I’m sat in the dark in a lovely villa in Santa Barbara and the clock tells me the time is 3.30pm on Friday 28 October. The computer I’m typing on is still set in UK time and tells me the time is 11.30pm on a Friday night. Over in New Zealand, where we are destined…
Category: Holidays
Goodbye England – leg one of our return to NZ complete (thank goodness!)
Our taxi swept us away to London Heathrow at midday yesterday. The emotions of saying goodbye were quelled with the thought of ‘Chicken’ Grandma & Granddad visiting us in New Zealand, almost ten weeks to the day of our departure from England. As we made our way from the taxi, laden heavily with baggage, a…
Autumnal fun in England this past week
Our time in England is drawing to a close. Tomorrow we chase the sun to the United States, where we’ll spend four nights in Santa Barbara, before journeying back home to New Zealand. In the week and a half we’ve been here the autumn leaves have really started to turn in earnest. The trees are…
PRICKLES | Lyrical Sunday
I’ve temporarily shifted hemispheres and seasons – from spring to autumn – from New Zealand to England. I’m walking country lanes untrodden by my feet for many years. I’m finding treasures I used to know so well – seasonal markers of the year in England. On Saturday I came across a sweet chestnut and it…
Silent Sunday
Things I’m Loving…. Special times with old friends & family
Nearly a week since we landed in England, all the way from our home in New Zealand, with a couple of nights stop over in San Francisco. There’s been no need for big ticket attractions, as simply shifting from spring to autumn in a matter of nights – and wooden houses to brick – is…
Old – The Gallery
I’m here in England after five years away – there is so much ‘old’ and I’m loving it! Old are the photographs in my parents house… Of generations before. Love this old photograph of my Grandma and her sisters (she was one of seven!). Old is the land and the marks of history left upon…
Impressions of ‘home’ after five years away from the UK
I feel like a tourist. Every brick home, red telephone box, pub, thatched cottage, red robin, squirrel and deciduous tree, turning with the autumn tide, make me want to grab for my camera. Holly bushes, berry laded bushes for the birds through the winter, acorns littering the garden – I am seeing autumn in England…
NZ to UK, via San Francisco stop-over, with three little Kiwis
It’s been five years since we’ve done the long-haul flights from our home in Wellington, New Zealand, to the UK (and having just done it, I now remember the reason why we left it so long before doing it again, it’s bloody hard work!). It had to be done though. With the talk of us…
Out of here!
I’m going to be living every minute of life to the max over the next three weeks (and sleeping when I can). They’ll be little time for blogging so I’m hanging up my dressing gown (which is what I mostly blog in!) and taking off on a bird in the sky. Up to Auckland on…
Happy travels to our nine year old – first independent flight!
Charlotte approached the international departure gate and was approached by someone waiting for her. She turned to smile and wave us a good-bye. I was aware of her Daddy saying, ‘Can I have a hug?’, whilst I grappled with young two-year old Alice in my arms – who was determined to make a run through…
Things I’m Loving – Birthday Weekend Chillaxing!
I have been counting my blessings indeed this weekend. What more could I have possibly wished for – sunshine, a loving healthy family, a weekend away from the chores and the cooking (and the endless cleaning up), chocolate, bubbly, fun and laughter. It was everything I could have wished for and more (especially after the…
The Gallery: Easter
My enduring memory of Easter Sunday 2012 will not be the excited sounds of children and chocolate, or the frustration at having to mediate over a fair collection of hidden eggs in the garden (to which I sulked off in annoyance at the ungratefulness and read the Easter story, out loud). My enduring memory will be…
The Gallery: Landscapes – from Stonehenge Aotearoa
Set on the expansive landscape of the rural Wairarapa, where big skies, wide valleys and small towns full of character lie, is Stonehenge Aotearoa. A marvellous full-scale working adaption of England’s Stonehenge, located just outside of Carteton, an hours drive from Wellington. ‘It incorporates ancient Egyptian, Babylonian and Indus Valley astronomy, Polynesian navigation, and Celtic…