Christmas is coming! As are the Chocolate Fsh!

It’s almost November!!... and I am starting to dream about English things – last night it was a snow scene with Christmas twinkles (cause that happens every year in England!) the night before that it was John Lewis and Pork Pies!! The passports, tickets and insurance documents are already in the holdall and the spare room is about to take on the guise of a large packing bay – although I have decided that I have no winter clothes at all so that I have nothing to pack and consequently will be spending all daylight hours for the first week we are in the Northern hemisphere in M&S, Gap, JL and Next!!

This morning I have been checking out the website for the London Eye and the Tutankhamen exhibition – and next weekend I am going to have a bit of a shopping spree for Kiwi pressies for vast numbers of children! I suspect I will be laden down with Kiwi’s, Pukeko’s, Chocolate Fsh and much other kiwiana t’boot! And no that wasn’t a typo – What do you call a Fish with no eyes? A Fsh!! Which is exactly what Kiwi’s call the stuff that you have with Chps!

Just in case the maths escapes you - it is now only 33 days - or 4 weeks and 4 days until I wave my Kiwi passport at the nice customs man at Heathrow!

So apart from blurbling on about our much hyped trup (kiwi again! Just getting you in the swing for when we arrive…) what can I tell you?

I hesitate to say ‘house’, as I am sure you are all heartily sick of me blathering on about a house that you have never seen! BUT, that has been our life this year! We moved in in January and made a conscious decision to go full tilt on making our new pad what we wanted it to be so that next year we could just enjoy being in it. And so it has been. I have now seen enough ‘brown’ paint for a life time. I could probably become a paint connoisseur actually - I can discern the very subtle differences between Half / Quarter and Full Napa / Tea / Beachcomber and Caraway! I now know that in NZ one does not fly into the nearest DIY shop and look at a million pots of Emulsion on the shelf and choose a pot that looks close to the colour you want – No, no, no! In NZ, Emulsion does not even exist – here we have Ceiling Paint, Wall Paint, High Traffic Paint, Enamel Paint and God knows what else! Here, pretty much everything except white is mixed for you – which is fine except for the fact that it makes paint buying long winded and you have to buy 14 test pots to find the right colour – or resort to judging it from the thumbnail on the colour cards which are approximately 1.5 cm square and have no vague similarity to the thing that will be in the pot that you have just spent $132 on! A couple of weeks ago as I put the second coat of paint in our bedroom, I found myself in the somewhat disconcerting position of wondering if we had over browned it! Burnt decoration, if you will! Currently in NZ mushrooms / teas / subtle hues of brown are very in, and very chic – however, knowing how these things go – you can guarantee that before the last of the paint is dry, brown will be out and blue will be in! or yellow – or anything remotely untealike! Too bad! I am not lifting another paint brush until 2010 at the earliest – this being the point at which we predict that Becca is going to decide that she has outgrown pink!!

Anyway, ‘house’!! We now have carpet down throughout - lovely soft, full carpet - brown - or rather Grenada! We have decorated and curtained our bedroom and study. We have painted and tiled our en-suite. We still have some electrical work to do – but other than that, there is just our wardrobe to paint (I lied about not picking up a paint brush till 2010 – but after the wardrobe!!....) and then Mark gets to play with lots of big power tools and make some fancy shelves and hanging rails and I get to hang up all my new purchases from Gap, M&S, JL and Next?!! Currently the study is being our wardrobe, so there is no major rush and I don’t really mind if I see no progress in the wardrobe till next winter when the rain starts leaking through the laundry roof again! Mark is also in charge of garden renovations, which means I will be chief BBQ queen (a handy skill I learnt post John and Pre Mark!), best tea maker and avid reader of books in my little suntrap!

Anyway, will take some pics and put them on the photo page so you can see my rather swanky new bedroom and the cavernous linen cupboard! http://picasaweb.google.com/LiliinNZ

Cat likes the linen cupboard too. This morning, as I went to put a towel away, I nearly jumped out of my skin as I was suddenly greeted by my mewing friend about 3 inches from my face! She seems to have taken up semi-residence in the cupboard, which is fine – but for the fact that she is still shedding – all over the girls swimming towels! And the pillowcases! Note to self – put the ones that don’t get used at the top!

Weather over here is quite peculiar at the moment. We had a brilliantly sunny day on Saturday, (perfect for drying washing!) rained on Sunday (when we really wanted sun, as we were at a Golden Wedding Anniversary party) and is glorious again today – and this gentle yo-yoing will probably continue until summer proper – when it will rain every day! Actually, probably will be unbroken sunshine from 30 November – and winter will return on 11 January!

Since last blogging, the girls and I have been to see the ballet Cinderella – which was, as usual, a treat. Prefer Tchaikovsky to Prokoviev, but the ballet was beautiful and the girls were absolutely entranced and the music filled the auditorium and my head space – so it was lovely.

Rebecca is now back at netball. Summer netball is known as Twilight over here. Lou is reffing again and was given some very sisterly outraged faces when she blew Becs up twice for being offside! Lou’s actually been given some other regular ‘gigs’ reffing too – she should have quite a few pennies when we get round to the pre-departure piggybank counting! A while back, I decided to try and get the girls to think before spending their money on rubbish, so I told them that I would double whatever was in their piggy bank when we left to go to England! This may have been a bit rash, as I think they both have about $80-100 stashed in there! Becca tried to get a bit clever last week – she spent $20 on some flash felt tips, while Mark and I were in Melbourne (more of that in a sec!) – but wanted to repay Mark’s Mum from money in her bank account not her piggy bank!! Cheeky mare!

Anyway, netball is good. Becca is still enjoying it – I think she still thinks there is a possibility that she could play for the Silver Ferns, but in the meantime, the Chelsea Snowflakes will do fine.

Lou has just started ‘Fabrics’ at school and is already starting to get a bit enthusiastic about a sewing machine! I think I got mine when I was about 13 and paid for half of it by not having pocket money for about 2 years. Mine was about £350 – the one Louisa is talking about is about $3000!! Oh well, guess she’ll never get pocket money again?!!

Oh yes, and Melbourne… it was lovely. Me and Mark went away sans small people for just 2 nights and 2 days. We did a lot of sitting on wide pavements with lunches, read (bad) newspapers and books, snogged an awful lot, wandered around shops and markets and had a very nice stroll around the Botanic Gardens – all very therapeutic! Admittedly tourist strolling in temperatures of 33° (in Spring, for goodness sake!?!) is somewhat draining, but other than that, it was gorgeous. Very European feel to it in that the streets are really wide and there are lots of shady trees – and there are some amazing smells – reminded me of Spain and France.

And I guess I ought to make a comment on the rugby, while I’m thinking about it…. And yes, we watched it – while we were in Melbourne at 5am! - and I was pleasantly surprised that we didn't get completely slaughtered - but was not particularly gobsmacked that we didn't win - although I confess to being quite disappointed. Lou spent half the game texting me – and I realised just how much my daughter is growing up when she sent me one saying ‘Stuff the ref!!’ – I think it was at roughly the same time that Prince William could be seen mouthing less than genteel words of frustration!

I’m not entirely sure who I would have shouted for if England had been playing NZ but I suspect it might have been for the boys in Black – sorry!

And yes, we know the All Blacks are arrogant – but we love them anyway! We are a very small country – with only 4 million people here, and we do get a little bit excited if ANYONE from here does anything nearly as well as the rest of the world – so that The ABs (as they are known) are, by many, revered to near deity status. Predictably, NZ was not happy after being beaten by France but I didn’t see any flags lowered to half mast – and it was only a day or two before e-mail systems were clogged with all the All Black jokes! Although, I have to say, I did feel very sorry for Daniel Carter, who is just a smidgy bit cute and did look just the weenciest bit sad as the final whistle blew!

On the bright side? - The Aussies didn’t get through either – and I have to say, had they been in the final, it would have been really rather embarrassing to be in Melbourne that weekend!

And the English did beat France! Which we loved!! Not quite the Webb Ellis Cup – but almost as good!!

Hmm – onto things that I know more about! Not paint though!

Can’t believe that is almost exactly 6 years ago that we left England. We left on Wednesday 7 November, and arrived at 5.15am on Friday 9 November.
(Mind you, I feel like a Newby! My not quite mother-in-law left Guernsey on 2 November 1957 and arrived here just before Christmas. She met Mark’s Dad on the boat. How romantic is that? And what is it about me and Channel Islanders?!?)

