A few days away ...

We went away to the beach for a couple of nights last week.  I don't have many photos because the battery on my camera ran out but I do have lovely memories!

We had tea out the first night there which is a rare occurrence and so was wonderful!

Candle lit concerts by the children by the fireside

A walk along the beach into the southerly which could almost hold me up

No TV, no mobile and no computer

Op shopping in old and new stores and finding an absolute treasure - more on that later

A husband who did all the dishes

Being read to in the evening whilst crocheting - something I would truly recommend!

I didn't really want to come home which is quite good really because we're going back again tomorrow!!  Why did we come home?  Because I had some work to do.  Work.  Proper work.  Consisting of sewing.  For someone.  All very exciting and I'll let you know soon.

Hope you all had a great weekend. x

The Desert Road

When we left our house to head up the island there was thick ice on the car. We travelled through sun, fog and cloud and then we came to the Desert Road. It was spectacular. I love the road at any time but had never been through it in the middle of winter so it was great to see it in all its glory.

Mount Ruapehu

Mount Ngauruhoe

Cassia and Maia enjoying the snow!

If you see in the foreground of the above picture there is a grey grainy scree on the ground (I'm not a geologist so bear with me for the right words!). When you walked on it it crackled and your footprints left this on the ground:

It was like little ice needles under the surface of the ground. I've never seen anything like this before and it was fascinating and beautiful to see.

If anyone knows the correct term for this phenomenom then I'd be much obliged!

My creative space

We're off on holiday (and a little bit of crafting is coming too!)

We're going away tomorrow for a week's holiday - hurray!!!! Up to the sunny Bay of Plenty (oh please let it be the sunny Bay of Plenty!). Although there'll be lots to do up there I still might have the urge to be crafty so I've packed a little case (in fact it's the first and only thing packed so far!).

The case's contents:

2 embroidery hoops

linen offcuts

embroidery silks

scissors

material marker

ball of chunky colourful yarn

bamboo knitting needles

And the best about it to me? The case was found at a garage sale for $1, the embroidery hoops, linen and silks were all received via Freecycle, the yarn is new but was reduced and the bamboo needles cost me 50c, yes that's right reduced to 50c. So a whole case of loveliness for very little money - what more could you ask?!

All packed and ready to go! Until we get back - au revoir! x

PS To check out lots of other lovely creative spaces take a peek over here.

Our Trip Part 2 - The Girls

How do you get two girls, two suitcases, two handluggage bags and a picnic from the domestic terminal to the international terminal at Auckland airport? We walked like this! To be honest this was what I was most worried about - all the bags and two little girls but we managed admirably!





A quiet moment on the plane. I realised I took way too much hand luggage - I think I had things for every eventuality and then some. Maia and Cassia are now of the age that TV amuses them for a long time and Cassia's best coping mechanism for long haul flights? To fall asleep for most of it!

Two very startled girls during the treasure hunt I did on Easter Sunday. Maia loves them - the kind where you put picture/word clues around the house/garden and they lead you to the next one. It was the first time that Cassia joined in and she loved it too. And at the end of the treasure hunt? A chocolate bunny. I have to admit that I have never bought the girls an easter egg yet and a small chocolate bunny seemed to thrill them just as much.

We visited a few National Trust properties near my parents and this photo shows Cassia in the hedge. And I mean she was really was in the middle of a huge hedge having found a little entrance to push through further down the path!

What do little girls get up to with their older cousins?

Two little flower fairies in a beautiful blooming magnolia tree.

I think my two daughters may have a future packing down in the front row! Hit them hard and low!

Good tackle!

Cassia about to play in the garden before breakfast in her pyjamas - isn't that what holidays are all about?!

Will it ever come back......?!!!!

This was the sky on the day we left. What has happened to it whilst we've been away? Are we ever going to see it again?

We returned to NZ 2 weeks ago and have settled back in nicely. The girls readjusted quicker than I but then they are remarkably resilient creatures! The trip was good - the girls were amazing. On both legs of the journey they didn't whinge, grizzle or cry once. Whoops that's a lie -Maia did when we dotted down at Auckland from Palmerston North and I elbowed her in the temple whilst putting on my rucksack but I'd say that was understandable!

We've gots lots of photos to share and news to tell but I thought I'd do a quick post first to get back into it. It's funny how quickly you get out of posting or even reading blogs so I've a lot of catching up to do. Looking forward to reading all the recent posts of those blogs I follow and maybe having the time to dip into some others. Here's hoping I can get some blogging mojo happening! x

Settling in, but ......

We were getting quite settled in to our new house and life. Maia has settled in really well at Kindy and Cassia and I are going to a few playgroups in town. Craig is really enjoying his course, Furniture Making and Design, and has already bought back an awesome coffee table! I have been working my way through the things I want too, especially ticking off some of my 37 Things. Now you just know there's a but coming don't you?! And you would be right - the girls and I are heading back to the UK on Sunday!

Pretty big 'but' eh? I always knew there would be a trip back at some stage this year but I wasn't planning it quite so soon. However, due to family reasons we're going back now. The plan is for 4 weeks in the UK - but as they say plans are made to be broken - so we're not setting anything in concrete just now. Craig is staying in NZ so it goes without saying that we are all going to miss him terribly - Maia has already had a fair few upset moments when she thinks about her daddy not coming too. It's at those times that my heart strings get pulled so tight I think they are going to snap. I want my life to be here in NZ but my extended family is in the UK so life is never going to be plain sailing. Then you add in illness and it becomes something of a rollercoaster.

So in a nutshell there's an update! Wishing you all the best and a very happy Easter. x

We're here ....

and safe and sound!! So a very quick post to let you all know that we're are all happily on firm ground again. I wouldn't say that we are all with it yet but no doubt that will come over the next few days! The flight, of course, was very, very long but the girls were wonderful. I think Cassia has developed a defence mechanism and every time the plane took off she fell asleep and stayed asleep - no complaints from me!

It's very surreal to be back here with both girls and to know that it's not just a holiday. The weather was freezing when we arrived and I hadn't packed any winter woollies but luckily the sun is out in full force today and I must go and get some sun block!

I'm posting this from the library because we have no internet access yet and we can't get broadband where we are - aaaaarrrrghhhhh what am I going to do? How am I going to keep up to date with all the lovely blogs I read? I see myself finding an internet cafe with good flat whites and no children - not so bad eh?!

Almost on our way!

The good news is that we are able to fly on Wednesday - hurray!!!

So I am just left with the last minutes things still to do - and there seem to be ever such a lot of them. We are leaving our house tomorrow to stay at my parents so I feel a late night coming on tonight. I had my first real panic yesterday and went into overdrive - it served it's purpose though because I looked for my Rescue Remedy to take and couldn't find it. Better yesterday than on the day we leave! All the boxes but 2 are packed and all the necessary paperwork/admin is done, the suitcases are another matter entirely!!!! Although I have been running down food stocks there was the inevitable items left and they have just been collected by a lady for the local Salvation Army Soup Kitchen, my last chance to extol the virtues of freecycle!

I probably won't get a chance to post again now before we leave and we don't have broadband set up where we are headed so I don't know when I'll next add to this, or have the time to read everyone else's blogs - I'm going to have a lot of catching up to do.

Please keep popping back to see because I've really enjoyed doing this and receiving all your lovely comments. Au revoir! xxx

A little glimmer of creativity amidst all the chaos!

My creativity has faltered unerringly to a long slow stop - I am doing nada, nothing, zilch! Starting this blog back in July I was really in to my sewing and that then morphed into crochet. I think it was reading inspiring blogs and of course finding out about, and subsequently joining, Ravelry. (To begin with I thought it was just knitting so imagine my delight when I realised there was crochet too - I sent off my 'application' straight way and was gobsmacked to see that there were thousands of people in front of me waiting for their invite to be processed - this knitting/crochet community must be huge!) Since the beginning of September, once we'd actually booked flights, I've not done anything crafty (in fact my sewing machine is almost in NZ as we speak!). So this little show is the only thing I've been working on and was shown as WIP here. Earlier this year I sent a blanket to Cuddles, see here, and I made a pledge to myself to make a blanket to donate each season. So this is the blanket for autumn (not autmmn themed mind!).

