One sunny autumnal day last week Sophie and I were walking along the beach. She started collecting seagull feathers, which promptly joined the bottle tops, leaves, pebbles and sweet wrappers in the bottom of my bag. I mentioned that many years ago feathers were used to write with and were called quills. She didn’t believe […]
Random Musings
Northern Royal Albatross makes a flying visit
Friday’s storm brought an unexpected visitor to Wellington – a Northern royal albatross! There are only around 30,000 of them in the wild and when a female one was grounded in Wainuiomata on Friday the team at ‘The Nest’ down at Wellington Zoo were quick to swoop into action. After a weekend at the zoo […]
Baby eyes ease my tiredness through the night
Baby Eyes, by Bernard Shaw Large Baby eyes smiling joyfully at me, Baby eyes as brown as can be. Two deep pools most innocent and bright, To me are symbols of sheer delight. May I greet you every single day? For you are sunshine on my way. Other people see you smile so sweet, All […]
Life with a newborn third time round
A neighbour dropped round the other morning and brought with her every new Mum’s most desired gift – a large coffee. As I gratefully sipped the fuel of latte we chatted about life with a newborn third time round. She also has a baby – a few month’s older, as well as two other children […]
Come on baby…
Woke up this morning after spending half the night up and down like a jack-in-a-box (if only I was THAT fast!) to visit the toilet. Mild contractions which have continued ALL DAY! Every 10 minutes they’ve washed over me, teasing me into thinking that baby would come today. Dan stayed home from work and did […]
Inspiration and the joy of music
I was sat having a momentary cuppa and a glance over my friends’ Facebook updates when I came across the wonderful Katie of ‘Kate5Kiwis‘ update. She’d posted up a video of her son, Charlie, playing the most beautiful piano piece by Ludovico Einaudi called ‘Primavera’. I was held captivated and had to get my hands […]
Homegrown in the lunch-boxes
What a delight to have our own strawberries to put in the school and kindi lunch-boxes. After breakfast the girls picked a few ripe ones from the garden and brought them in for a quick wash before popping them in their lunch-boxes. The sweetness of strawberries is such a seasonal treasure that evokes so many […]
A positive week thus far :)
On Monday, I got my mail off to the UK for the economy Christmas deadline. I’d pre-organised a deluxe pedicure for after the mailing (an hour of standing on my feet certainly was deserving of some tender loving care). I’ve never had a pedicure before and it was only because someone had kindly given me […]
Thanking the sisterhood!
Thanking the sisterhood today for making a woman entering her third trimester of pregnancy feel great 🙂 First, someone at school said (as I bent down to put Charli’s water bottle in the tray, whilst wearing my white, tight, cropped trousers), ‘Wow, you’re looking great, all baby and nothing else. How do you do that?!’, […]
Dotty Love
“I, Kusama, am the modern Alice in Wonderland.†Yayoi Kusama Taking advantage of the fortnightly, free Wednesday entrance to the Wellington City Art Gallery we ventured into Yayoi Kusama’s ‘Mirrored Years‘ exhibition after school yesterday. Kusama couldn’t have described herself better; she certainly is a modern day Alice in Wonderland. Her creative genius gifts visitors […]
Exercise wins over housework
This morning was so beautiful that the thought of sorting out any cupboards and attending to house-work was very unappealing. So, after doing a little food shopping I put on my comfy shoes and headed out for a walk. It was such a treat to be out walking by myself, with only the thoughts in […]
New Zealand is going to South Africa!
Last night was a historic night for New Zealand football. The All Whites defeated Bahrain and qualified for The World Cup. When we first arrived in New Zealand, 1996/97, football games were pretty much a non-event with small crowds and little atmosphere. Over the years we’ve watched this change and last night was, indeed, a […]
High Energy
If only I had some of it – high energy that is. Both my girls are full of beans from morning to night. They have such a need to throw their bodies around. At school and kindi pick-up the Mum’s of boys say, ‘You’ll get a shock if your third baby is a boy,’ but […]
Wave Watching
Monday, beginning of Term 4, and the waves crashing on Wellington’s south coast held us captivated after school. We sat with hot chocolates at The Bach, Island Bay, and cried out with excitement at each ‘ba doom’ on the rocks. Sophie was a little worried that they were ‘sulami’ (tsunami) waves. And was keener to […]