Bearing in mind the fact that I can barely remember what I did last weekend (!) those few weeks before we left are incredibly clear in my memory. I remember having Chinese with the girls from Green Street Green, and leaving my jumper there – although I didn’t realise that until April the following year, when I couldn’t find the damn thing! I remember Jonathan and Louise coming round the week before we went – and I had no voice – so that their last memories of me, at least in person, are of me squeaking and wearing a stripey shirt which had a large hole in the armpit! I assume that everything else had been packed at that stage?! I remember sending John down to Dad’s with Judy and the kids while I finished cleaning the house – only to discover that the Mr Muscle in the oven had hardened to a caked on black poppadom – I know that I accidentally kicked the door step and cut my toe so badly (took the end off it more like!) that I had to stem the blood flow by ramming it, and half a kitchen roll, in my shoe till I had a chance to check out the damage. I remember stopping to say goodbye to Linda leaving her in tears – and then remembering that I hadn’t given her the key and having to go back and do it all again! We finally got back to Dad’s at about 10.30. The girls were in bed and Dad had cooked my last English meal of Sausage Toad and Apple Cake – which we ate at 11pm! And then I remember sitting up until 3am trying to get the packing into some kind of order. I was up the next morning at 5am - and left 6 hours later for my new life in NZ with a bandaged toe that was so big that it was reminiscent of something off Tom and Jerry or Bugs Bunny!

When we left we had 24 bags!! Louisa was only 5 and Becs was just 3. Becca is now 9 - and having spent two thirds of her life here is unashamedly Kiwi. Boo, about half her life, but still she thinks of herself as English. I think she quite likes being English cause it makes her just a little bit different. Me? Lou asked me last week if I was a Kiwi or if I was English – not quite sure I can separate the two – I think I am an English Kiwi.

I suspect my burble may have run it's course for today! I think it extremely unlikely that I will be blogging anytime before Christmas - so please forgive the lack of Christmas Greetings - it is quite possible that I will not send any Christmas cards at all - so again apologies for that.

I feel faintly guilty that I have wished away 2007. Counting down the days is fine except that I love all the days here too and each day nearer coming to England is a day gone here.

2007 will actually go down, for me, as the year that I got my new start. The year that me and my gorgeous girls and my lovely lovely man bought a house and made it ours - from top to bottom. We spent this year making our home and getting used to each others habits and ways. Mark is never going to use Colgate - and I will never eat Watties sauce - but I suspect that he likes the queue for kisses and hugs as he leaves for work in the morning as much as I love that I'm at the front, and the back of the queue!! It has been a good year -despite it being the year that I got divorced and even though there were not quite enough beach walks. Guess it has been a year that I have loved everything that I have here, knowing that at the end of it, I'm going to get just a little bit of all the things and all the people I miss from home.

See you soon - and if not, hope you have a fantastic Christmas - and a wonderful 2008! Next blog date - ???? some time after 11 January 2008!

Have fun! Big snogs!! xxxxxxx

Sheets!

Does anyone in England have winter / summer sheets? I never did. Still don’t. It seems that I own only summer sheets – Percale, smooth cotton sheets – mostly from John Lewis or M&S I think. Mark however, has a vast array or winter sheets. He calls them Flannelette. I think they are probably Winceyette! I spent May and June steadfastly refusing to change to Mark’s warm ones, until one day there they were. I’m not sure whether Mark felt that I was a little tardy in my sheet changing habits or whether he was just cold, but at 11.00 at night, when you are met with a fait accompli, the only thing to do is to graciously thank your charming chap for changing the bed and get in for a snuggle. And, Oh My God, they are lovely!!! You know when you get into a normal bed in the winter, it takes a while to warm up? Actually, maybe it doesn’t – maybe in England the central heating just keeps the whole house so snug that the sheets don’t get cold, I can’t remember! Either way, in New Zealand, in winter, without central heating, beds are cold when you get into them - well, not with Flannelette sheets they’re not! I am converted – I must have turned Kiwi! I will never be rude about Mark’s sheets again – except for the burgundy ones! Can you even buy Flannelette sheets in England? If not, maybe this is my chance to make a fortune? And yes I know about electric blankets – just never taken to them!

Of course now that spring seems to have sprung there is talk of the winter sheets being relegated to the linen cupboard before long. And Oh My God what a linen cupboard!! It has 4 shelves that are nearly 2 meters long and 600mm deep! Not only does it hold all the sheets and towels in the entire world, it is big enough that it fits enough duvets, blankets and pillows to equip a small dormitory! And there is also a space for my Dyson, and the summer stashed heaters! Boys, I know will not appreciate the wonderfulness of this creation, except maybe in the beauty of it’s construction – Girls on the other hand, I think will understand my enthusiasm and glee! I am sooooo moved by my linen cupboard that I may even post a picture on my blog!

I seem to have deviated from the point. How unusual!!

Spring!! We have it. It has arrived. You can’t have it back for another 6 months! We have Daffodils. We have Poppies. I am warm by the time that I get to work in the morning – Puss Puss has started shedding her winter coat and the girls have started to wear flip flops again, instead of boots! Yesterday it was sunny enough that I hung the washing in the open, not under cover. And on Sunday, the clocks SPRING forward! The New Zealand government has decided that we need a longer summer. They seem to be under the impression that this will occur just by putting the clocks forward a week early! Personally, I am not entirely sure that this will make a blind bit of difference, but hey, the evenings will be lighter.

Since last blogging, life has been chaos. Mark had his thumb operation, which meant that he had to spend two weeks in plaster. They had done what is known as a Tendon Transfer operation. Ages ago he had pinged the tendon in his thumb. There are two - one which lets you grip, the other one which allows you to pull the thumb back. Mark snapped the one that pulls back. Apart from not being able to do the thumbs up sign, I’m not sure what else you need it for, but Mark tells me that it’s quite annoying not having that ability.

ANYWAY… To mend it, they nick one of the unused tendons which are attached to the index finger – and it seems that they then intertwine it with the remains of the snapped tendon until it binds. In the meantime, no movement at all for 2 weeks. No driving. No cooking. No doing up shoe laces. No writing. No typing. Zip. Mark not very impressed! Particularly with my driving, but there’s another story – and I now have every excuse never to drive him again! Since the plaster came off, Mark now has a moulded removable cast. He gets to do physio weekly and so far all seems to be coming on well. Not much pain, scars healing well, hair on his forearm regrowing and thumb doing what the Dr expects it to be able to do!

The day after the thumb op, Becs had her school production, Troy Story. Have to say that it was very good. Usually the productions are really girl oriented but this time there were swords, battles, a huge Trojan horse and a lot of very dramatic stage deaths! Somehow the school manages to extend what is intended to be a mid size school show into an event of epic proportions. Every child in the school is in it, all 440 of them. Meantime, my little Becs ended up being a belly dancer, shimmying her rather weeny derriere at the audience! She was fab! Not that her mother is remotely biased of course!

We had Bo (Mark’s Mum) and Floss to stay while Mark was recuperating, and they were absolutely wonderful. Floss did nearly as many taxi runs as I did, and Bo was there entertaining the kids, entertaining Mark, getting the washing on and off the line – I may well have to adopt them!

Becs also finished her netball season. Their team came 4th in her league. They missed the second position by 3 points! Meantime, the whole team have signed up for ‘Twilight’ or Summer netball which means I have another 6 weeks of standing shouting on the sidelines! Lou is continuing her reffing career – and conveniently the last match is the week before we head North!

Boo’s netball team also finished their season. They won their league and celebrated with a Mongolian BBQ together. Love Lou’s netball. Becca’s team is composed entirely of her friends, which is lovely, but Lou’s team is made up of kids from all over the school, which I think has been really good for her – and she seems to have a bit of popularity on the team, which she’s enjoying and which does a mother’s heart good to see.

Last week we had production 2. Birkdale Intermediate, Lou’s school, put on Annie. Lou was an orphan and revelled in the fact that she was allowed / encouraged to look like a scuzzy little dirtball all week! Show was great – and was only slightly flawed by much of male half of the cast being on the verge of their voices breaking!

Productions now done, Lou gets to do another one next year – Becca gets to wait till 2009 when she’ll be a year 6 and up for one of the main parts maybe?!

Oh, and Lou did her first Dance competition. Didn’t win but loved it. She now has gold, high heeled dance shoes which seem to move her to practice all the time. Sadly flute practice has gone out of the window!

In the midst of all the mad dashing about I grew a year older. Had my 43rd birthday a week or so back. Mark told me we could go anywhere I fancied for dinner, so I chose the beach, with a take away – and it was about as lovely as birthdays get. Soph took the girls out for a walk with Jock, her Jack Russell, and then took them home for supper and bed – and I got to listen to the waves and be quiet with my lovely man for an hour or so. Was magic! We were home by 8.30! So sad! I must be getting old!

Girls are now on school holidays and are being spoilt rotten by Mark’s Mum and Floss in Katikati this week. They’ve been bowling, for picnics, on the beach and to the hot pools – don’t think they are missing me and Mark at all! House is very quiet – and Mark and I have been taking advantage of their absence by….. painting! Still!! Study is now done. One coat of the bedroom is now done. Wardrobe not yet done, but carpet is being laid regardless next Tuesday. Then I will start putting up pictures!

Next year, maybe I will paint the rumpus. Maybe we will repaint the living room. Mark will be doing the garden – he is planning something with crushed shells I think. I don’t care as long as it has a bench and a table in it and the washing doesn’t hang over where I want to read my book! Sometime we will have to sort out the roof – no point fixing the laundry room up till that is done, but no real hurry – it’s easy to shut the door on it!

