2019 40 Hour Famine

This weekend was the World Vision 40 Hour Famine. Here's what happened during our fundraising for refugee children from South Sudan.

Return to Matarangi (and blogging)

It's a year since we've stayed in Matarangi and about half that since we posted anything on the blog and it's good to be back! School holidays this week and next so time for an autumnal beach holiday. Here's what we got up to on Monday.

Hannah's new baby

Been slacking off the blogging recently, as I've been busy with my new baby. Drum roll please! I'm delighted to announce the arrival of my business, Muse Translation.

Arrival of the Knitting Ninjas

Tilly was at a loose end yesterday.  "Do you want to learn how to knit?" asked Dave.  Only one teeny pair of knitting needles in the house and a trial with chopsticks was unsuccessful.  However, a Google search revealed how-to videos about arm knitting.  Tilly picked this up in about 2 minutes and within 30 minutes (not exaggerating!) had knitted her first scarf.

The 40 Hour Famine

A guest blog post by Reuben, typed by Hannah.  

At the weekend, I took part in the World Vision 40 Hour Famine, which is an event where you ask people to sponsor you for giving up something in your daily life, such as food, using electronics, etc.  All the money raised is going to help build child-friendly spaces for Syrian refugees. This year I chose to give up using furniture and having meals prepared for me.  That means I had to sleep and eat on the floor and help cook all the meals.

I started my 40 hours at bedtime on Friday evening at 8pm.  

Harriet's awesome bike riding

Harriet got a big girl bike for her 4th birthday last week.  Here she is on her second time using it, showing that she's cracked the art of pedalling as she zooms around the school playground on Sunday.  She's definitely a good advert for why balance bikes are a Good Thing - no stabilisers here and no need for a parent running alongside bent double.

The bold adventurers go camping

A report by Tilly, typed by Hannah.

Yesterday, me, Reuben and Dave got ready to go camping in the Hunua Ranges.  First we had to check our gear and put our sunscreen on.  Then we had to pack everything into our backpacks and get in the car.

Greetings from the future

Happy New Year y'all!  We got to 2017 before most of the world and can report that it's good so far -
in NZ at any rate.  Here's a round up of our recent Christmas events.

Christmas Day started with the traditional opening of Christmas stockings.

Reuben was bemused by the presence of a mandarin in his.  Just a joke, we said, because back in the day, you'd have had a mandarin and a lump of coal and you'd have been happy!

Harriet's carnival mask was a popular stocking filler.  It went on a trip to the beach















which is absolutely heaving at this time of year, as you can see

stayed on through present opening and didn't come off when Harriet crashed on the sofa for a mid-afternoon nap, while we were waiting for the now traditional beer-butt chicken to cook on the BBQ.

Although in fact this year, it was actually 'wine with bouquet garni-butt' chicken.



Aren't we posh?!

On Boxing Day, we went to Ambury Regional Park.  Why haven't we been here before?  There were farm animals to see, shady trees for good picnic spots



lots of space for a ramble down to the foreshore of the Manukau Harbour



and some fine views.



Plus good trees to climb with branches wide enough for sitting and reading.  Very important when your name is Reuben and you are rarely voluntarily without your nose in a book.

Yesterday we had time to kill in Auckland while Dave checked his patients at the hospital, so we explored part of Auckland Domain that we hadn't visited before. Reuben and I found this face in a rock carving

while Harriet was very affected by the statue of Cain and Abel.

"Oh no!" she was exclaiming as I took this shot, "a killed person!"

Meanwhile, Reuben had noticed something else interesting about the statue.  "Oh look," he said, "someone's stuck a flower up his bum."  Let it not be said that my children don't know how to appreciate Art. Just the kind of thing one of them would do, I was thinking, so trust them to notice it when someone else beats them to it.  Here's a close-up for you if you didn't spot it first time:

The pièce de résistance, I'm sure you'll agree.  Then we got back to our picnic spot.  "We saw a statue with a flower up its bum" said Reuben.  "That was ME!" exclaimed Tilly, beaming with pride.  Right, well - as I said, they sure know how to appreciate Art.

Then we headed down to the Viaduct for some less highbrow splashing in the pool in Silo Park and some ice cream in the Wynyard Quarter.

Good fun that was funny in the sun that was sunny, to misquote Dr. Seuss.

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

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....