Tuesday, January 18, 2011


It has been really odd weather here today. We're not used to humidity - that's an Auckland phenomenon - but we have had it today. Hot, hot, hot, and then it suddenly rains, but doesn't cool the day off, and hot, hot again.

Despite that I got outside to play with the water trough and hose, and sandpit, with the little kids for quite a while this afternoon. I was surprised at how dry the soil was when I did some weeding. Toddlers with buckets soon fixed that :-)

After dinner, and I was just sitting outside in my arm chair, watch the westering sun illuminate the black rain clouds. I was able to scarper back inside (with my upholstered chair) at the first drop.

I suppose we should take the kids to the beach. They can swim in rain or shine, and it'll cool them off.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Happiness is...

...three kinds of cake for dessert!

Well, there were three kins of cake, but we couldn't manage to eat them all for one dessert. We'll probably have to have some of one of them for breakfast, and there will still be more of all of them.

How did we come to have such a abundance of confections, you ask?

It was Rowena's birthday last week. But she was at camp, so this afternoon Elanor made a chocolate cake for her birthday, iced with chocolate icing and pink writing and blue flowers. Good job Elanor!

But at the same time Rowena was at afternoon tea at a friend's house (Sophie). The friend had made a cake for Rowena's birthday too (carrot), AND a cake for Anna's birthday as well (chocolate). But Anna wasn't able to come, so they had two large cakes and only 4 girls to eat them.

Sophie has a small family, so when it was time to come home she gave Rowena half of each cake to bring with her. So Rowena arrived home with 2 x 'nearly half' cakes, each about 10 cm tall - that's a LOT of cake!

Of course we sang for the one Elanor had made, and cut that first. Then we (not Ro - she was already ahead) had carrot cake too. But the 2nd chocolate cake (and all the other leftover cake) is just going to have to wait for breakfast. Or supper... :-)

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Back to blogging

Ok, so the title is aspirational, but perhaps it would be good to blog occassionally.

My dedicated reader (only one!) has noticed my absence from the blogosphere, and commented on this with regret. I blame it all on facebook, which encourages quick, low effort, updates. But if I do one post today, that will be one more than last year, and you never know - it might become a habit.

(The theory is that if you perform an action every day for a month it will become a habit, and will become easier to maintain. Not yet sure if I have a commitment to one month...)

Anyway, what is today like here? Hot, windy, and I'm tired because I've just come back from one of those weekend meetings I have.

I did say on the Friday that I'd realised that I need to take better care of myself, and I do need to sleep. (This caused some amusement among my friends/colleagues, as I'm the one who gets my '2nd wind' in the evening and is then able to work until quite late.) And that perhaps we should agree to stop for the night at dinner, or 9pm, or something. Obviously we didn't agree that very strongly, because we worked much longer both evenings. Oh well... they can't say it's me keeping them up ever again.

That said, it was a useful, productive, and relatively relaxed meeting, so it's all good. And we seem to have gelled as a team and understanding each others' working styles.

Nice to be back with family this afternoon.