……and……

Earlier today, my tummy turned over and my eyes welled up (and no I am not exaggerating!) when I realised that it is only 9 weeks till we get to England.

I don’t know whether I will ever be able to explain how I feel about coming home for a visit. I love living here. I love that I can see the sea and Rangitoto on the way to work. I love the Auckland skyline and the bigness and blueness of the sky. There is no doubt in my mind that this is absolutely the place that I am meant to be. BUT, I never dreamed that I wouldn’t see home for 6 years. I can’t believe that I’ve never met my nephew, and that I’ve missed his baby and toddler years completely. Can’t believe that I have friends who have divorced and lived through cancer and I haven’t been there to hug them or to drink wine with them. Hate that my Dad is 76 and his knees are creaking and I don’t see him every Thursday anymore.

There was a time, a while after John left, when, financially, things were so frighteningly tight that I wasn’t sure I would ever see England again – or more to the point, any of the people that live there. I remember this slow dawning of a realisation breaking on me on my way over the bridge to work one morning. It was a devastatingly beautiful morning – the city was gleaming in the sun – it was a day that usually would have seen me grinning idiot like on the bus. But it kicked into reality just how far away the London Underground was; how far away Maidenhead train station – Kent – France! Just everywhere seemed to be a lifetime away. When something seems to be an impossibility, the only way to stay sane is to stop thinking about it.

And now, here it is. Nearly. Sorry for droning. Just huge right now. Sorry for being military in my planning. Sorry for counting down the days (65 btw). Sorry that I won’t see some of you at all – and those that I do see, sorry that it will only be fleetingly.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited! Terrified of all the people at Heathrow airport. Terrified of M25. Fairly sure that within 2 days of getting off the plane I will be dying for a walk along Takapuna beach! – but soo longing to see everyone.

Will try and blog again before we leave – but can’t promise – fairly sure that I will not be very organised in that department!

Huge hugs

Let me know if you want me to bring over any flannelette sheets!!

xxxxx

Amendments...

Louisa has looked at me in a suitably disbelieving fashion to tell me that she doesn't do Salsa in her dance class but the Samba! Silly Mummy! And since Friday, Alex, the boyfriend, has moved away! Boo seems fairly laid back about it at the moment. Hoping that the next boyfriend doesn't happen along for a few months / years! I'm not up to the espionage required yet!

Leaky Rooves and Dodgy Thumbs! and Ipoditis!!

Very late blog I know – just checked the date and it seems that NZ failed to have July this year! In actual fact we did have July (just in case you were concerned!) but it was so wet and rainy that I spent most of the month getting clothes dry and swearing about the hole in my laundry roof! (Laundry = Utility room.)

Bringing us neatly to House stuff!! - you can skip if you’re bored with it! Yes we have leak / leaks in the laundry roof – Arghh! Not sure if there is a broken tile or if it is an overflowing ‘valley’ – either way, what started as one drip, is now a series of drips – we’re not sure whether this is because the timber / roof / ceiling is now so wet that it’s just got a wider drip base or whether the whole section of roof is buggered! Obviously the previous owners knew about the problem as they actually moved the light fitting rather than fix the roof!! – still slightly disconcerting when you see water dripping from an unused light socket though!! So the roof may be a slightly expensive problem – but not planning on thinking about it till after UK trip though….

105 sleeps btw!

Only other house stuff is that our en suite is nearly done. Has tiles, loo, vanity and shower – only problem being that the shower will not produce water! The pipes did before the gib was done – but they won’t now! Not sure what exactly this means and am hoping that the shower and wall don’t have to be taken out and done over! Especially as tomorrow I was planning on painting my new shiny bathroom! Is very swanky! Actually, thinking about it, not that swanky, just new and in my bedroom!

Once shower conundrum is solved and half tea is slapped on all available bathroom walls, there’s just a lot of finishing to do. Mark needs to do a load of sanding and scotias and I need to paint! A lot! Am toying with the idea of inviting several friends over with a promise of wine and wine after!
Rather annoyingly this home straight is probably going to be somewhat delayed as Mark’s thumb op is in 10 days time. After that he’s going to be in cast for 6 weeks and doing quite a lot of physio. Obviously this means that DIY stuff will be on the back burner for a few weeks too.
On the bright side, am figuring that if Mark can’t do DIY and the sanding and scotias aren’t done, then I can legitimately stop painting for a while. So far the girls have pencilled in a trip to the zoo and to Waiwera hot pools for this down time – don’t think they have yet worked out that Mark won’t be able to go in the hot pools with a plaster cast on though!

So that is the house update – moving on….!

Top of Becca’s mind at the moment is the school production of Troy Story. The kids are all extremely excited – mothers, on the other hand can’t wait for the thing to be over for another 2 years!! Becca has the role of a belly dancer and has been wiggling her hips at every available opportunity. They’ve been studying the ancients all year so that Gods / Goddesses / Paris and Troy are all very much in keeping with this years’ theme. Once the production is done she is going to be working on a project to do with ancient buildings of Greece – suspect we may need to Google, as I only know the Parthenon!

Boo, meantime, is still very Annie’d, as well as being in Room 11 Idol! She has chosen to sing “It’s Not Unusual” which, personally, I thought was quite unusual for a child of 11! That said, confess to being quite proud of her choice and the fact that she is going to have a fairly broad musical taste, like her mother’s! I may have to dig out the old briefcase style record player that I bought from Dunc for £5 so that she can terrorise her halls of residence if she ….. mid sentence – just remembered that this is a fairly pointless thought being as LPs and singles no longer exist, of course!!

Actually, have been thinking recently how Ipod has taken away some of the value of music. Do you remember how as kids we used to sit poised over a radio / tape deck between 5 and 7 on a Sunday evening to hear the Top 40? You had your forefinger and middle finger resting expectantly on the play and record button waiting for each song to start. And as you heard the first note of your favourite song you hoofed down with the buttons willing the bloody DJ to stop rambling over the top of it! If you actually succeeded in getting a half way decent “Now That’s What I Call Music” type compilation (we’re on 24 here – what’s the UK on now?!) you could guarantee that a couple of weeks down the line either the tape would get mangled or someone else would record a personal version of Mr Blue Sky (Dunc!) right over the top of it!

My point is that your favourite songs were almost unattainable – unless you bought them when they first came out. No chance at all to get hold of something from last year! And if you ever caught one of your favourites accidentally on the radio, the volume went up and you closed your eyes and absorbed every last note, singing each one badly and with great passion! Obviously the eye closing thing was not a good idea if you happened to be driving at the time!
Everyone my age probably remembers their first single and their first LP (Seasons in the Sun / Kisses for Me (!) and David Cassidy – Dreams are Nothing More than Wishes), even now I treasure my old LPs and singles regardless of the fact that I have nothing to play them on – the briefcase record player is long gone!

Nowadays, I sit at my computer and download any track I fancy – all the oldies remembered from college discos like Me and Mrs Jones and Midnight at the Oasis and all the new stuff like Mika and Colleen Bailey Ray – and I can hear them whenever I want. A few years back if I’d heard the end bit of Layla on the radio it would have made my whole day – now, I quite often find I am doing crunches or lunges to it – and sometimes I even skip past it! Sad eh!?

OK, that was Lisa’s theory no 426 – The Over availability and Overuse of Fave Songs – Ipoditis! I expounded this theory to Mark last night – he says I’m getting old!!

No idea how we got to that! Anyway, yes. Netball season nearly over. Louisa’s team are in the final of their division in a week’s time. Becca’s team are currently placed joint first in their division. Both are still really enjoying it, and Lou is doing brilliantly with her reffing and it’s doing great things for her confidence. She’s been asked by the Saturday organisers if she wants to take on some additional games as they are short of pool refs. She gets paid for the privilege so think she might do a few extra games now and again.

Lou’s also doing Dancesport at school. From what I can gather this is cross between ballroom and funky! They have learnt the Salsa, Foxtrot, Cha cha and Jive. This evening we are going to buy gold (!) high heeled, strappy dance shoes! Oo my stars! Apparently I will be $100 poorer by the time we have accomplished that! She’s entering the North Shore competition and has a partner called James. Like Becca’s belly dancing, Boo seems to be in dance mode most of the time, whether she’s emptying the dish washer or heading for the shower – if you catch her when she doesn’t know you’re watching, she’ll suddenly throw one arm skyward and flick her hip to the side and her pointed toe in the other direction! Very cute actually!

My big girls actually started to really grow up. She’s been walking to school all term and what with the dancing, netball and reffing she seems to have leaned out a bit.
She nearly has proper boobs and I fear spots are only a short jaunt around the corner! Think she might have grown a couple of cm too but will have that confirmed, or not, at the consultants next week. She may finally crack the 5ft barrier and after that pretty much every cm is a bonus. Bearing in mind puberty is still being blocked, we should, eventually, get at least another 5 or 6 cm – which would be around 5’ 2” – which isn’t abnormally short - although one would hope that she was not blessed with her mother’s boobs at that height!!

