I know I’ve been AWOL, but maybe it’s because I’ve been trying to find partners for all these. Argh! Do they have any idea how infuriating this is for a person who likes things to match up? You’ll notice that there are single socks for every member of the family except me. I honestly don’t know how this happens. What are they doing with their socks??????
What better way to celebrate our children’s New Zealand beginnings than to plant trees? I’ve said before than there is always something special about the place you were born. I wanted a special way to honour that, and create something lasting for the children to remember and hopefully visit again one day.
I came across Cue Haven on the internet, and after making contact, arranged a day to go up and plant some trees for the kids. What a fantastic day! Tom and Mahrukh are warm and hospitable people, and have such a great plan for their piece of land. You can read more about their project at their website. Basically they are restoring their land which has been used for grazing for over 100 years, back to native bush as it would have looked prior to being cleared for farming.
The boys each planted a Totora and Emma planted a Puriri.
Here are some pictures of our day.
Tags: conservation, new zealand, tree planting
My youngest son ended up with a leg fracture the other day after falling from the top bunk. I got to thinking about the various accidents and injuries over the years we’ve been parents. Here’s the tally.
GIRL INJURIES:
BOY INJURIES: (not all the same boy)
Admittedly we have three boys and only one girl, but then she’s been here longer so that should even it out somewhat. This list doesn’t innumerable bumps and scrapes, but the boys are clear winners in those as well. Boys! My poor heart. There are still so many years ahead.
Last night I was thinking about buying a gift for a friend’s young child, and I thought how I didn’t want to buy clothing or toys that might not last, but something more lasting. And I got to thinking about books and how they have such a lasting impact, planting the seeds of the earliest imaginations. I started thinking about which book every child should get to read…which made me drift back to my childhood…. and these are the books I read as a young child that I can still remember to this day.
This is the story of a little boy who gets a goldfish, and is warned by the pet shop man not to overfeed it. And true to human nature, the urge to test it out and see what happens is too great. Alas, the goldfish is over fed, and grows and grows, until as you can see by the picture, it out grows not only his bowl, but the bath and the entire house. Great rhyming story and illustrations that capture the imagination. It struck the fear of overfeeding gold fish into me, so I guess there was a lesson there too.
A very sweet story of the mythological Australian Bunyip. Darkish illustrations both delighted and spooked me as a child. The bunyip emerges from the creek not knowing what he is or what he looks like. He proceeds to ask a platypus, a wallaby, an emu, and finally a man who answers by saying that bunyips simply don’t exist. Poor bunyip goes away sad lonely until another strange creature emerges from a nearby billabong.
I defy you to show me a child who doesn’t poke their finger through the little holes in this book.
I particularly remember having this book read to me and the anticipation building page by page because I knew what was coming. If you weren’t careful reading this book, you might find Mr Tickle and his long arms reaching around the corner of the room you’re in right now and find yourself well and truly tickled!! I love how children ask to be tickled, then scream with laughter and beg you to stop. This book reminds me of that.
Another Australian classic. It has become a favourite of my children too. When I was about 10 my uncle took me to a reading of this book by the author Mem Fox, accompanied by the Australian Symphony Orchestra. She signed my book. I love the illustrations in this one, and have enjoyed other books illustrated by Julie Vivas as well.
Perhaps not as well known as Where the Wild Things Are, this is still a great book. I still LOVE the illustrations! It’s about Mickey who is supposed to be going to sleep but finds himself floating into the ‘night kitchen’ where the bakers are busy baking the morning cake. He finds himself almost baked into a cake. They chant “Milk! Milk! Milk for the Morning Cake!” So Mickey flies in his dough plane right up to the Milky Way, dives into a milk bottle, swims back to the top and pours some milk down for the three fat bakers. The bakers rejoice and all is well. Thanks to Mickey there will be morning cake. Apparently this book was a bit scandalous at one stage because Mickey is naked. My 1980′s Australian primary school evidently didn’t have a problem with it.
The hippopotamus gets to do all the things the little girl in this story wishes she could do. That is, take showers instead of baths, watch TV instead of going to bed and eating cake whenever she feels like it. I understand. I really do.
Has anyone else out there enjoyed these? What are you favourite books from childhood?
