Meet whatshisname...

This little guy is coming to live with us this weekend. I know, I'm nuts. But come on, look at that face.

In fact you should have seen the faces on his seven brothers and three sisters. It was very, very hard to choose. We deliberated over two visits and then three days of discussion. In the end with the decision made I was  comforted by the fact that I've never met a golden retriever I didn't like.

I am less comforted by the fact that there will be times very soon when I don't like this little guy much at all. Lucky really that face is so very cute.

I'm shopping, reading about lots of foreign concepts like crates, puppy pads (seriously?), lawn protector (as if) and pet insurance (yes, definitely).

The kids are arguing over names. In fact the whole family is split firmly down the middle on every single name suggested.  Our younger son wants to call him Bradley - apparently because it's a great name. Perhaps, but not for a dog. I just see many burly looking men called Brad turning around in surprise as I yell his name in the park.

For now the dog will be 'Dog' unless we can reach a compromise deal, UN style.
We have 1 day and 7 hours to sort it out.

For Granny...

This flower is for my grandmother who died this week... she was ninety-four.

I have just snippets of memories of her as we lived thousands of miles apart for most of my life. I remember her shoes getting stolen on Bondi beach when I was a little girl and she was on holiday. I remember looking out for the neighbourhood cats as she was terrified of them. I remember all the lovely gifts she'd send from Joburg when she worked in a jeweller's shop. I remember her rosary beads and the bathroom hidden behind the wardrobe doors in her home. I remember the swing in her garden and I remember all the phone calls when she would talk and talk and I would struggle to get a word in.

I thought she loved yellow but Mum says actually it was blue she loved the most but she did love her little yellow car... that must be what I was remembering.  The flower is for you Granny and your two daughters who miss you so much.

A little more about the move....

There won't be too many more doors... Auckland's home owners can breathe easy again. I love this one and have been trying to take a picture for ages but the family living behind it quite often leave it open to let the sun stream in.

Thank you for all your good wishes. I think I forgot to say yesterday that I am happy to be heading home to Australia but also really quite unhappy to be leaving Auckland.

It wasn't an easy move here and if you'd told me then that I could leave I would have whooped all the way to the airport. We arrived in the middle of a wet bleak winter and it took a while for me to meet people and make friends.  I think because I'd moved a lot I thought I could snap my fingers and settle straight away.

Nearly two years later there is rather a lot to leave behind. Good friends for all of us, great schools, a beautiful country we've hardly had time to explore and an easy, pleasant family life.

Now I just want to snap my fingers and fast forward a year - in three months we'll have moved and after nine months in our new home I know we'll feel fine. That's my nine month moving theory - so grateful to have a chance to test it again....

Melbourne is not really home for me but I lived there for ten months or so five years ago and loved the little life we built then. Last time we lived in an inner city suburb - this time we're looking for a little more space for the boys so it will be an altogether different Melbourne life.

My six year old is embracing the move - I was very worried as he didn't like moving much at all at the age of four.  This time he's very interested in getting a new house, a new school and new friends and most of all very, very pleased that his new life will include lots of time with his very cool Uncle. We're very pleased too.

Mothering....

Ah Mother's Day. I love it and almost sometimes loathe it.

I love the scribbled messages, the cards and cuddles. The "Happy Birthday Mummy' from an enthusiastic but ill-informed nearly three year old. The oversized legs on my portrait. Really kid?!

I love the other half's efforts in the kitchen, the sleep in (anything after seven am qualifies) and the trashy novel he bought me as a joke.

I love that the accidental ending of the six year ban on guns in our house has meant so much to my school boy. The ban was about as useful as a UN resolution.

What I don't love is that Mother's Day can make you feel slightly niggly about an otherwise lovely Sunday.

My poor partner had to spend most of yesterday at work catching up on the hundred things that are hanging over him. I wanted him to go. I never resent the time he spends at work. That would be pointless... I know he'd much rather be somewhere else.

It's not like he spent Mother's Day playing golf (he loathes it thankfully) or swilling beer at the football (there's no Aussie football here) but still I spent the day feeling slightly cheated and slightly cross about feeling slightly cheated.

It's like New Year's Eve and having no party to go to but not really wanting to stay up past midnight anyway.