They had a Mufti day at school today so that she poddled off (3 bags hanging off her! – no idea why they can’t have lockers, but hey!) in her silver ferns fitted t-shirt, her camo pants with her baseball cap and floppy bunches – she’s got all fresh faced and lovely. Oh and she has a boyfriend called Alex! It seems that at 11 having a boyfriend equals talking at morning tea, sending a text now and again and the odd peck on the cheek – personally I think that it should stay like this till my girls are at least 23!

Harry Potter has been seen (in 3D) and read by both daughter and Mother. Harry is now all grown up and J K Rowling is going to live out her life comfortably on the back of Hogwarts et al! So will now need to find Lou some equally challenging and entertaining reading – which may be a big ask!

Have decided that ‘fessing’ up is in order. Gym is still going well. Food is still not. Am resigned to still being a bit of a bloater when we come back!! That said, am not as jowly, am looking very fresh faced and well and joints are in cracking nick! Will carry on at gym just in case this laisser faire attitude has the unlikely effect of causing me to stop eating and to start on my downward descent again!

Other than that, am book clubbing again. There’s about 7 of us and we’ve been doing a combination of reading books at the same time and pooling books that we’ve enjoyed. Just read Perfume – which was bizarre but enjoyable and Mr Pip which didn’t do it for me regardless of the fact that it got lots of awards. Anyone wants it, shout! I’ll bring it with me! Meeting tonight so should pick up another good book or two!

Coming to the end of the football season here – although Mark is finishing a tad prematurely because of his thumb. This means that I get back my Saturdays for the summer, but lose my Friday nights once the summer season starts! I gather that the English football season has started again – so I will lose sleep on the odd Saturday / Sunday night / Morning too – only if Chelsea are playing on SKY though!

Other than that Mark’s good. He’s been busy doing house stuff. Busy at work and busy playing on Trade Me (kiwi version of E-bay) too. Whole house is now kitted out in Trade Me purchases, including towel rails, blinds and tumble driers! Come to think of it quite a lot of the house has disappeared – but it’s me that tends to be the seller!!

Got an early birthday pressie this week when Mark got his divorce papers through! Was quite odd being divorced but living with someone who was still married to someone else. Did try very hard not to nag, but gather that I may have made my feelings known once or twice! Anyway, m’ boy is unmarried as of 11 September! Still have no plans to marry. Think we’re both kind of figuring that it’s all working very well right now, so why mess with it! Reckoning that we’ll still be thinking the same in 30 or 40 years time! God, I’ll be 82 by then!! Might have paid the mortgage off by then too!!

Itinerary for the trip coming along nicely! I've decided to abandon Mark for most of the first two weeks so that he can do some boy time with his brothers, playing Backgammon and Cribbage. Meantime, I am going to fly at breakneck speed round the country seeing everyone briefly and doing all the girly catching up stuff. That leaves us with about 3 weeks (including Christmas week) to actually do everyone in a more leisurely fashion and to have some holiday.

Lou has decided she wants to do London on her birthday. So we are expecting to get one of the open top (yes I know it’s cold!) London bus tours stopping off particularly at Westminster Abbey and the London Eye – might also pop into St Martin in the Fields where the girls can do brass rubbing and me and Mark can do coffee!

Also planning on doing The Nutcracker at the ROH – although not sure when yet – whenever it is, going to be the cheapest tickets (think they are £4!) May try and do a matinee as the girls quite fancy doing outdoor ice skating and I believe there is a rink at Somerset House again? Suspect Mark may bail on the ballet though! Maybe the girls and I can go on the day that Dad and Mark are watching the Arsenal v Chelsea matches!

Other than that, we are having a day doing the lights and Santa in town, we are doing Windsor Panto and we are definitely going to Bluewater – particularly M&S!

Think much of the rest is visiting. And probably some eating, drinking and being merry! May have to learn the words to the Kiwi Twelve Days of Christmas – only bit I really know is …and a Pukeko in a Ponga tree! Anyone who has visited will know that a Pukeko is a fab blue wading bird with long red legs – they look great in enamel! Will need to get one for my garden at some point – an enamel one, that is, not a real one! The Ponga tree is, I believe, another name for the Silver Fern…..

Think I may have waffled enough today.

Spot ya

xx

Snowflakes and Panthers

I started this some time last week - so if you find something in orange, you'll know that's me just updating from today's point of view! (26 June 2007)

Despite the fact that we've now been here going on 6 years, I still can't get used to the way the antipodean upside down year works out.

In England, the year always seemed to really start in September with that forceful grunt towards Christmas as soon as the summer holidays finishes. It starts with new shoes, school bags and the determined sewing in of name tags on school jumpers; and then almost without a breath the PTA are talking Christmas Fairs and the children start singing Carols on the way to their swimming lessons.

Advent appears and all those dark evenings bring cake, pudding and paper chain making and then once the children go to bed that a mild frenzy overcomes the household as cards are written, fairy lights are tested and shopping lists are edited and re-edited. The nearer Christmas comes the busier the calendar gets with school nativity, church nativity, Christmas Fairs, pantos, drinks, drinks and probably a few drinks.

But in my memory, it seems to me that once New Years had passed and the kids had gone back to school there were 2-3 months when everything went quiet. Maybe it was just me - maybe it was just that I only get my new diary late in December and all the more organised of you had got yours ages ago and were already booked up? Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me. But I always loved the run down after Christmas. It never really seemed to get completely back into mayhem and madness until after Easter and sometimes not even till Whit.

Here, however the year starts in January. January is the start of summer. Everyone has their new diary and by January 22nd pretty much every weekend has been booked up until the end of April. There are all the usual school commitments, the regular activities and there are barbecues and beach picnics in biro on every available blank spot on the day planner. And then, because you have not allowed any time for any of the spontaneous, as it happens stuff, that gets squeezed in somewhere too and the front end of the year ends up as just one big glut of socialising. Usually, once we get past Becca's birthday things get quieter and I look forward to a quiet and rather chilly couple of months - coming out of my chrysalis revived and replenished just in time for my birthday. We have a gentle run through till December when I suddenly realise quite how far behind I am and Christmas gets thrown together at the last minute.

The last 18 months however have not followed this pattern. The back end of last year was spent house hunting and shifting Mark, and the front end of this year was moving followed by all the usual fun but with house painting and renovating thrown in at every other waking minute. Becca's birthday is next weekend (last weekend in fact!) and yet the diary is still full for the next 6 or 8 weekends. And while I do love my new house, really love it, I sooooo wish that I could just throw money at a builder / plumber / electrician and say 'bugger the cost - just finish it and finish it fast!!' I want to wake up on a weekend and not lie in bed, thinking 'where am I painting today?' and saying 'which wall are you sanding today?' - Unfortunately I haven't won lotto yet though, so I will continue painting, and I will continue to sport new, rather fashionable highlights, otherwise known as Resene "high traffic, water based enamel", shade: Tea.

Anyway, Becs turns 9 next week- now turned. Since moving to this part of the globe Becca has acquired an extra birthday. She was born at 7pm on 25th - but in NZ, 7pm in UK is actually 6am on the morning of the 26th June here. Becca quite enjoys her double birthday status - but the 'it's my birthday routine' is now starting to wear a smidge thin! That said Hardly seems possible (turning 9 that is, just in case you lost the thread!). She is having a roller blading party to celebrate - there will also be a netball court and facilities although the party place doesn't encourage netball in roller blades - which I think is a little sad and shortsighted of them! As does Becca!! (Party was on Sunday. Easiest party I've ever done! 14 kids in a huge room and all very far away from the adults! Only even saw them when they needed feeding!! - they all seemed to enjoy themselves and Becs and Booie especially had a ball - they're both getting quite hot on the blades these days - must be after expert tuition from Auntie Toph!) Meantime, I have been asked by the birthday girl to throw together a birthday cake that is made of Jelly. She doesn't like cake, doesn't like biscuits and ice cream melts too fast for me to work with it! No idea how on earth I am going to turn Jelly into a cake! Apparently we are also taking out birthday girl and big sister for dinner on the actual birthday itself. Cake was rainbow layers - starting with red - each layer had different lollies (aka sweeties) in them. Bottom layer was chewy crocodiles, next layer = fruity fish, next layer = jet planes. And then the top was covered in mini marshmallows and half an apple covered in icing with the candles stuck in! Wasn't probably the most elegant cake - but there wasn't any left over! Oh, forgot to say, that the jelly thing was largely, I think, because Becca fancied doing jelly slurping through straws!! VERY noisy!! and not terribly effective if you want my honest opinion!

Other than that birthday girl is doing all the normal things. After a disastrous start to the netball season, The Chelsea Snowflakes (don't ask, I don't name the teams!) finally kicked back into gear when they won 9-2. They had a very stiff ref who was later revealed to be the sister of the Snowflakes Wing Attack! Boo actually pulled Becca up for stepping at least once - you couldn't quite here a pin drop, but it was close! As for Brownies, I was absolutely gobsmacked to discover that my little darling had actually done some badge work, unsupervised at home! Of course there is a possibility that Rebecca is in fact no longer Rebecca but that she has been abducted by aliens? The belly dancing is coming on a pace too - although Becca demonstrated for me that's it's not actually wiggling your belly that makes the coins on your skirt jangle, you have to wiggle your knees for that!

