Why Hannah has been neglecting her family

I haven't spent much time recently sipping cocktails in my negligée while buffing my nails, but I have been slaving over my Diploma in translation.  As of last Friday, all the marks have been totted up and it's OVER.  Yay!  

Christmas Spirit

The sun is sunny, the sky is blue and the temperature is about 20 degrees today, so it's clearly time to start making Christmas cake.

How else to measure out 125ml of whisky, apart from in Harriet's bottle?

Hannah is less busy, Tilly is excited, Harriet worries about vampires and Reuben thinks that Dave may or may not be inspirational

Wow - can't believe I haven't updated the blog since June.  There was the small matter of surviving  semester, which started in July and was horrible while it lasted but is now OVER!

Celebrating the Shortest Day in the snow

Snow in Auckland is as rare as hens' teeth, but at Harriet's nursery they celebrated the Shortest Day by buying a load of snow and dumping it in the carpark for the children to play in.  Here she is enjoying a snowy frolic with her buddies:

The nursery had announced it in advance, which is why everyone else's child had come prepared with hats, gloves and boots. That detail had slipped my mind, which is why you can see my underdressed child is the only one wearing trainers.  However, it's 15° today, for all that it's technically "Midwinter", so I don't think she suffered too much!

I am a winner!

Good news!  Last week, I did my first ever paid translation.  (Drug interactions in diabetic patients causing hypoglycaemia, since you ask)! Not that I have the money in my account yet, but theoretically that thousand words has earned me $160.  Yes, if you divide the amount by how long it took me, the hourly rate would be paltry, but this is the first money I have earned since November 2012, so it's VERY exciting.  Up until now, my contribution to the household finances has been trying to avoid spending money, which always feels like a Sisyphean task.

To add to the excitement, I got a call yesterday from the supermarket to say that I had won the weekly $500 prize draw.  Woo hoo!  Here I am displayed on the winners' board earlier this morning.  

Today's winner is H. Bur..., H. Bir... what? Nah, forget it - today's winner is Hannah.

$500 is about 2 1/2 weeks of food shopping, so it's really useful.  Thank you Pak'nSave!  (Still think your name is rubbish, though).

Pah humbug

This morning I was heading past Pah Homestead* and decided to stop off for an explore.  Dr. Semple's orders were to get some exercise to see if that helped aid my recovery.  I'm not sure that an amble through the art gallery inside the house and the park quite counts, but it's all I felt up to.  WARNING: contains nudity and this time it's not Reuben!

More fun with the Pastafarians

Sunday lunch al fresco.  Beans, courgette, tomatoes and basil from the garden.  If only we had space for a vineyard...

We were so inspired by our pasta-making experience a couple of weeks ago, that we decided to give the pasta machine another outing today, and this time we let the children help.

Getting pastalicious

For some reason Reuben and Tilly were talking about homemade pasta recently, and I was sufficiently inspired to dig out a recipe, mix some dough and get my pasta machine out of the cupboard.  And the results were really, really good!  I've bought fresh pasta in the supermarket over here, and it's actually not that great - quite rubbery and dense in fact.  But this homemade stuff was, as the Masterchef judges like to say, light and silky!  Here is the master at work:

Hannah's day is more exciting than expected

Here I am all glammed up on Tuesday morning in a baggy hospital gown and charming hairnet and ready for a septoplasty and mega antrostomy