Blogspam!

I know, I know - first I am the worst correspondent in the world and then I decide to hoik it up a notch and be the worst blogger too!! I have now had at least 3 friends mail me and chastise me for the lack of update! And yes it has been well over a month, I apologise and will do my best not to repeat this serious misdemeanour! (To those of you who I occasionally try and keep in touch with by e-mail, you will be very familiar with similar apologies!)

ANYWAY!!!! - What's new? Nothing much, I guess, otherwise I'd have been blogging like mad!

Girls have just had 2 weeks holiday from school. We have had no recorder practice (oh the peace!), nor have there been homework fights, no daily sock shortage and I have actually arrived at work on time for all but 2 of the last 10 days - this is a feat in itself!
Girls school holiday coincided, rather conveniently, with a visit from John's dad, and his sister 'Nin'. They had the dubious pleasure of my two delightful and massively over excited daughters for most of the last two weeks - I suspect they will now have to take some time off to actually recover from prolonged babysitting duties!

The outlaws stayed with me and the girls, probably mostly because John doesn't have the space for visitors. That said it was good for Lou and Becs that Granddad and Auntie Nin stayed with us - they always have done in the past, so normality was retained, and also it was just great for the girls having them around all the time. Have to say, that I also had a lovely time with my almost ex-outlaws (not sure you ever lose your outlaws do you? - hope not!). Spent a lot of time chatting with Suzanne and catching up on the changes in her life and boring her, doubtless with the changes in mine / ours. Obviously, both John snr and Nin spent a fair amount of time with J, as you would expect. They visited the Coromandel and Tauranga / Bay of Plenty area and had a couple of nice days out with the girls and Sharron too.

Confess that that was probably the only negative aspect of their visit, in that I spent 2 weeks avoiding my estranged hubcap. Early part of their visit J was really snotty, no idea why, but the last weekend he apologised and seems to be making an effort to actually be decent. We have even exchanged some completely normal, totally innocuous e-mails since then - got a lemon curd recipe off him!

Anyway, outlaws departed last weekend. Suzanne left on Friday and by Saturday I suspect she was as happy to be back in Blighty with her new boyfriend as she was sad to leave Aotearoa and the girls. John's dad left on Sunday and is now spending 2 weeks in Canada with his step sister. Got a text from Niagara yesterday - think he is discovering a late starting jet setting gene!! Anyway, it was really good to see both of my outlaws - and looking forward to next time already.

Got the other half of the Le Riche clan arriving in April! For Lou the countdown will probably start on January 1 as she will be dying to see Josh!

Moving on....

Ahh yes - I turned 41! Had Sausage Toad with Sarah, Matthew and their girls, my girls, Soph, Mark - and a couple of lovelies from school - was meant to be a quiet supper, but kind of extended a bit and a bit more! Turns out that as with Meringue, I will never out sausage toad my mother! Also turned out that Matthew hates sausage toad with a passion - Sarah told me just as we sat down to eat, so that the rest of the table got great pleasure from Matthew pushing his toad around his plate in an effort to look like he was eating it.

As with last year, Matthew took ageist pops at me for the 3 weeks between my birthday and his - now he has caught up, I won't have the barbs, at least not for another 49 weeks!

And while on Sarah and Matthew - they are expecting Grace Rosie anytime soon. (Jessica chose the Grace bit, Izzy chose the Rosie part!) Sarah looking very pregnant, and very glam and making me feel enormously fat! Helped organise her baby shower last weekend and only found out on the morning of the shower that there are supposed to be baby shower games! Obviously my age group were pre baby showers! I didn't know! (Any Percy's reading will know exactly the tone of voice to read that last phrase in!!)

In the past, I made several of my good friends first babies patchwork cot covers (will doubtless be priceless limited editions, valued in the $1000s on the Antiques Road Show's Centenary edition!) and decided that I would like to make one for Sarah's bump. Sadly, lack of Laura Ashley in NZ has meant that production has been somewhat stunted and as yet only 15 of the 300 diamonds have been sewn together - note to self, work on time management - failing that, 'Do what you gotta do!!!!....' - anyway, middle finger right hand will be very sore and stunted by the end of next week and will have to cross the fingers on the other hand that Sarah doesn't deliver Grace as early as she did Jess and Izzy or I am scuppered!

And of course it is now almost exactly a year since my nice life all went a bit pearshaped! October 3rd was the start of the end - 22nd was the day John left. Had intended on marking the day with some kind of party. Not a negative 'hate my husband' type party - more of an "I'm still here party - and thanks for being such lovely friends" type of party. However, I am now not having a party....

Instead, I am now being taken on a bit of a magical mystery tour by Mark. No idea where we are going - his shout. Think we may be venturing South (dropped a 'down' into the conversation), and know that we are leaving on the Saturday morning at unGodly o'clock! Suspect we may be heading to Taranaki, which is where Mark is from. Not back till Monday! Not very good at surprises and dying to know where we are off to!

In the meantime, we have homemade Pizza's and Pirates of the Caribbean and Popcorn on Saturday! Bit of a 'P' thing going on there!!

Still having a nice time with Mark. Still not sure how I should introduce him - at the age of 41 somehow 'this is Mark, my boyfriend' - sounds just a bit sad really!! Have made some other suggestions: my distraction? ('Nah') - my partner? (too serious / pc) - my lover (too explicit!) - rather liked 'my pecadillo' (not to be confused with armadillo! it means a 'justifiable sin' according to the Concise OED - which I thought was really rather appropriate - however Mark thought it sounded a bit gay!), tried introducing him as 'ma snog' for a while, but that lost it's novelty value very quickly!! Mark rather like the idea of being introduced as my 'sex toy'.... but then he's male I guess! Any other suggestions very welcome!

Oh and we are now at 11 weeks - in two weeks I'll be able to start counting in months - as in 'We've been dating for 3 months now actually, thank you for asking!' (Oh I still love that French and Saunders sketch!)

Enough of Mark....

Nearly Christmas!! May have to do a special Christmas Blog!! Copy it off to put inside the Christmas cards of the technologically challenged - apparently cards have to be in the post by 11th November - so you will all be getting your first Christmas card around the 15th! Sorry! Am actually doing quite well on the kids present front actually and may even succeed in catching the early parcel post too! Haven't done anything for this end yet - should really be thinking puddings before long - but somehow daffodils and sunshine don't make me want to start chopping almonds!

Nearly been here 4 years too! Haven't done residency yet - will do soon, need to unspend some of the residency money!

Also need to book flights down to the South Island. Girls are going to be spending 2 weeks with John and Sharron and her family in Wanaka which is way down the bottom of the South Island. J & S going down before Christmas, so figured that bearing in mind I have a week without work and without kids I should make the most of it and intend on checking a bit of the South Island out myself. Will fly down with the girls and hand deliver them to John and then got a 5 day Tiki tour taking in Milford Sound, Stuart Island, Dunedin and Christchurch. Will be staying in back packers and touring with 28 year olds - so will doubtless return to Auckland feeling 102, hungover and with itchy feet and no money!! So what's new - really could do with winning Lotto!

Still haven't decided the title of this post. Doesn't seem to be a drift this time either - may have to see it published first....hold on...

Oh, and it turns out there is blogspam! Check out the comments on the last two posts! Wonder how many other single blogspots are going to hit on me!!!!

Got to go - bed time, school night - need to do some garage work in the morning - fat bits getting way too wibbly! (that'll see off the blogspammers!)

snogs xxxxx