Lou meantime is still in lovely mode. Her netball is going very well. Her team has won pretty much every week and she is the star shooter - and is enjoying basking in every minute of the glory! Her flute is actually getting really quite impressive now - although practice has been less evident ever since I stopped yelling at her for practicing every time she went down to her room 'oh, there's my flute!' - what does this say about my rather contrary daughter? She's now in the orchestra at school and seems to be thriving on it.

And then there's Annie..... Lou is now officially an orphan! or at least in the school production she is. However, unofficially, or rather officially but rather temporarily she is also Annie herself! This star status will only prevail until the end of term when the fully fledged Annie returns from holiday in the UK, but till then Boo is giving it her all. The bathroom resounds to Tomorrow, her bedroom to It's a Hard Knock Life and everywhere in between you can hear Maybe, NYC and Easy Street, which Annie doesn't even sing! Actually it's a bit like the flute - now, every time she goes to her room to tidy it, or put on her shoes, or brush her hair, it's as if she walks through her door, and thinks 'oh yes, I'm Annie.....,'... 8 seconds later,'The sun'll come out tomorrow, betcha bottom dollar that tomorrow there'll be sun...' etc etc - I may go mad before the end of June!

Think that Lou has now decided that she would like to go to the Guide Jamboree in Christchurch next year. She'll get back to Auckland from London on the Wednesday and fly out to Christchurch on the Friday - but I think she will have a ball and she'll make some fun new friends.

And of course, come July we will be immersed morning, noon and night in Harry Potter! I believe both film 5 and book 7 come out at the same time and should reap gazillions more quid for Ms Rowling - God I must get on and write that book! In fact, there's a good plan, I'll write the book instead of doing the painting!! Now how can I sell this to Mark??!

Had Boo's report on Friday too - not quite straight As but near as damn it - she had 4 Bs the other 21 were all As - the comments by the teacher were all really positive. Tomorrow I have her parent / teacher interview - and logic suggests that should all be positive and glowy as well!

Mark of course is still absolutely spiffing. Am still in my little puffy pink cloud. Fortunately I think he is too - although his cloud is probably a little more macho than mine and not at all pink! His new job is fine. He preferred being out and about in his van and doing something different every day, but he is being very heroic and sensible towing the corporate line and enjoying earning a few more bucks. He's still playing footie, and is back in goal for the Panthers (and no, I had nothing to do with naming them either!) again this season - Wednesday night training seems to be hard work, mainly cause 45 year old knees are not as comfortable as they once were.

For me? All gorgeous with the Yumster, see above!
Work is getting fairly stupidly busy which is great. When I went back to TOC at the beginning of the year, the only proviso was that we continue to break-even. So far to date we are well into profit (not bad for a non profit making arm of the Uni!) and at last count we were up about $200,000 on last year - so Big Boss very happy with us! Big Boss is actually rather Sir Les Pattersonish but shall not bore you with the details!

Course now finished! Surprisingly my last assessment actually pulled in a Merit (like an AA++!) - which was gratifying - even if somewhat astonishing! I think getting older makes you expect more of yourself and when you know that you didn't put in as much effort as you should have and when you know that you have bluffed, just a little bit, it makes you just a little less reverent about the Academic establishment! That said, not knocking it!
Went on to do Assessment 3 which was an assessed role play. Absolutely foul! Did not excel myself but managed to pass. And then yesterday I got back my reflective journal (which is not graded, but if you don't hand it in, you are an automatic fail) which was referred to as 'wonderful' but then also as a 'mini novelette'! My lecturer suggested that I should give it to the girls when they are older, or alternatively that I consider turning into a script for a 'Broadway Production'!

And there I go again, wishing I could actually get bottom in gear for the book! Really must get bottom in gear - had never thought of the possibilities of a stage show - had only got as far as the film!!!!! Think I had Dawn French as me, Richard Briers would have to be Dad (although I'm not entirely sure that Richard Briers isn't dead!!), maybe Rufus Sewell or Colin Firth for Dunc, Kate Winslett for Soph possibly. Mark as yet uncast - although I suspect it would need to be an inconspicuously dishy newcomer - thought Martin Clunes would make a rather good Jonathan, Emma Thompson might work for Salbags - but still have to think of someone to fit the bill as John. If you have any suggestions for your own parts please let me know - and once I have completed my blockbusting novel and sold it for megabucks, probably to Working Title, I will certainly put your ideas forward!
Actually I rather like the idea of a film of your own life - imagine what fun you could have with the Soundtrack!!

Ohhhh - and to all those of you who doubted my taste in music in my formative years - (and yes ok, Barry Manilow was a bit of a blip!) a couple of weeks ago we had an impromptu party after football - and I WAS team leader! So cool! My CD collection is now legendary throughout Hillcrest and to the edges of Glenfield! (the Le Riche leaving CD, mixed in the legendary Pratts Bottom Frost studio went down particularly well!)

I seem to have drifted faaaaaaaaaaar from the point - if there ever was one!

Fitness regime wise - gym is going well. Five o'clock in the morning, is now a breeze (cold arctic Southeasterly to be precise!) sadly, by 11 I am still somewhat drained! Have lost 9kg but it seems to be going VERY slowly / stopped. This is probably because despite being at the gym for an hour daily - I am probably spending almost as much time raiding the fridge each night! This issue is being addressed as of tomorrow. It has dawned on me that we are now only 5 months from arrival at LHR!

Added incentive for minimising calorie intake is that Labour Weekend (3 years since John and I separated - and bloody hell how that has flown!) Mark and I are taking advantage of the long weekend and going to Melbourne! Now I am a Kiwi - I don't even have to get a visa to get into Oz - although I think I need to check if I need one to get into England! Confess to being v excited about Oz trip - but in order to make the most of the shops, definitely need to have lost at least another 8kg!

Better go - Spag Bog for tea - btw, is it just in Southern Hemisphere that this has mutated to Spag Bol? or is the 'bog' bit a Percyism? - either way, not going to cook itself!

Big love - huge snogs

xx

PS - 153 sleeps! xx

Well I hate to be boring Dunc, but....

189 sleeps!

And with that out of the way....

I had already done half of this blog about 2 hours ago, but managed to save my 'reflective journal' (course work) instead! Thought probably not a good plan to publish that, so am forced to go back to the drawing board! Second set back, thought that I would publish some before and almost after shots of the house - but can't find the befores!! Suspect they may be at work - so I'll wait to publish 'the afters' too!

BUT... since doing the girls rooms (still need carpet, notice boards and book shelves!), we have done the spare room (still needs carpet and decent lampshade), and the spare en suite (minus shower screen and splash backs), as well as the main bathroom (except for the gib stopping - (do we have gib stopping in the UK? or even gib?!) (do you know what Pink Batts are?) tiles and painting!) Oh, and the wardrobe - (except it's not been gib stopped painted or got any fittings in it yet!) So basically - we haven't finished anything at all, but it's coming together quite nicely! Mind you, price of paint down here is shocking! I bought 8L of "high traffic"enamel paint and 10L of wall paint and it set me back $382 - and that was after a 20% discount!! Probably same equivalent in UK but we earn bugger all down here! It felt like at least 382 quid!

Anyway, house is getting there! Mark is learning a whole new raft of skills. His friend was going to do the gib stopping but then bought a 'do up' and we'll probably not see him till it's done up - except at football and in the bar afterwards of course! So Mark is now getting very spiffy with the plaster - and we will only worry about it if it falls off. If you come and stay, try not to notice the bumpy bits! His carpentry is also getting quite funky - beautiful skirtings, scotias (think that's the same as coving! - only not, cause not coved!)

Just as an aside - someone explain to me why this blog is now AUTO SAVING every 2 minutes - but earlier this afternoon it failed to save for 10 mins and then ate my words of wisdom when I tried to save it manually!

Moving on!

Today was a study day - which would have been fine, but for the fact that the DVD of sample Careers Counselling sessions was so dull that I fell asleep through quite a lot of it, missing entirely the outcome of session - oops! Guess I could try watching again, next time I can't sleep at night. Meantime the course is progressing. Confess that it is a little like, or maybe a lot like wading through thigh deep treacle. It's probably not helped by the fact that I decided I wanted to do the course post-John and pre-Mark and at the time, I needed to work towards a career rather than picking up peanuts just doing a job. Now, unexpectedly and rather wonderfully life is much easier, much nicer, much more fun and quite a lot more comfortable than it has been for quite a long while which makes it kind of hard to retain the enthusiasm and the focus. That said, probably the main problem with the course is that we have 3.5 hours of Role Play weekly! However sad it is that I am 42 and still hate it - I still hate it - with passion. My effort last week actually made me question whether my brain had entirely shut down for the duration - and after such an abysmal performance....

now it's saving every 40 seconds!!!

