Snippets of life | 12 – 17 | #PhotoADayJuly | School hols

12. texture

Give me sunshine on a winter’s day and pass me a hat to soften the blow of the wind.
Show me the smile on my little one’s face, given a moment to run in fresh air and inhale with gasping delight.
The texture that wraps around her ears, made by a friend with a heart so dear, shields her from winter’s icy breath – but lets the sound of laughter free to ring.
Every child on earth should know what it feels like to be wrapped in the texture of warmth and love.

I took this photograph on Thursday 12th – in Wellington’s glorious ‘Civic Square’. My older daughters had been hounding me since Monday to get them a ‘busking license’ to sing – and on Thursday their wish came true (hee, hee – now just to organise a fair weather time to go for it!).

13. open

Friday 13th and I didn’t leave the house. I didn’t take a photograph of anything ‘open’, not a door, an envelope, zilch. I felt tired, run down and not at all like leaving the house. Doctor had given me some antibiotics on Wednesday (I’ve been unwell with a sore throat / cold / something, since the end of May). Hubbie even cancelled his evening out watching the rugby and returned home. He’s too good. I was gutted I missed Charlotte’s open dance class too – she’d been attending a workshop all week, in prep for her Intro 4 American Jazz Exam coming up this term.

14. building

This building is my favourite ‘pick me up’ in Lyall Bay and hubbie and I made a quick pit-stop for a late Saturday afternoon coffee.

15. finger

There was a lot of doctoring of the finger puppets the other day. It was a busy day at the vets – there was a waiting line of over twenty animal finger puppets, with various ailments from sore paws and ears to bumped heads and aching tummies. Most of the patients received a magic plaster, but some were given music and drum therapy (which involved tribal drum beating and dancing around the animals singing for their good health!).

The vet team at work fixing up the finger puppets!

16. sign

Monday was a thoroughly wet day. Most local children returned back to school, after a fortnight’s holiday, but my oldest daughter has a three week break. She’s really relaxed over the holidays. We all are on ‘holiday time’ – in a way (hubbie is working darn hard – but keeping sane and still smiling). Young Alice, at nearly two and a half, has been taking late afternoon naps of late – which make for a very late bedtime (for everyone). If Alice is up – we’re all up. She woke up close to 5pm on Monday afternoon, with energy to burn. In summer I’d take all the girls down to the beach for a run around, but dusk was drawing in on a wet, wintery evening. I persuaded them all to get in the car and took them down to the local swimming pool. It was wonderfully quiet. The music pumping through the swimming pool audio equipment had us dancing in the water and feeling thoroughly relaxed and refreshed. We didn’t get home till 7.30pm (and didn’t get to sleep till 11pm!).

I snapped a quick photo of Alice on poolside, with a ‘sign’ in the background.

17. my addiction

I’m the mother that’s almost always got a camera in her hand (and often a coffee too!). The coffee cup earrings were a gift from my eldest daughter for my Birthday (she knows me well!).

Wow, it was so amazingly good to feel the sun on my skin today. I bundled the girls out the door this morning, insistent on getting out the house and catching some rays. They took a little persuading to get their acts together, but once we got out there was a huge look of relief on all our faces. We spent an hour or so running around the playground in the sunshine by the sea. Hearing the waves, smelling the fresh air, feeling the sun… the best medicine.