Christmassy jollifications and other goings on

Despite a mini-heatwave leading up to Christmas, Christmas Eve was cold and blustery with diagonal rain most of the day.  The traditional Kiwi Christmas Day BBQ was under threat.  However, the heatwave reasserted itself in time for the big day and hasn't stopped yet:

Here's a run-through of what we've been up to.  WARNING: contains nudity!

Happy Christmas from Godzone!

We've been rather quiet on the blogging front recently - it's been a tad busy as we've been combining end of semester for me, end of term for Reuben and Tilly, the start of the triathlon season for Dave, a sprinkling of birthday parties and sports events and the general mounting excitement over the approach of Christmas and the long summer holidays.

Here's a lovely handmade card by Miss Tilly:

which had this beautiful picture of its creator inside:

And here are some more festive colours for you: no holly and ivy in the garden but I did find these.  Yay for summer!

Meanwhile, Reuben came back from school with a self-penned book called The Magic Turkey, a dramatic tale of how a turkey evades Thanksgiving lunch, on the back of which was this lovely author's bio:

The name's Burdekin, Tilly Burdekin

Discovered this on Tilly's writing pad the other day:

So I want to know: has Tilly been contracted to write the script for the next Bond film?  If so, what happens next, because it sounds gripping!

Or is she just demonstrating an overly cautious approach?  Perhaps her life is actually full of hidden dangers that her parents simply don't appreciate because we've forgotten what it's like to be six. I don't remember it being particularly perilous, but maybe I've blocked out something traumatic.  Hmmm....

What we have been eating recently 4

For a start, some of us have been eating things we weren't supposed to:

I call this the 'well, it's your fault for leaving the chocolate spread jar on the side where I could reach it after dragging the stool across the kitchen and climbing up' expression. Harriet can add it to her croissant stealing expression, I suppose.  As for the rest of us, we've been enjoying a new cake recipe

Harriet shows a range of emotions

What could possibly make Harriet pull a face like this?

Feel the full force of my displeasure, miserable offender

What Harriet's bottom can tell you about the state of the nation

Quite a lot actually... So here is the posterior in question:

and yes, Harriet is indeed 'backing black'. Literally. I think you have to be a complete hermit not to realise that, in New Zealand, anything with the word 'black' in it is rugby related.

What we have been eating recently 3

It's lemon season here at the moment.  I planted our tree last year and right now we have about 20 lemons waiting to drop.

We've been in Auckland for four years now, but I still find it exciting that we can grow lemons in our garden.  Not quite the same as the allotment in Leeds! Anyway, as they say, when life hands you lemons...

Reuben is a poet and the rest of us are quite creative too

Reuben came home with this poem and drawing on Friday. 

Hannah has a secret admirer

Soooo, I've just received this beautiful flower arrangement. Not from Dave, and don't know who else over here who knows it's my birthday today might have sent them. Anyone out there recognise these flowers?

Tilly finds her dead parents very inspirational

On Tuesday we get home from school as normal. Tilly stays outside and rings the doorbell.

Me: yes?
Tilly: [stage whisper] can we pretend that I'm a visitor?
Me: oh, ok. Er, hello visitor!
T: hello. My parents are dead and I came to stay with my grandma but she's not in so can I come in?
Me: !!!!!

This was only the start of a major 'dead parents' scenario that occupied Tilly for much of the time before tea and even inspired a new piece of music.

Dave is extremely very useful

A domestic rather than sporting triumph this week!  As you know, Dave is good at that triathlon business when he's not busy being excellent at work, and he can also provide a comfortable location for bedtime milk-drinking as far as Harriet's concerned.

But that's not all.

Happy anniversary to us!

No, not this one:

A brace of birthdays

Reuben and Harriet have just celebrated their 8th and 2nd birthdays respectively.  We've just about cleared up the shredded wrapping paper and I've stopped finding hundreds and thousands dotted around the kitchen, so here are some pictures from the celebrations.

Tilly is a novelist

Our Tilly is a very creative girl.  Just recently she got busy with the paper and sellotape and made her own book.  And as a blank book is clearly in need of a story, she sat down and wrote one.  Ladies and gentlemen, we present:

Help we need a title!  If you can't think of a title for your book, then this is what you call it.  Genius.

Reuben is a chip off the old block

I'm afraid this latest video of Semple Burdekin antics has been hanging around for over a month,

What we have been eating recently 2

Number 2 in a very occasional series… I took the photos for this blog post and started writing it in September 2013.  But then - gaargh! - I lost the recipe and only discovered one that was as good as the original yesterday.  It's been tested and approved by Reuben and Tilly, so here you go:

Ruth Burdekin came to stay with us recently for a few days and brought some awesome cookie cutters with her, plus the cookie dough.  Cue a baking session with plenty of child appeal:

What's so good about these biscuits then?  Prepare to marvel at...

Only in NZ? Parliament discusses the colour of the PM's pubic hair!

Well. Since moving here, we've occasionally raised eyebrows at some of the stuff that comes out of the mouths of our elected representatives.  There was the time, for example, when Prime Minister John Key supposedly referred to David Beckham as 'thick as bat sh*t'.  'Don't think they'd say that in Westminster', we mutter.

Yesterday, it was John Key himself who was under discussion - or rather, the colour of the Prime Minister's hair and the all-important question: is it completely natural?  No it isn't, said opposition politician Winston Peters, who wanted to know: 'Why don't the curtains match the carpet?'

Apparently he was referring to an apparent difference in shade between the hair on the top of the PM's head and his sideburns, but that's not how it was understood in Parliament.  You can read the full story here.

No pain, no gain

Hope you're not reading this over breakfast folks because this delightful specimen:

really is Dave's toenail and as you can see it is clearly not attached to his toe.  However, it was lost in a good cause, which was the attainment of this: