Our weekend...

Piha on the wild west coast. Simply stunning on a bright Sunday in May.

I'll tell you more when I have a little time to spare.

Wood if I could...

This is it... a room I spotted recently in Australian Home Beautiful. It's a Federation place in Kew in Melbourne. 

I love it and when flicking back through my ideas file (which pre-blog is in a plastic folder) I realised why. I am drawn time and again to the white walls, clean lines and polished floors combined with rustic, one of a kind timber pieces. 

We have an eight seater pine table - antique and my most prized possession... I have joked that I love it more than my children... I was joking until it was suggested it might be more practical to sell it than lug it around the world.

It's moved four times and has been squeeeeeezed into a couple of Sydney homes. We bought it in an antique shop in Melbourne and houses in Melbourne are a little larger than your average Paddington terrace. Having dined elbow to elbow in our London flat (as I told you here) I got very excited about being able to seat 8. I'll show you one day when I've polished it.

And speaking of polish - Kristine at The Painted Hive is a relatively new blogger too but one with talent!  I so envy her knack with old furniture. 

She has posted a fabulous list of the best stains and finishes for wooden pieces. Find it here and store it away for all those projects sitting in your garage. 

Now this is saved in my new virtual folder and I'll work on making my living room look like this on a slightly smaller scale. And I'll also try to keep in mind that this room probably doesn't look like this that much either - the owners have five sons!

(Images from Home Beautiful Australia, photographer  Rhiannon Slatter)

The milk of human kindness

I am having an up and down kind of week... but thankfully it is now much more up than down.

The other day I lost my wallet. Popped to the hardware store with the boys to buy light bulbs and came back with a lovely pansy-filled hanging basket that was half price and a bit too heavy to carry while wrestling a two year old with an aversion to car seats. In the chaos the wallet disappeared.

After much searching and racking my brain as to what on earth was in it I cancelled all the cards - in two countries...

But there is an upside to a) never having any cash in my wallet and b) never cleaning it out.  A very nice truck driver found it scattered across the road near our house and dropped it in at the local physiotherapist because he found an old appointment card.

Ah the kindness of strangers. I am so grateful...

Now what have I learned?

1. Don't be an idiot.
2. Make a list of all the things that live in the wallet because you forget.
3. Make a list of all the things that live in the wallet. (worth repeating as I am a very, very slow learner)

By the way, milk of human kindness  meaning care and compassion for others came from the Great Man Himself. Not the really Big Guy but Shakespeare.

Macbeth "Yet doe I feare thy Nature, It is too full o' the Milke of humane kindnesse." 

Google is a great thing.

Milestones...

My five year old has been at school for a whole term now and his reading is leaping ahead. When he started he could write his own name but that was about it. As I may have mentioned he's never been that keen to sit still and draw, write and read  until now.

It's amazing watching it click in his head and as we are a family of book lovers it's wonderful to see him enjoying it.

At the weekend I sent him to his room for some quiet reflection on the damage he did by kicking a football at his brother's head - accidental but worth a spell away to think about it!

When I put my head round the door ten minutes later he was lying on his bed reading out loud from the first book he's ever read on his own, Green Eggs and Ham.

He really could not have chosen a better book to tackle. Green Eggs and Ham has just fifty different words - 49 of them have one syllable and the hardest is "anywhere".

Sam!

I like Green Eggs and Ham!

I do! I like them Sam-I-am!

I would eat them in a boat.

I would eat them with a goat... 

Apparently Dr Seuss - real name Theodor Seuss Geisel - had just written the Cat in the Hat which used 225 different words and his publisher bet him fifty bucks he couldn't write a book with 50 words. He could and he did. He did and he could. Oh dear, stop!

I have to admit Dr Seuss and I are not close. I find the Cat in the Hat drives me batty and The Lorax leaves me babbling so it's become Daddy's job to read them to the boys.

Well now I have to eat my hat so to speak.   The book went off to school for "news" which we called "show and tell" in the olden days... The reader has now moved up to Yellow Books in the classroom with large doses of Seuss in the evenings and yes, even with me.