Tags: Books, Children, Children's literature, Fiction, Maurice Sendak, Mem Fox, Possum Magic, Roger Hargreaves
This happened at our local shopping mall just the other day. Flip, what a cool moment. Would have scared the crap out of me…
A facebook friend of mine who is a Kiwi living in Australia posted the other day her wonderings about whether her children growing up in Australia would get Haka chills or Waltzing Matilda chills. I ask myself the same thing…and actually hope it’s both. Although I have to say Waltzing Matilda doesn’t really do it for me. It’s just not in the same league as a Haka. (As cliched as it is, I do confess to singing Waltzing Matilda to travelling companions at the Taj Mahal though. We showed those Canadians a thing or two. )
Tags: Australia, Haka, maori, new zealand, Waltzing Matilda
It’s funny how when you start thinking about leaving a place, that suddenly you are acutely aware of all the things you will miss about it. I have to say that the upcoming move to Australia isn’t really about the grass being greener on the other side. In the literal sense, the grass is definitely greener on this side. Adelaide having a much lower rainfall, my memories of the grass there in the heat of summer is patchy brown dusty tufts, the earth being so hard and dry that sometimes the water would run right over it. And in the metaphorical sense too in many ways, there are things here that I love and will miss dearly, and I will think of as the greener pastures.
As I drove to work last night, I couldn’t help but smile (and laugh actually) at the cars jammed full of proud Tongans and Samoans, furiously waving their nations flags and tooting their horns in their excitement about the Rugby World Cup. Living and working in South Auckland has exposed me to the Pacific Islander population and I know I will miss them. I love to see their strong sense of family as they gather around their sick relative in the hospital, many families holding vigil by the bedside for the duration of their stay. They attend to all the personal needs of the patient themselves, bring in their favourite foods and eat together in large groups. I always enjoy when they sing, play ukulele and pray together. A beautiful splash larger than life colour. I have learned things from them. Somehow the thought of being surrounded by mostly Caucasian people seems rather insipid. (No offense intended to all us whites…but we really do lack colour in more ways than one). I think on arrival in Adelaide I will have to seek out some diverse populations and plonk myself down in the middle of them.
When I first moved to New Zealand I was such a proud Australian that I felt a little sad that any children we had wouldn’t be Australian by birth. I got over myself though and now of course have four Kiwi kids. I could not be prouder that they are New Zealanders. One of the things that is hard about moving is that they are leaving the land of their birth. I am certain that there is always a connection between a person and the land they were born in, and there’s a sense of being uprooted when you leave. I know that they will want to come back one day. I hope they keep close ties with New Zealand as they grow up. New Zealanders are some of the friendliest and most generous people I’ve met.
These are the thoughts on my mind as we go through our garage today and sort out our things into those we will keep and those we won’t. It feels good. It feels hard.
Tags: Adelaide, Australia, new zealand, South Auckland
I have beans.
I’m going to spill them all over you. Well some of them at least. Of course there are always beans I keep carefully wrapped and tucked away in no danger of being spilled. But the ones I’m going to spill are the we-are-moving-to-Australia ones.
Yep that’s right. I guess you could say I’m going home. But what a lot of thoughts that phrase conjures up. Home? There’s a whole lot that could be said about what a home is, where a home is. It’s not a simple as that, having lived here for 11 years. My kiddies were born here, 2 of them in this house, so moving doesn’t come easily. The heart is torn, but it’s time.
I have mixed emotions about it right now. Excitement and panic in equal measures probably sums it up. The actual move is still at least 4 months away, maybe a little more. It will depend among other things on the sale of our house. We are busy at the moment of clearing it out, cleaning it up and making it ship shape for sale.
We’re getting rid of most of our stuff. And because it’s September which is both my birthday month, but also that of charity: water, I am donating the sale of our household stuff for the month of September. 100% of the funds are going towards the purchase of a drilling rig to drill more wells for clean water in Ethiopia.
For locals, you can see the stuff I’m selling here, and my campaign page for September is over here. Of course you can go ahead and donate without buying something if you want, just to make me happy, but the idea is that you get the stuff and instead of paying me for it, you donate to charity: water.
So yeah. That’s them beans.
Those of you who know me well will be aware that I sometimes have a thing or two to say about theology. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but if you care to have a read, I have been writing my rants and raves on theology at Thinky Think.
Tags: Christian theology, Theology
When I describe this book to people, I tell them that it’s about family, mothers and daughters, the land and belonging to it, mental illness, love and fires. It also has trees. And a donkey. And some goats. I also tell them that it was written by a hippy mother of four children who lives 6 months of the year in a community in rural India. Rachel blogs at Journey Mama, I’ve been reading there a while now, living vicariously through her a tiny bit. Mostly for the beautiful beautiful places they stay. Right now, near a lake close to the foothills of the Himalayas in Nepal. Absolutely stunning.
Anyway, the book. A simple story, about a family on a ranch that is threatened by a forest fire. This event is a catalyst for the coming together of the Molly’s family – her mother, children and husband to join together to save their property. As the pressure and stress of this event build, long time issues, past regrets and brokenness spills out of the cracks.
The strength of this book is the way the author writes about relationships…their complexities, and the baggage that we bring to them, how messy they can be, and how generational they actually are, but running beneath it all in this story is the strength of love. That love doesn’t always come easy, never comes cheap, but brings healing and reconciliation. It wasn’t syrupy or tidy. This book is very real, but graced with redemption and hope.
What’s going on? Why haven’t I been posting here?
Gee, I dunno…just have nothing to say. Well that’s not strictly true. I always have something to say. Whether it’s worth listening to is another story all together.
But life is just ticking along. I’m feeling slightly grumpy and unmotivated…the mid year or mid winter doldrums. There are plenty of things I need to do, and plenty of things I could do, but I’m finding myself wasting time and not planning my days well. Doing nothing does not provide much real life to write about I’m afraid.
But I have been reading. I’m sorry to admit to Ari, that I didn’t finish reading The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. I wanted to. Just because I like his name. Fforde. Ffunny. I read more than half, and got distracted and hadn’t read it in large enough chunks at each reading to really get into it. I love his imagination, and the literary references were clever, the story interesting enough..but I guess it was just tooo fiction for me. I didn’t fall in love with the main character enough to bother carrying on with it.
I am currently reading The Eve Tree by Rachel Devenish Ford. I’ve been reading her blog for a while now….she lives part of each year in India, and I like to live vicariously through her just a little bit. Although I’ve recently realised that though other peopeles lives or the lives we dream of may seem magical, there is no dream like quality to them…they are still messy and have their fair share of irritations and struggles. Annnnyyyyywaaaaaayy…..how I go on! The book! Yes, the book is about mothers and daughters, and mental instability or vulnerability. It’s about the land and belonging to it, and trees and family and fire. I like.
Today I filled the biscuit tin with home made Oat Crisps and got messy with glitter and glue and stickers with the kids. And yesterday I wrote a letter.
That’s about it.
Last night I was thinking about buying a gift for a friend’s young child, and I thought how I didn’t want to buy clothing or toys that might not last, but something more lasting. And I got to thinking about books and how they have such a lasting impact, planting the seeds of the earliest [...]
The Eve Tree – Rachel Devenish Ford When I describe this book to people, I tell them that it’s about family, mothers and daughters, the land and belonging to it, mental illness, love and fires. It also has trees. And a donkey. And some goats. I also tell them that it was written by a [...]
Healing Spiritual Abuse – Ken Blue Helpful little book with a redemptive motivation. Even though it is written mainly for victims and perpetrators of abuse, it’s a useful book for everyone, so don’t be put off by the title if you don’t think it’s for you. The author contrasts healthy and unhealthy church leadership by [...]
What follows is a shameless plug for a little creative venture that my friend Zo and I have been busy with. Bosom Books are one of a kind, hand bound and hand painted books for unlimited uses. Journals, poetry, inspiration, shopping lists, book lists, reminders, sketches or whatever you like. “A bosom friend–an intimate friend, [...]
A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry Set in the mid 1970′s in India during the Internal Emergency, it weaves the story of four people who develop an unlikely friendship. The first part of the book introduces us to Ishvar and Om, an uncle and nephew duo of tailors who leave village life after tragedy to [...]