I spent Mother's Day being a mother.  I went to the supermarket with two kids in tow and hissed at them to behave 'because it was Mother's  Day.' I hoped no one would see me... surely no socially right on mother would be buying milk and pasta and lemons on Mother's Day. They'd have their feet up or be tucking into Mother's Day lunch.

I had a friend over who is trying. Not trying company, she's trying very hard for a baby. What's Mother's Day like for her this year? Or those women who've given up trying.

How sad too for those whose Mums are no longer around.  I have my wonderful mum but I didn't see her or my husband's mother on Mother's Day as they live in another country. A lunch with them would have been nice. Maybe Mother's Day will always leave me feeling ever so slightly guilty about where we live.

I do love mothering but I'm not sure I need a fuss or a present to confirm it. Next year we'll ignore the commercial rubbish just as my own mother always insisted.

One exception, chocolate. Last night my husband turned my ever so slightly niggly mood around by giving me his Picnic bar.

Every Sunday should be like that. Mother's Day or not.

Time with family...

Gardening, beaching, exploring, walking the walking school bus, visiting the classroom, swimming, soccer, cricket, lego and crafting countless paper aeroplanes.

A week of doing the little everyday things together. The little things that the grandparents in our family don't often get to do.

Thank you both for coming all this way. Please come again soon. x

Heartfelt...

There has been a lot of love on the blogosphere this week... apparently it was Valentine's Day this week, yesterday I think. I only realised halfway through the morning when my gym instructor wished me (and forty others I should add) a happy Valentine's Day. After a hard forty five minutes clmbing up imaginary hills on a bike he gave me (and the other forty) a chocolate heart. I didn't have the heart to tell him how much chocolate I eat in a week.

We ignore V Day in our house and my parents (who are staying with us) have always ignored it. They've been married nearly forty years and still laugh at each other's jokes (Dad jokes and my Mum laughs) so I rather think we can happily go on ignoring it. 

I read somewhere that today is Singles Day. I'm sure it's made up but do I like the idea. Not that I want to be single again, I rather enjoy my husband's company and love family life but I did like the time I had as a Happy Single before he and the two boys came along. 

These flowers are for all of you - the singles and the smug and not-so-smug marrieds. You may have seen them before on my table. Perhaps I'm in a flower rut but I do rather like them...

I also like my new purchase - new to me but old and no longer needed by someone else which is my very favourite sort of household item. 'Thrifted' is the term given to the shopping habit of more clever people. Me? I go to lovely well styled shops and buy my second hand goods there.

 The flowers and the new jars go very happily with my favourite green cupboard - also pre-loved and now very much loved by me and even my Valentine. The painting is one I bought when I was 23 and it's waited until this house to hang on a wall. It looks made for this cupboard with the same muted, restful tones. Odd how that happens by accident. I could never have planned it.

I am a little absent this week... spending time with my parents and my children. For families who move too much this is a rare treat and we're loving it.

A blogger's life...

Friends often ask me when I get time to blog. The truth is I probably don't have time to blog - I just do it when I should be working, cleaning or watching my children.

The 'watching my children' bit is what's causing problems.  A few weeks ago I was trying not to cry over spilt milk, yesterday I was having a delightful trawl through my picture file and fiddling online. I could hear my two year old playing happily down the hallway, making truck noises and banging his lego around. I only worry when I can't hear him. Mistake.

For trucks and diggers you need dirt and dirt is what he had.... what a busy, busy boy.

He didn't say much but I could tell he thought it was a fine idea. I have a nasty feeling he might try it again... on the carpet.

No sleep and spilt milk...

I have been neither terrific nor prolific on this blog lately. For that I apologise. 

I have misplaced my blogging mojo this month. Everything I read seems a lot more interesting than anything I have to write. I wouldn't be so vain as to call it writer's block but maybe it's what happens to the professionals. Bear with me, I'll fire up again soon... 

My home help is not helping either.... this is my two year old in action...

He is in action all day now. He's decided that at the age of two years and five months he's way too old to sleep during the day so instead he potters around finding trouble. Quietly.

This time he came to me at my desk asking me to take the lid off his empty bottle. Absent mindedly I did. Then he returned proudly with it absolutely full to the brim with milk.

I came out of my blog induced coma and sprinted through to the kitchen to find the milk carton almost empty and a puddle of milk. I have heard it said that you shouldn't cry over spilt milk so I didn't, I laughed.

"I clean it...", said my assistant and proudly showed me his milk sodden sock.

So helpful. So funny. So not helping me get my blog mojo back.