It was very different this time because I knew I was making the blanket to donate. This really focussed my mind on the reasons for the need for donations and, of course, made me count my blessings over and over again. With the general frenetic pace of life and the ensuing chaos of an international move, I haven't always looked beyond the immediate picture and have sometimes got bogged down in what are, taken at base value, inconsequential things. Last night as I sat finishing the blanket, I thought about the girls having chicken pox, the chance that we may not fly out next week, the amount of work left to do if we do fly out next week and realised how lucky I am to have these so called 'problems' to contend with. Life is so precious it really is too short to worry about things beyond your control. Wishing you all lots of love and a very peaceful weekend. xxx

Visitors to our home, the welcome and not so welcome ...

So we have new visitors in our house, the mouse below is a very welcome addition. A wonderful present for Cassia from her very talented Nannan! Thank you very much Mum it's fantastic.

The other visitors, chicken pox, are not so welcome! Well certainly not at this time - did you know that airlines do not let you fly with chicken pox?!!! I am suddenly very up to speed with everything associated with it. As a truly magnanimous gesture Maia has shared it with Cassia - when we went to put her pjs on after her 'birthday party' her whole trunk was covered in little red bumps! Now we're assuming its CP because it would surely be way too much of a coincidence for her to have something else, but it's presenting so differently from Maia that I just don't know!! Well here's hoping that they both get better soon because although we can get a medical note from our doctors (they are no longer contagious 5 days after the rash first appears) in an ideal world you wouldn't chose to fly a few days after a child had CP and as it stands today I couldn't, with a clear conscience, put them through a long-haul flight! Keep everything crossed for us!

3 weeks to go!!!! And a plea for help ...

It's now only 3 weeks until we head off to NZ!!!! How do I feel? Excited? Yes. Nervous? Yes. Totally overwhelemd by everything that's left to do? Absolutely!

One or other of the girls has been sick these last couple of weeks and then I got it at the beginning of the week which didn't bode well for the packing. If I could I would have rested but decided to just do a little each day and have early nights and I seem to be OK. The latest thing for me to think is that there's chickenpox at pre-school - aaarghhhhh! Neither Maia or Cassia has had it and I remember Maia mentioning that she was playing with Ellie last week - oh and isn't Ellie one of the girls who has got it! However, there's no point worrying because there's nothing I can do. In the past Maia has been playing with people twice who have then developed chickpox and she didn't catch it either time - so here's hoping.

Cassia is too young to understand what's happening but Maia isn't - I don't know if this is good or bad! She knows we're going to NZ but thinks it's for a month (not that she has a real concept of time) and she is very exicted. She remembers when we were there last year and people and places. She also really likes packing! I guess it's what you grow up with but she gets very excited when the packing boxes come out and loves packing and unpacking - you can imagine how helpful she is! The downside is that I know her little mind is doing overtime. When we sold the car last week she asked when we were getting it back. When I explained that we weren't she then said that dad was selling his so what car would we have when we got back. She also really wants certain people to come with us and has got really upset a couple of times recently when I've told her that they are not coming with us. I guess we'll just take things as they come and hopefully 'she'll be right'!

Everything is now booked - we're flying straight through! We've done this route before but did think we'd stop over this time. However, when we really thought about it it comes down to the same thing - you stop over, you go to the hotel and one of the girls doesn't sleep so you end up awake, grumpy and tired in a hotel when you could be awake, grumpy and tired but getting closer to your destination! We're going to have one night in Auckland before getting a domestic down to Wellington. Now this is where I ask you girls for some help (and I am notoriously bad at asking for help but thought what they hell!). When we first arrive we're going to be based at Waitarere Beach (about 1 /1/2hr north of Wellington) and just wondered if anyone who reads this happens to be in the area? Or if anyone knows anyone in the area? It's the area that Craig grew up in but has been away for a long time and I know no-one. I just thought if there was someone who had young children then I would love to have someone to catch up for coffee with and for the girls to have someone to play with occassionally. So there you go that's my plea for help!

Do you think the girls could go like this?!!!!!