.........I spent the whole week from Monday dreading Thursday's class!

Apart from anything else, if I am completely honest, what I really want to do on a Thursday is to go and pick the girls up and watch Lou play her netball. I know the course is only for another few weeks - but I miss watching her play.

Anyway, grumble grumble, ramble ramble - there are only 5 more weeks and two assessments till the end of paper 2. After that I will take a view on it and try and figure out whether I hated the paper or whether in fact Careers Counselling ain't my bag after all! Certainly not doing paper 3 next term - am going to spend time watching netball, being Mum, Christmas shopping and packing! Hopefully that will be laid back enough that I might be able to squeeze in a bit of snogging the yumster as well!

So what's been happening here on the flipside?

Lou is absolutely loving Intermediate. She's been foul to live with for the last 3 weeks - I suspect there are rather too many hormones flying around and within not very long at all we are going to fall headlong into the cowpat of puberty! That said, she has improved in the last few days and I may keep her for a while longer! She's now officially reffing Becs weekly netball games, which she does very well. Tomorrow however, she'll be at flute and so I get to try out my newby reffing skills - sadly I suspect that by comparison, I will probably look pretty shabby!

Her flute is going really well - this is not surprising to Mark and I, as recently practicing has become rather more regular. You can guarantee that pretty much every time I ask her to go and tidy her room / get her washing / make her bed / brush her hair / go to bed or any other task that takes her anywhere near her room, you'll wait for approximately 8 seconds and there'll be a blast of The Entertainer or an English Country Garden or When I'm 64 - have to say until recently this particular trait had been driving me to the brink of my sanity - Mark, however, chuckles. He says it's as if every time she walks into her room she thinks "Oh, there's my flute...." and away she goes - fortunately for Lou, I now chuckle too - mostly!! I have told her that we are going to bring her flute to England - so Gramps, Grandad - be warned! 8 seconds.... Oh, there's my flute!....

Her netball is going well too. Her team recently got promoted from 3rd team to 1st team! No idea how that works, but she's chuffed as! Currently playing Goal Shoot and ? can't remember cause I haven't seen her play for ages!

Netball brings us neatly to my little pink girl! She weighs 24kg (which is approximately the amount of weight that I hope to have lost by the time we come to England! I will be a whole Rebecca smaller!) but she has grown upwards a fair bit recently so we've junked a whole bunch of Gymboree, Gap and M&S stuff that we brought over from England! (just thought: actually, will be very little packing to do before trip as we can bring empty suitcases and just fill them up when we've been shopping?!)

Her netball is going well too. Did a bit of a Prima Donna thing yesterday when she took exception to being placed as Wing A - which is no good if you want all the glory from shooting goals! Fortunately she recovered from that little paddy and is looking forward to her match tomorrow - despite the dodgy ref!

Latest fad is Belly Dancing. The deputy head at school is, I think, a bit of an ex hippy. She's often seen wandering around the playgrounds and the office / classroom shoeless and in spangly floaty skirts. Any opportunity for fancy dress and she whips out the sewing machine and runs up an extravagant little number that will bare some resemblance to an explosion in a paint factory! Anyway, belly dancing is her latest thing and Becca is right there with her!

Both Boo and Becs are coming up to school productions. Lou's doing Annie. She got into the last 4 hopefuls for some of the main parts (was like Idol!!) but in the end she is going to be an orphan. Becs is going to be doing Belly Dancing, she thinks, in Troy Story! Either way, Mark and I are waiting with baited breath!!

Oh and Topol! Absolutely bloody marvellous! The whole thing was just brilliant - and Topol, who is in fact .....70 (first in the London production in 1967 age 30) was fab. Still has that lovely rich voice, maybe not quite so light on his feet - but amazing. Girls were entranced (had forgotten there were so many things to explain - like the persecution of the Jews, the Tsars, Communism etc etc!! All in hushed whispers - and probably much of it completely incorrect!) Soph came with us too. Soph still has that wonderful ability to surprise me. She was late, she arrived, all smiles and just as we got to the door to the theatre she whipped out a Thai take away that she was planning on eating once we were in our seats! What I always love about her in these situations is that she is always so dumbfounded by my outrage / confusion that I begin to wonder if it is me who is off base not her! Anyway, the Thai was bolted, quite delicately and we finally took our seats and enjoyed - half way through Soph asked why they all kept calling him Tevye - and wasn't it remarkable that the guy playing the lead sounded exactly like the guy on Mum and Dad's LP........ TOPOL!??!!!!!!

Ho hum! Was a very pleasant evening. Loved sharing it with the girls - lovelier to have Soph there too.

This is looking a bit short at the mo! Must have been more going on here than this - my reflective journal was much longer!

Well, it's now Saturday morning. Becs team lost at netball - but I survived my debut as ref. Sod's law that we were playing a team with the loudest most obnoxious / intimidating coach I have ever come across. In the end I had to give him a warning! (how embarrassing?!) Not sure what I would have done if the game had gone on any longer.... maybe sent him to his room for time out?!! Complaints were lodged though, so hopefully the git will reign it in a bit next time we play Murray's Bay!

Lou and Becs are off to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3 this afternoon. Becs is being taken with a friend. Boo is going to a different showing with two friends - on their own!!!! I am dropping and picking up, but Oh my God my daughter is growing up! I remember when I was about Lou's age being allowed to go, on the bus, to Windsor, Christmas shopping one year. Vaguely remember wearing a fake leather trench coat (my detective coat! - very 70s!) and buying an awful lot of tat in the souvenir shops. I think that was the year that I bought Dad an LP for Christmas - it was by Micky and Grif! who the Hell they were I didn't know then, and I am none the wiser now! I think I worked on the theory that Dad liked music and the woman on the front of the LP cover was wearing trousers a bit like some that Mum had!! Excellent purchase reasons, obviously! Think I just wandered off there, but back to the cinema trip... Lou made me laugh when Becca asked why Lou and her friends were going on their own, Boo answered in a very patronising manner, "that's what people at Intermediate do" - yeah, like having showers without a fight, washing and brushing hair, teeth etc etc!!!

Anyway, it has been enough of an incentive that behaviour has improved significantly in the last few days. Now I have to think of an incentive for next week!

Other than that, think I have run of blurb. Mark is up ladders masking the hall up. Boo is scurrying around making sure that she looks cool - Becs is standing at the front door tapping her foot - and I'm finishing my blog ready to go to the gym after my taxi duties.

Except... gym going well - lost 6cm off boobs and am now 7kg lighter than I was 5 months ago - 5kg since starting the gym 5 weeks ago. Mornings continue to be dark - and now are significantly colder. And as the winter comes on it means that sun up behind Rangi doesn't even start till I have finished my work out and am back at home in a place where I can't see it! Roll on summer!!

Big snogs all round. Would like to say back later, but really need to take advantage of a quiet house and get on with essay.

Hugs - lots of love

xx

Early to Bed, Early to Rise and the Wonders of Science!.....

It seems that, contrary to public and scientific opinion, the most vital and refreshing hours of sleep are the ones immediately prior to the alarm going off. I base this hypothesis on the fact that 20 days into my exercise regime (not that I'm counting!) I am absolutely knackered! For the last 3 weeks my alarm clock has disturbed my slumbers at 5am - when it is still dark, when the stars are still bright in the sky and when the house is still undisturbed and uncluttered by whirlwind children. Generally at 5am, having washed my face, dressed in very attractive cotton Lycra and rinsed my aching eyes in Optrex, I tiptoe hesitantly along the dark landing on my way out. (Rarely do I escape unscathed in this venture - last week I tripped over the builders ghetto blaster and this morning I collided, loudly, with a large metal step ladder) On reaching the living room, I tentatively pat the table where I left my keys, towel and water and progress, still blinded by the dark, towards the hallway, cracking my left shin on the coffee table and narrowly avoiding stepping on an invisible Puss Puss miaowing at my feet. Once outside things become easier and it is at this point that I start to quite enjoy being awake and upright at the crack of dawn. This self righteous pleasure lasts until approximately 10.47 a.m. at which point I seem to lose focus and instead of pressing my nose to the grindstone I find my self counting how many more sleeps it is till we leave for England!! (220 btw!) I spend the remainder of the day drinking water and tea trying to drown my brain into some kind of activity. Miraculously I am still managing my job as well as normal - just with a little less energy! And a few more typos! The obvious answer is to go to bed earlier, but for the last 2-3 months I have been incredibly virtuous and have been in bed by 10.30 almost every night - which for me is an early night.

So, my confusion with the scientists is this.... Before Mark and I started 'co-habiting' I rarely saw the underside of my duvet till well after 11.30 - and very often not until 1.00 or 2.00am - And yet, on 4 - 5 hours sleep I was bright as a button and fresh as a daisy. Now, on 6.5 hours I am less so! Anyone who can solve my problem, let me know - otherwise I will just take out shares in Optrex and start a nationwide search of pharmacies to see if Pro-Plus is still in production!!