Fanatics...

Australia, or a very large proportion of it is a little obsessed with a rough old game called Australian Rules Football, largely characterised by a lack of rules. It's a game that the boys in our little family are destined to love even if we don't live IN Australia. My five year old headed off for his first father/son match on our trip to Melbourne earlier this year.

My husband is a very, very big fan of the much maligned Collingwood Football Club. The Magpies.
'What do you call a Pies fan in a suit? The defendant.' The jokes go on and on.

So the Grand Final last Saturday. 100,000 roaring fans, a nailbiting match and unbelievably a draw, 68-68.

Even more unbelievably no provision for extra time, just another Grand Final a week later.  So today  another 100,000 people in roaring form at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.  My husband, poor man, watched it alone in Auckland pacing the room shouting at the television. I am rather glad I wasn't there.

But I am very very glad for him that they won. By rather a lot.

This is the last time I will ever mention AFL, I promise. I can't say the same for my husband.

Our weekend...

Our five year old is taking charge. I know he's been running our lives since he was born... this was more formal. He put pen to paper and set down the plan for Saturday.

Mmmm, wave pool with bab (dad) and a go on the water slide. Then sushi.  Then home. Kids today hey? We'd never heard of sushi when I was five.

Unfortunately it didn't quite unfold like that. A motorbike dinged the car (okay the car might have dinged the motorbike). The trip was delayed a day and after the wave pool we went home BEFORE we bought the sushi.  There were wails of disappointment from the master planner - 'we can't do that, that's not what I wrote!'

He'll learn that you can write a list or make a plan but it might not quite come off as you'd hoped.

And the mother of the year award goes to....

Yes, there is a trundle bed there that usually prevents this from happening.  Yes, I forgot to pull it out. Yes, he did stay sleeping like this long enough to get a little patch of carpet pattern indented on his cheek. Yes, the first thing I did when I found him was to get the camera. Yes, he does look very comfortable.

Sundowner..

This might be what keeps Auckland in the top five cities in the world in those most liveable city rankings. Its harbour is simply lovely and very, very easy to access... even without a boat or the kayaks we keep talking about buying. 

This little jetty is hidden down off a cul de sac quite close to our house and used by those in the know for swimming on summer evenings and fishing in the winter or even just a quiet drink and a chat as the sun goes down.  This rod isn't ours... just one my keen fisherman tried out while we chatted and his little brother looked for fish in the water.

Those kayaks will be put to very good use this summer... and they'd be pretty darn good on a winter's day like this one too.

Books for new babies...

Our friends are having babies... lots of them, pink ones and blue ones. Most are on to their second or third child and I think their houses are already full to the brim with cute baby stuff.. clothes they grow out of in a month, a gazillion soft toys or those infernal bits of battery powered plastic that still litter my place.

I now mostly buy books as gifts and I don't necessarily buy those designed for babies to chew the edges.  It's lovely to have a shelf of books for a child to grow into.

This is a favourite.

Written by Ursula Dubosarsky, The Terrible Plop is about a rabbit who discovers that not everything is as frightening as you first think... it all starts with an apple.

It's wittily told and beautifully illustrated in a rather retro way by Andrew Joyner.  He has very kindly  given this little tutorial on his blog on how to draw your own bear. I am going to try it but I won't share the result. Too scarred by school art classes.

Another favourite? This...

It's a simple little story about friendship.

An Australian author, Aaron Blabey's has written other books about other kids, the charming Sunday Chutney and his latest, Stanley Paste. Here he introduces you to Stanley.

If he looks familiar to Australians (Aaron, not Stanley) it's because he's been on the telly a fair bit in his other life as an actor and won an AFI. (Australian Film Award to the non-Australians...)

According to his publishers, Aaron likes 'old armchairs, lovely sharp pencils, the way trees look when their leaves fall off, mayonnaise, his unfashionable record collection and looking scruffy'.  No wonder I like his books...

(Both books published by Penguin. Images from here and here.)

A weekend walk...

Winter walks...

A Saturday afternoon walk at our local harbour beach in Auckland. T-shirts, ice-cream, climbing, jumping, running and Dad with the camera.

Seventeen degrees and sunny on the the 3rd of July... I just thought I should confess that despite my whining about the rain it really is rather warm most of the time in Auckland and sometimes even quite dry and bright! Just not a great deal from about May to December.

