Here in New Zealand the holiday season dawns with the first blooms of the Pohutukawa and Northen Rata trees, their bold red blooms create a swathe of red alongside roads, along the beaches and in gardens and parks across the country. In Wellington the blooms are accompanied by festive flags, fluttering on flag poles throughout […]
On occasions, like right now, I feel the need to dump down where we’re at on this old blog, which I started in 2003 (long before social media platforms came into play!). I often wonder why I keep this blog, but then my husband and I will start talking about some memory or other and […]
Happy New Year! I have to say I’m feeling very fortunate to be living freely in New Zealand at the moment. Writing about all our freedoms seems a little unfair when so many people around the world are struggling with the Covid-19 Pandemic, facing lockdowns and huge restrictions on normal day to day activities. I […]
‘HELLO!’ such a simple word. Five letters, two syllables. Spoken several times a day without much thought. Thrown out in passing, shouted across the street, as we enter a shop, greet someone in the local cafe, throw open the front door – ‘Hello’ we call out, ‘Anyone home?’. I never gave the word much thought, […]
Ever since my Mum was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease I’ve felt the impact of living on the other side of the world from her in a deeper magnitude than any time in the past twenty years. Seeing my folks visit us in New Zealand this recent Christmas and New Year was absolutely amazing, but also […]
Dear Home… It took me many years to love you, without a gnawing pain in my heart. For many years I ached to return – To the land where I was born and raised, to the family I said farewell to, and the place of my ancestors. It took me years to accept you, but […]
Blogging has been sporadic this past month, on hearing from Crown Relocations that our container load of belongings was finally going to be delivered back to our home in Wellington. I was determined to have the house organised, with storage space for everything that was coming. We’d purchased a few extra things whilst away in the […]
Halloween last year was as it should be – in the northern hemisphere, in autumn (albeit living in Santa Barbara, California, wasn’t quite the northern hemisphere type of Halloween I remembered from my apple bobbing youth growing up in England, UK). It was lovely to be living somewhere where pumpkins were plentiful (as we experienced […]
In a few weeks time we will say farewell to a year of Californian blue sky. It’s as though you could walk into a paint shop and pluck that exact colour off the shelf. It’s been practically unchanging all year – apart from at sunrise, sunset and night-time. Having grown up in England, followed by […]
Dare I say, ‘I’m getting used to this place’? Where the weather barely changes – apart from the length of light in a day. Where clouds are cause for exclamation – and rain is a rare, yet welcome, distraction. I’ve come from a place that knows big weather, where a person learns to dress in […]
I’ve lost my happy place. The light outside is bright, but muffled through my eyes. If I could be alone, I would just curl up & not worry, But my ever present children make such thoughts pitiful & guilt fuelled. I have dreams of crawling away (no strength to run), to no where in particular, […]
We arrived here in early August. It’s nearly Halloween, end of October, and today, for a couple of hours, we had PROPER rain! We’ve had a couple of hours of attempted rain only once in the past three months. This was real rain, that created hundreds of circles on the surface of the swimming pool, […]
Whilst I was away a friend wisely said, ‘Take your time in processing all your feelings.’ There was so much to take in, during our whirlwind time away. Old friends, familiar places of my childhood, family reunions, different places, people, cultures, architecture, scenery, seasons and nature… my senses were overwhelmed and bombarded from every angle. […]
Latte Junkie posted a photograph as the inspiration for this week’s Lyrical Sunday. I found myself sat in ‘Players’ restaurant, at the end of Pier 39, in San Francisco writing the following poem. My two year old was asleep in the buggy next to me, whilst my six and nine year old had a wonderful […]