty of rosemary, thyme, sage, bay and basil to last me a lifetime!

Moving House

Well, that was WAY harder than we'd expected it to be!

We took a few weeks, spending each weekend and every evenings sorting things out & boxing things up and giving things away to charity and cleaning every nook and cranny. With each day the pile of boxes grew and grew.....we had less things available to use.....we became tireder and tireder...and the dust mites swirled around and made Molly unwell again.

For the last couple of weeks the kids had no toys left out, but happily sat and read books in amongst the boxes and the mess every evening instead. 

We started living in the same clothes every day (we couldn't find anything different). Cooking one-pot meals every night. We stopped having the kids' friends over to play. We stopped washing our hair (the shampoo got packed too early & we couldn't find it again) and applying eczema creams (ditto). Life was becoming a bit smelly and disorganised. 

And then we moved.....

This part was made a whole lot easier by our lovely group of amazing friends who looked after our kids, shifted boxes, humped fridges and BBQs, re-arranged shelving, delivered pies, loaned their cars, baked cakes and brought us flowers. You guys were fantastic, we don't know what we would have done without you!

Ten days later and we STILL have boxes everywhere and we still don't know where anything is - but it feels like home and we are all very very happy!

The Great Storm of 2013

I remember England's Great Storm of October 1987 very clearly. Wind speeds got up to around 120-130 kph, millions of trees came down, and people lost their lives.

My clearest memory is of making my way home from school that day. The train line was blocked and I had to get off a stop earlier than normal so I was walking home along the high street when all of a sudden a huge gust of wind picked me up off my feet and literally blew me hard against the bus shelter which I was walking past.

That was enough to completely stop me in my tracks and I remember going into the off licence next to the bus shelter and asking them to call my mum for me.

My mother, bless her, drove out to rescue me.

Last Thursday/Friday, Wellington experienced a similar storm.

We all knew something big was coming, so the day before most people I know had been to the supermarkets to stock up and we had our torches and emergency kits ready. But the initial forecasts were that we'd get a big drop in temperature and possible snow. The South Island got the snow - masses of it - but Wellington got an extreme hurricane force storm. It's not easy to predict the weather here, as it's so influenced by the oceans  and mountains all around us, so hats off to those forecasters for just knowing something extreme was on its way and predicting the time of its arrival almost down to the minute.

Wind speeds got up to 200 kph, and the rain fell in buckets out of the sky. Media reports indicate that we haven't had a storm like this for 37 years, and are comparing it to the infamous Wahine Storm of 1968 which sunk the Inter-islander ferry.

Several days later and the city is slowly being cleared of fallen trees, and we've all been living with closed roads, no trains, missing roofs, houses full of sea water, fences blown away, there are thousands of houses with no power and a lot of closed schools.

Meanwhile, our new garden now has a tree that sits at a 45 degree angle, and we're not quite sure what to do about that.

Other than that, our biggest drama was when we got a knock on the door in the night from a man who lives across the street - it turned out our next door neighbour's big trampoline had blown right over our fence, across our garden, across another fence, over the road, smashed through another fence and gone through the man's window. The fire services rescued it the next afternoon, but the man's window is still missing...

How Many Toys Do Kids Actually Need?

Life is fairly chaotic at the moment, in fact it would be fairly accurate to describe it as bedlam.

We've spent every spare moment packing up the house. I think we're about 75% done now, which is a great achievement as we still have 11 days to go, but it's made me realise that we actually really do own a lot of useless rubbish.

As well as packing alot, we have thrown away, given away, sold and donated a lot of our old stuff. What's left is just what we need on a day-to-day basis: a few clothes, kitchen appliances, toiletries, stationery, etc. That means the 75% of stuff we've packed in the billions of boxes is what, exactly??

Once we get to the new house I'm aiming to have another big throw out.

With so much sorting, packing, organising and cleaning going on, there's been little time for other things. I am missing my regular fix of Zumba and my once-regular mountain walks have dwindled to maybe once a fortnight.

But I still LOVE starting my day by climbing up to watch the views whenever I can. On a clear day I can see  right across to the snow-capped mountains on the South Island. It always looks different when I'm up there, depending on the season.

I'm also still finding snippets of time for coffees with the other mums whenever I can! As a freelancer I do miss the chance to chat to office colleagues whenever I want to. Skype meetings and chatter via social networks are my version of the "water cooler" discussions, but you still can't beat a regular gossip over coffee!

Meanwhile the kids are coping amazingly well with having most of their toys packed away. In fact, now they're older, I don't think they actually need quite so many toys, and although we've given a lot away lately and reduced down to just 5 toy boxes, I still think we'll be reducing it further once we get in the new house.

All Molly really wants these days is a cupboard full of arts & crafts, a bedroom full of clothes and accessories, and some music (she is glued to her recorder these days, loves playing keyboard, and is usually attached to her MP3 player).

And all Alfie really needs is something to kick or throw or ride, a few electronic games, and his Bey Blade set. He's a very sporty little chap and came first in his school Cross Country Run last week. He's also completely embraced Ripper Rugby this season, he usually scores a few tries at each match, and was awarded Player of the Day this week (oh ok, so actually they take it in turns so that each kid gets a go at being Player of the Day - but he doesn't know that!).