I no longer look at the weather forecast - it's such a topic of conversation that someone will always tell me what's in store. And I think it must be mostly guesswork for the poor forecasters.

Auckland, for those of you who don't know, is on New Zealand's north island. It's quite close to the top of the island and straddles a narrow neck of land. Without a large land mass on either side, living here is rather like living on the deck of an ocean liner.

The weather is 'everywhere' (as I once heard on an Arican weather forecast)... squally showers sometimes blow across four or five times in an hour. And it can be bright, clear blue sky in between. Or like today, so much rain you can't quite imagine the sun ever coming out again.

I have given up on my want for a washing line. Pointless. Instead I play washing roulette ducking outside with the washing frame and then dashing back to rescue it from the next downpour.  I've also bought a decent rain jacket and never go to school without wet weather gear for all. Well actually I have quite a few times and got terribly wet. But I'm learning.

Last night we barbequed in the pouring rain.  In the true Australian way,  Mum  did the salads (roast vegies as it is July) and Dad did the meat, umbrella in hand.

I think you could say we're starting to acclimatise.

Little chef, Big chef...

Okay, so how do you cook a meal that's healthy, easy and your kids love? Well, you let them do it. 

Pizza bases, piles of sauteed mushrooms, steamed broccoli and zuccini, sliced ham, plain old tomato sauce and frozen peas. Even more fun than lego.

Nowhere in any cookbook have I seen a picture like this. But the boys love it AND they eat it. And quite often I have a slice or two myself.

Couch potato...

Now that's a sign of a good weekend.... his grandmother to stay, soccer with his brother, Lego and Thomas trains, Toy Story 2 on the TV, a BBQ dinner in the rain. Running, jumping, kicking and laughing and a big boy's four year old party to top it all off.

At two, he thinks he's ready to drop his lunchtime sleep. I'm not so sure.

A taste of Melbourne...

Ah Melbourne, how I do love catching up with you.

We've just had a short holiday staying with family and seeing old friends. My brother lives in North Fitzroy so my parents flew in too and we all stayed together for the weekend. Just lovely.

The boys love their Very Cool Uncle. Highlight for my five year old was the sleep-over at his place or perhaps more accurately the computer games on his TV.

The boys played soccer in the hallway and soccer in the park, kicked up the leaves in the street and entertained their grandparents.  The cat flap was an unexpected bonus.

Making the most of the babysitters we shopped a little, walked a lot and ate out.

We wandered down Brunswick Street, had brunch on a much-changed Gertrude Street, bought  indigenous art at the Australian Print Workshop and checked out my brother's new studio in an old Carlton mechanics' workshop.  He's still cleaning off decades of grease and painting it out but it's already  home to the sort of stuff little boys (and even their non-sewing mums) would love to have at home.

This was endlessly fascinating, almost as good as a cat flap.

As we spent Sunday morning with my cousins, my husband told me it was his turn to catch up with his family  - turns out he meant the Collingwood Football club. I think he's actually serious. Football is no laughing matter.

It was the first father/son football match for them and yes I checked, it is okay to dress like that in public in Melbourne. In fact, expected.

Day tripping...

Sometimes New Zealand feels a little old fashioned in a really delightful way. I've told you about Devonport before.  It's one of the loveliest places to spend a sunny morning and even though it's just across the harbour from the city it feels like a proper day trip. The lazy man's day trip.

Our two year old loves boats and shouts with excitement when we drive past the city ferry terminal. So yesterday we took the boys on a ferry adventure and ended up soaking up the autumn sun on the top of Devonport's little volcano Mt Victoria.

It's a bit of a walk for little legs but even the youngest breezed to the top this time and still had the energy to jump, run and roly poly.

 

Next time we'll head across to the smaller of Devonport's two volcanoes for a play in the old tunnels that cut through the hill.

What a lovely way to while away a sunny Sunday. 

Clowning around...

Whacky Hair Day at school. That's a lot of hair and even more hair wax. I've warned him not to go near a naked flame. Unlikely at five I know.

And how cool is this? It's a room designed by Kate Dixon in Kansas City, Missouri with whacky kids in mind. Lots of ideas to steal. I have seen it half a dozen times already and keep forgetting where. This came from here and now it's here so I can keep it.

I am certainly not into the modern travelling circus idea but Enid Blyton's version was pretty fabulous. Remember Mr Galliano's Circus?