Also, tiredness has a tendency to make me burble!

So far, 4kg are no longer clinging to my hips - I wonder where it goes! If you burn it all off on a treadmill do you think it is just absorbed into the atmosphere??

Girls saw John over the weekend and went back to school yesterday. Lou has first netball practice this afternoon and I haven't yet quite worked out how I will be in two places at once on a Thursday. Thursdays have actually suddenly descended into complete chaos! I have my course until 7.30, in the city - generally home by 8.15. Last term I didn't even have to think about the family logistics because a friend and I trade children one day a week and then Mark would pick the girls up from my friend's house, feed and water them at home and get Becca to and from Brownies - positively restful for me.

Now, however, Rebecca has netball practice from 3 - 4, Booie has netball match sometime between 4 and 7.30 and Becca still has to be at Brownies by 6. Meantime, I'm still at my course until 7.30!
The change is rather a fab one actually - Mark has a new job! Working in finance over in the city and not likely to be home till after 5 or 6ish. Same place he was working at three years ago - but in the wake of his wife leaving he packed his job in, painted his house, took a trip to England and started labouring. Now it's almost 3 years later and his old boss has asked him back with a promotion, a pay rise and a parking space!! Mark rather chuffed - and I rather like the fact that they obviously thought highly enough of him to come and find him.
Thursdays still a pig though!

Becca has Brownie camp next month too. Apparently they are doing some kind of version of the Amazing Race - so that should wear her out nicely! Meantime, Lou is thinking about whether she wants to go to the Guide Jamboree in Christchurch next January. Starts just after we get back from the UK, so she'll have a rather busy Summer holiday!!

It is now Thursday. The rest was Tuesday!

Mark has now started his new job. Very exciting!! Where previously he left for work resplendent in his faded work shorts and polo shirt, carrying a huge cool box full of energy sustaining snacks and lumbered up the drive in a very battered company van, this morning he left the house with his lunch in one hand and the keys to his very shiny Holden in the other! And for only the second time in two years he was wearing a tie - very yummy! Can't wait to get home and find out how he got on!!

And apparently unbeknownst to New Zealand, or at least to me, scientists have, however discovered the elixir of eternal youth. I base this assumption on the fact that Topol is still playing Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof! As a child, quite a young child, my parents had a vinyl LP of Fiddler on the Roof, which even then was old and dogeared - so let's be generous and assume that this was recorded the year I was born, 1964. Assuming that Topol was then, let's say 30 (in the movie he looked like he was 60 even then, but being generous here!) it is now 42 years later so surely he has to be in his 70s?? And he's still playing the same role!! Anyway, I am doing some research on this youthful phenomena and Sophie and I will be taking along Lou and Becs to see Topol in Fiddler on the Roof, 2 weeks tomorrow - I shall report back on my findings!!

Speaking of which (going to the theatre, rather than Topol!) I don' t think I ever told you about my evening at the ballet with Lou and Becca back in October last year. I'm not sure that I can magic it up to order, but we did have a lovely evening. The girls and I were all dressed in our twinkliest, velvetiest best, Mark dropped us off and we found our way to the theatre on a lovely spring evening. It was in one of Auckland's older theatres which is very traditional and wonderfully ornate with velvet seats, boxes and a dress circle. Even before we got to our seats the girls eyes were popping out of their heads with the staircases and the lights and the twisty gilt balustrades. Once we got to our seats they were even more gobsmacked by the fact that at the Civic, if you put your head back and look at the ceiling it is lit midnight blue with hundreds of twinkling stars! Absolute magic!

The ballet itself was beautiful. I have never quite got over the joy of an orchestra filling an auditorium with music - so that you don't just hear the music, it's not even that you feel the music, more that you are actually IN the music. There was a point in the ballet where the music and the choreography were so perfect that it was seemed as if the dancers themselves were making the music. It was at this point that I looked at my daughters rapt faces, inhaled the music and found that I had tears rolling down my cheeks, a smile on my face and this feeling of total contentment and complete blissful joy! Best of all, the girls are still talking about it - so think it was pretty cool all round.

I seem to have deviated from pretty much every track!

Update on house - Two of the new bathrooms are now plumbed in - one has polished wood floors, the other very nice textured tiles that I helped grout! Wardrobe now has proper walls. Mark's friend the gib stopper is coming for lunch on Sunday, so hopefully all the walls will be done in the next week or so and I'll be able to paint and finish those two bathrooms - before ripping out the third one and starting on that!

Yesterday was ANZAC Day - which is the Kiwi equivalent of Remembrance Sunday. It's always observed on 25th April, which is the anniversary of the ANZAC forces landing at Gallipoli in 1915 - or as Becs called it this morning, Gallopoli! If ANZAC day falls mid week, we all get a Stat day! As usual the girls put on their Brownie / Guide uniform and did the march to the war memorial, and as usual I was amazed by the number of people that turn out for ANZAC memorials here. Birkenhead is this little suburb and yet there was a big parade of veterans and huge numbers of the public that attended the service - and it seems to get bigger every year. Apparently the Kiwi's lost more men per capita of the population than any other nation in both the First and Second World Wars - maybe that's why so many people here make the effort to remember.

In past years the service has been somewhat dry, and hasn't been helped by the fact that the PA system has been fairly ineffectual. This year the PA actually allowed us to hear most of the service. The local MP did the address - and not being a great fan of politicians in general I was pleasantly surprised when this guy, who I generally think of as being rather up himself, did this incredibly moving address.

Instead of doing the usual thing of reminding everyone that ANZAC day is not about celebrating war, but about remembering the true cost blah, blah, he had taken the name of one of the soldiers on the war memorial and told his story. He told us about a man called William Greenslade, age 35, a commercial traveller who lived down Verrans Road with his wife Margaret and 6 year old son. He told us when he joined up, where he trained and about how, not long after he landed at Gallipoli in late May 1915 he had been one of 15 Kiwis who were sent forward with two cannons. He read us the Affidavit from one of his comrades which told how he was killed the same day and he told us how the Turks had retaken the land less than one day later.

Not quite sure how to move gently on from this point, but have to say it was probably the most moving Remembrance or ANZAC Day address that I have ever heard and by the end of it I don't think I was the only one who was more than a little damp round the eyes. What was perhaps even more remarkable was the fact that Louisa and Rebecca told me how interesting the service had been! Not bad for an MP I thought!

This seems to have been an unusually long and waffly Blog! All is good. Girls are lovely. Life is busy - will try to be more focused next time!

xx

Becca's very pink bedroom - still working on it....

More pink!! Love it - fortunately so does Becs!

Booie, my bluey!!

The Pinkster in her very pink den!

Still a while to go before we have a spare loo again!!

Booie's room - not quite done - but getting there!

And again...

Bubblesville NZ

I am now officially a member of the YMCA. I am presuming that once I have turned up at 5.30am enough mornings and performed a statutory number of press ups and crunches they will present me ceremonially with a traffic cop helmet, Indian head dress or construction workers hat! If not I will certainly consider asking for a refund! In the meantime I have walked copiously and eaten sensibly and am now 2kg nearer my black combat pants than I was this time last week! Small steps!

Life continues in what is now it's normal mode. Mark and I have spent the last 2 weeks jigging around a full size bath and several other assorted bathroom fittings, trying to finalise the set up of our new bathing facilities! Every time we think we have it sorted we find that the low side of the ceiling, the long thin window, the joists or the new doorway foil our latest arrangement. It has been rather like a giant jigsaw and while Mark and I both like jigsaws, we seem to have very different ways of working on them! We do now have a final plan and in fact the builders and plumbers are doubtless banging holes as I write this. That said, I am not entirely convinced that I will not get home and be told that my toilet is in the wrong corner or that my bath needs to be in the rumpus room!
Theoretically my new wardrobe wall will also be in place by this afternoon - but again, nothing seems to be quite as straight forward as we would like. The electrician came in on Saturday and discovered that the wiring had been done by a sparky with a rather warped sense of humour. Half the day was spent tracking the wiring as it is now and the other half was spent trying to get the wires where we want them to be. As a result my bedroom and both of the junked bathrooms look as if we have a case of giant Borer as there are circular holes, 4 inches across, scattered above the door frames and across the walls!
That said, have paint for Lou's room and we have a long weekend to get it done in. Apart from that my other objectives for Easter include getting all the skirting, door frames and trim painted as well as finishing the bathrooms off - although I may be a little over optimistic.

In the meantime, Lou is auditioning for the schools production of Annie today. She had been practicing Tomorrow all last week, and then as she got dressed this morning decided that being as she couldn't get the high notes she ought to change to Maybe - which would all be fine except she wants to BE Annie - and I suspect she might actually need those high notes! Oh well, we'll see! She got her 3rd Principal's award last week is in the orchestra with her flute, and is on the netball team too. She's also learning guitar apparently! I found out last week that 30 years on and in the opposite hemisphere she is learning The Sloop John B - which I had to play when I learnt guitar with Mr Cowan at All Saints!!