Thank you Doc for helping my boy feel rather proud of himself.

Self improvement...

This is an odd thought for an April Monday but I have a bit of a thing for a brand new year and for the  New Year's resolutions that come with it.

I love other people's resolutions too and have the most fabulous friend who really sticks to hers. I don't see her that often but we normally get together over Christmas and New Year so I'm always sure to ask for a progress report and see what she's resolving for the coming year.  

A few of her resolutions stick in my mind. One was to learn to swim - I'd never realised she couldn't. She reminded me about a day ten years earlier when we'd dived off a yacht together and she'd struggled to get to shore. I'd no idea that day how scared she was.  She stuck to her resolution, got swimming lessons and now swims laps to keep fit.... impressive.

In December I asked her how she'd gone - and out of her wallet came 2009's list - tick, tick, no, mostly.

So I made a list this year although it took me until February to decide what should be on it. I wanted my resolutions to be specific and not just "do more housework" or "eat less chocolate" - although both of those should be  there!

1.  I wanted to look and feel better physically by next Christmas. My youngest is now two so the whole "I've really just had a baby" simply doesn't wash any more.  We go back to our home state each year and I've been struck by how great some of our friends looked after twelve months of eating better and exercising. . I know - simple. Well, I'm doing it. Gym three to four times a week and much much less junk. So maybe that one will get a tick.
2. Read more selectively. Read books that don't immediately appeal and stop reading eleven crime fiction books in a row because I liked the first one.  Read the books on our shelves that my husband loves. Pick up random books in the library and give them a go. Do not read trash. This resolution is a work in progress.
3. To say yes much more to the boys. I feel as though I am failing spectacularly on this one. But tomorrow is a new day and there's always next year. 

By the way, the photograph is of the beautiful Wineglass Bay at Freycinet on Tasmania's east coast. A lovely, lovely part of the world to make resolutions.

The life that I have...

The life that I have

Is all that I have

And the life that I have

Is yours

The love that I have

Of the life that I have

Is yours and yours and yours

A sleep I shall have

A rest I shall have

Yet death will be but a pause

For the peace of my years

In the long green grass

Will be yours and yours

And yours

It's one of the only poems I have ever memorised. What a hopeless spy I would have made.

During the Second World War poems were used to encrypt coded messages. One of Britain's top cryptographers Leo Marks wrote this in 1943 and gave it to Violette Szabo a famous French agent who was later captured and killed by the Nazis.  Leo Mark's book Between Silk and Cyanide is a fascinating read.

It seemed appropriate on Anzac Day - a day shared by Australians and New Zealanders. Both my South African grandfathers went to war and fought with the Allies in the Pacific and at Tobruk. I hope we can be so lucky that our sons and even grandsons won't have to do the same.

My sixth photo...

My sixth photo was in my third post which was my first on day trips from Auckland. Following me?

Rachael at the very lovely A Room For Everyone has tagged me - I now head back and pick out my sixth pic ever posted on my blog. I didn't have to go far as a new blogger.

This was it... well actually this was the seventh photo but this is my blog so my rules....! (The sixth was a picture of some boats that I won't bore you with again.) As my mother is my most loyal follower this is for her - it's tough when your grandchildren are in another country.

My littlest will be two in a few weeks and he is really, really TWO if you know what I mean. It's good to remind myself how lovely he is when actually he is terrible sometimes. Won't take off his pyjamas in the morning, won't put his pyjamas on at night, hates getting in the car and then out of the car - you know what they're like. A lot of muscle flexing as they assert their independence. Should only last a year or two!

He is a funny kid. Loves to laugh, loves the rough and tumble, loves his older brother and all his older brother's stuff. Loves bikes, balls and boy stuff like trucks and cars. Likes a shower now and not a bath. and will soon be in a big boy bed... he also really really likes his Daddy.

As it's my rules and I am very new I am also not passing this on... but thank you Rachael for including me.