Life lately

On New Year's Day this year I made pie.  Begin as you mean to go on, don't they say?

My first ever attempt at making the dough from scratch and while there is certainly room for improvement, I'm calling this one a success.  B for one was cutting the most obscene wedges when he thought I wasn't looking.  I used this recipe, if you're interested.

No I didn't manage a true lattice.  My dough was too short and breakable for any attempts at fanciness.

I used jam from the berry farm just down the road from us and it made for the most scrumptious (truly the most over-used word these days) tangy and sweet filling.

Due to excess pie and excess everything else, I have got to get back into my fasting routine again.  My clothes are telling me the unvarnished truth about all that indulgence.  Sigh.

Luckily we have veg coming out of our ears, including the most enormous broccoli you ever saw.

We don't use any chemicals on our edible garden, but I have to confess that I find the search and destroy grubs mission before each meal a bit tiresome.

While we're confessing to things, I also must admit that those fabric present bags I made won't get another run.  I love the concept and all but in the end it is so dull pulling a present out of a bag in comparison to the tearing of the wrapping paper.  Especially for the little girls.  So gift wrap will darken my doorstep once again and I'm ok with that.  At least it's not more bloody plastic which is basically impossible to eradicate from our lives.

Onto happier tales.  Look at Spotty Ram, who's living with us at the moment.  I love him.  He tolerates me because he knows I control the supply of pellets which he loves.  Soon I will have him eating out of my hand and hopefully giving him scratches on that beautiful forehead.

Look at his regal profile.

The dahlias are in full swing and it's been fun seeing the different varieties we have.  This deep red one is too challenging a colour for my camera.  Try as I did to play with the settings, and to edit the photo afterwards, I can't get it anywhere near the deep almost blue-red that it is in real life.

Kindy starts back next week which we're all looking forward to.  Poor little J has been asking pretty much since they broke up in December when it's time to go back.  Either that or she puts on her backpack and tells me she's going to kindy.

It's definitely a juggle having the two of them home every day and J is usually the one who misses out, or who has to be patient, or share, or help.

Now to wrap things up, and because this post has somehow come across a bit blue and pensive, here's some photos from golden hour the other night.

2017: finding my way home

Brace yourselves!  Here comes the pensive pondering of the year that was...

In January the purchase of our ten acres went through and it all became official.  We were really and truly going to move to New Zealand.  I remember when B sent me this photo of our new front gate and I just about couldn't breathe from excitement.  Was this really happening??

Those first few months of 2017 passed in a blur of stress, excitement, fear, apprehension, and joy.  Oh and sleep deprivation.  Always with a side of sleep deprivation.

Suddenly it was April and we packed up our house in Perth that had so many happy memories attached.  Splashing in the pool, scootering up and down the driveway, many beers and laughs shared with friends on the back verandah.  J's first steps, A's arrival, it all happened here.



We farewelled that sun-drenched suburban garden...

...for a slightly damper but much bigger one.

With the added bonus of our country lifestyle dream.  Acres for our girls to roam, animals for them to raise and care for, warm eggs collected from under soft feathers, fluffy calves waiting at the gate, wood smoke and muddy puddles and apples hanging in the orchard.

Yes, it rained this winter.  It rained a lot.

There were so many peaceful misty mornings that I stopped rushing out in my pyjamas to photograph them.

It rained some more.  The paddocks literally streamed with water from all the rain.

And in between times it was very cold.  Biting frosts, layers upon layers of woolies, the fire roaring all day.

We got sick.  Over and over, the revolving door of coughs and colds that everyone had warned us about when moving to a new country.  The girls coughed and coughed and coughed, they had permanently runny noses, we consumed (what felt like...) litres of children's paracetamol and ibuprofen.  We were up with them, worrying, in the cold tiny hours of the night, or lying awake listening to one - or both - cough in their beds, and worrying.

We were stuck inside due to the rain for days on end.  J's gumboots all sprung leaks.  The cows huddled in the sodden paddocks.  The trees were bare and cold, and the wood basket was filled and emptied, filled and emptied.

Then someone threw the switch and the sun came out.

A learned to crawl, and her sleep improved (for a time anyway).  A sunny little toddler personality, with a side of fiery temper, emerged from that forlorn difficult little baby.