Becs too is back on the netball team. She seems to have shot up about 3 inches recently, which should mean that her shooting gets even better! She's also just started work on her Discovery Brownie badge which includes drawing a picture of a magical imaginary world called Marshmallow Land... wonder if she'll think to put any chubby bunnies in the picture?! And she's already planning her birthday party, which isn't till June! She wants to go roller blading at a local rink - then have birthday tea with everyone, then have a beauty session with foot spas, hair curlers, make up etc and then have a sleepover! Of course I am somehow supposed to prepare their tea whilst also doing their feet, hair and faces - and all without going mad or shouting, or sending someone home! May have to moderate her plans a little!

Essay done. Handed in. Not convinced it was great, but will wait and see - and then see if I can set my elder daughter a good example by starting my next assignment early?!

Mark still lighting up pretty much everything. We had a wonderfully quiet weekend (apart from the drills and the banging of course!) which gave me time to just sit back and watch a bit. All just absolutely lovely. Scary to say this, but I am kind of getting to the point where I am thinking that all the hurt and the devastation of nearly three years ago was worth it to get to here - not just for me, but for the girls too. I do wish that the relentless crap (see below) would stop flying admittedly - but as long as I keep my head down I can ignore that a bit and enjoy where we are at the moment in this rather happy little pink bubble!!

As per the relentless crap , John still not being easy, so am ignoring as much of it as possible. Not sure when he is next having the girls as he hasn't told me yet. They're now down to seeing John one night a month so that he can have a weekend with Sharron in between his weekends at work, but Lou and Becs seem to be OK with it, so who am I to say different?

And just as a matter of interest we are now down to 244 days - tickets now stashed in my scarf drawer!! I am only putting that in, in case on 29 November I completely forget where I have put them!!

Dad and Judy off on Queen Mary II for 10 days winding up in the Caribbean and New York. Soph's got her old school friend Nezzy over for a while - and winter is nearly here!

Anyway - lunchtime over - nose back to the grindstone - very mundane stuff, sorry - look on the bright side, building work is bound to be traumatic at some time soon, so that'll be fun!!

Snogs xxx

250 Days....

.... so kind of figure that now is the time to get fit! (How many times have you heard this?) - I have measured every conceivable part of my body to discover that since John left my chest has increased in size by 20cm and my thighs, and more worryingly my arms!, have thickened by 2cm each! I suspect that even my feet are not as small (!!) as they used to be!

Here I am, 42 and rather flabby! Have yummy man, lervely daughters, fab house and no excuse whatsoever for putting off getting back to the gym any longer. Not rejoined yet though, but am mid negotiation with ('it's worth a stay at) the YMCA'! Hope to be signed up and hating every minute on the rowing machine by next weekend. In the meantime I am walking, and walking and walking! I have an eating plan. I also have a pair of black combat pants that are feeling neglected and unloved in the back of my wardrobe. They are my first objective.

Speaking of wardrobe, my 'walk-in wardrobe' which is in fact just a large space with no doors is about to be converted into an actual walk in wardrobe. We have a builder coming in next week who is doing something with the two bathrooms that Mark ripped out over the weekend. We are going to get him to rig up a new wall ready for Mark to get creative fitting a snazzy wardrobe for us - with hanging, and shelves and shoe space etc etc - hopefully I will be able to fill it with clothes that are not bought in the same shop that Orca frequents!

Also have to finish assignment 1 for paper 2 this week. I've done the reading, now I just have to turn it into an assignment. Louisa wants to know why I have left it till the last minute!!

And only realised when I talked to Dad last night that I had failed to report on my near death experience!! (never let it be said that I exaggerate!) - the girls and I were in an earthquake last month! Admittedly 4.5 on the Richter scale is little enough that Mark was out and didn't notice it!! BUT the girls and I did! Becca was a little bit freaked out so she and Boo slept together - but was a bit scary. The actual earthquake itself was fine bit like a herd of elephants having a party in the living room - but afterwards, I think we were all just waiting for it to start again -wondering if it would be bigger. Did the sensible stand in the doorway or get under the kitchen table speech, but not sure how convincing I sounded. Turns out 4.5 is as big as it's ever been in Auckland - so guess that, in itself, is heartening - but still find it difficult to explain to Becs why we thought it was good idea to move to a geothermal / volcanic / earthquake black spot!!

Better go. Things to do etc etc

snogs xxxx

Tickets booked!!

261 DAYS AND COUNTING!!!!

SEE YOU IN DECEMBER!!! XXXX

Not that I'm excited or anything!!!!! (Suspect Mark may get bored of this by next weekend......!!)

xxxxxx

How Heavy's your Heart??

I am at work! I should not be blogging! This will be quick! Will follow up with fuller version at the weekend - hopefully!

Most recent news is that Becs had a day trip to Te Papa yesterday. Te Papa is NZ's National Museum - and is in Wellington! So Becs and 17 other children from school hopped on a plane yesterday morning at 8.30 and were back at school by 8.30 last night - and Oh My God she was buzzing!! The school has a theme this year of "Are we what we were?" which is focussing on ancient cultures. Te Papa is currently running an Ancient Egyptian exhibition "Beyond the Tomb". The kids got to go behind the scenes with their own tour guide and seem to have had an amazing time! Since picking Becs up I have learnt that Mummy's are wrapped in 4 layers of linen and that their stomach's, liver, intestines and lungs are all removed and put in jars - their heart is taken out 'something is done with it and then it's put back in'! This morning, my education continued when she told me that Egyptians were tested after they died to see if they would go to Paradise or to eternal darkness. Apparently one of the tests was to have your heart weighed against the weight of a feather - if your heart was heavier it would be eaten by a creature with a crocodile's head, a dog's middle and a hippopotamus's bottom! Otherwise, you were into Paradise. And all this before 8am!! Doubtless I will learn more on the way to gymnastics this evening!

Netball is nearly here again. Lou had her trials yesterday - and this evening she and I are learning to be netball umpires! I have to get a whistle on the way home from the $2 shop! She is going to umpire Becs games and I get to umpire hers! Four sessions on Wednesday nights from 7.30 - 9 which would be fine if I wasn't supposed to be writing Assessment 1 for Paper 2 of my course!

Lou has also recently just bought a new camera! She got money from both Gramps and Grandad for her birthday and has been Trade Me (like E-Bay) surfing ever since - found a very snazzy Nikon last weekend - and now we just need to buy an adaptor for the battery charger as the plug is actually french! Anyway, the idea with the digital was that it would mean that she could take as many appallingly bad shots as necessary while she learns what makes a good picture and without costing a fortune in film and developing! We shall see - I will post her more successful efforts to our Picasa Photo Album - and you can let me know if you think she is going to be the next David Bailey!?

Nearly bought tickets for trip home!! Probably ought not to blog date of arrival and departure - might be seen as inviting intruders! In fact you probably already know the dates - as if I'm sensible I will put the dates in the Blog Update e-mail??!! Anyway, we already have plans to do London Eye, Open Top Bus Tour, the Christmas Lights, Santa at Selfridges (yes I know they are too old but you have to do it once!!)(which they have - but you should be able to remember it!!) - I think Mark is horrified at the prospect of London at Christmas, but I'll win him round! Will need to fit in a couple of visits to friends and family as well I guess! May have to ask Dad to check out the Panto at Windsor Royal as well??

Have had stonking Summer! Has been sunny almost everyday since Angela, Vince and the boys went home! (And I know that none of you who have been here will believe that - but tis the truth!) - however, Summer seemed to end rather abruptly on Monday. Yesterday when the heavens opened - we had thunder, lightning, power cut - flying trampolines (nowhere near my house!) and a couple of leaks in the roof!! Bugger!! The lights all went out at about 10.30 - the alarm started beeping and 30 minutes later when the electricity went back on we woke the whole neighbourhood up with our shreaky alarm! Have to say it is a tad loud and not at all sure my ears will recover - Becca, on the other hand (only off the plane 3 hours before!) slept through the whole episode! Note to self, must find out alarm code before the next power cut!
As an addendum to the 'it's now Winter' declaration above - School Fair on Saturday....... Joy!

Mark saw thumb man this morning - op to fix it sometime in the next couple of months. Since pinging his thumb tendon he has also buggered his knee (and his foot!!) playing 7 games of football in one day (Finals Day!) As yet, Doctor won't look at knee as it is too swollen to see anything!

Becs room has been redecorated - VERY pink! but she seems to like it!

We have purchased our 3 bathrooms - but have yet to install them - currently they are sitting, dry and boxed in the rumpus room! We do now have a new water heater - which in the installation process gave me 3 mornings of freezing cold showers! However we now have mains pressure and very hot water! plus a hot water tank to put all the washing on top of now that Summer has passed and nothing will dry on the washing line!

House still lovely by the way! Mark still gorgeous! Me still fat - but have now started walking again - even in the rain! Figure in 8 months I can be virtually skin and bone if I work very hard?!

Sure there must be more! Work busy!! Is actually! Just breathing for 5!!

Better go! Huge snogs xxx