The trees and the garden beds all sprang to life with blossoms popping open and bulbs poking through the soil.

The paddocks exploded with buttercups.

My baby A turned one.

We added chooks and sheep to the menagerie, and had homegrown produce that we could barely keep up with.

The girls fought and cuddled and made each other shriek with laughter, then fought again and made each other cry, and then cuddled and read books together.

The feijoas, hydrangeas and the pohutukawas flowered.  The sun beat down, the ground dried and cracked, the grass grew tall, went to seed and died.

The joy and excitement of Christmas filled little J to bursting, we ate and drank and the girls opened mountains of gifts.  A day on the beach, shells in little plastic buckets, sunburn, hats, sandy toes.  Little girls fast asleep in the back of the car winding our way back home, hot chips for dinner, early to bed for us all.

It's been a busy twelve months.  So much has happened since this time last year!  It's been hard at times, feeling lonely and exhausted and sometimes plain fed up.

Over and above all, though, it's been the year we finally got to start living the life we've dreamed of since we first met.  It's been watching J pick a sprig of thyme to smell as she passes by.  It's seeing A laugh properly and joyfully for the first time.  Watching B tend to his animals.  Sunshine, rain, frost, and steaming humidity.

And for me, it's that feeling of being a long way from where I started, but also home at last.

The abyss between Christmas and New Year

You know I've had a sedate new year's eve when I'm up and blogging by 9am on the 1st...

We've had such a good post-Christmas week.

I've totally fallen into that "no idea what day it is" mode.

Firstly I want to discuss beeswax wraps briefly.  If you haven't heard, they're the new environmental replacement for cling wrap.  I don't want to lecture because if you don't care you just don't care.  BUT... just think for a second about the fact that every piece of plastic you've ever used is still in existence.  Probably landfill, but just as likely the ocean.

Even if you really don't care, there can't be any harm in using less, right?

Anyway, I got mine from Lilybee Wrap, who were fantastic, but you would be able to find a seller local to you.

I've only had mine a couple of weeks but I'm a convert.  They work exactly like cling wrap, except you give them a quick wash under the tap in between uses.  I've also seen recipes online to make your own and it looks really easy.

Ok, lecture over.  Moving on!

We had a great Christmas day, with all the joy and wonder that small kids in the house provide.  We ticked off all the cliches:

Cookies for Santa...

Carrots for the reindeer (from our own garden hence so miniature)...

And a shiny new bike for a certain almost-three year old.  The squeal of joy when she came around the corner and saw it on Christmas morning will be tucked away in my heart forever.

We had a big breakfast with family: poached eggs, croissants, smoked salmon, gift wrapping strewn across the floor, and B at the stove labouring over his hollandaise sauce.

After breakfast there was time for a quick go on the new bike.  Suffice to say that there will be a lot of practice required!

We then spent the rest of the day visiting various family, including a huge reunion on B's mum's side of over one hundred people.  Back home in time for the girls' bedtime and then a very early night for us.



Boxing Day was the slow pace we all needed, pottering around playing with Christmas gifts.

So many happy memories!

We've had some damp cooler weather thank goodness and the garden is loving it.  Check out the first dahlia!

And this sunflower clearly has triffid in its genes.  It's well over two metres tall.  We got the seed from a Little Gardeners pack that one of the supermarkets here was giving out as a promotion in spring.  I don't recall exactly but I think if you spent over a certain amount they'd give you a little box with a degradable pot, some seed mix and a couple of seeds.  There were about 30 different plant varieties to collect.  Such a cool idea to get kids interested in gardening.

Last night for new year's eve we had a quiet dinner of freshly caught snapper at home with B's mum and sister.  After dinner The Last Samurai was on tv.  As B hastened to tell me for the fiftieth time, it was shot here in Taranaki, with Mount Taranaki standing in for Mount Fuji.  I must admit it was pretty cool to watch the outdoor scenes and recognise the scenery.

B and I shared a Kit Kat and were in bed by 10.30.  Up this morning early with the little girls, and on we go into 2018.  I'm aiming for a quiet year with no major life changes...!

Happy new year to you all, and thank you for the support, advice, and laughs throughout 2017.