Well I’ve finished The Road and thank God it’s over. It’s the last time that I read anything that just happens to be on Oprah’s book club!
As you may have noticed from the sidebar I’m reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy at the moment. At this stage I’m just over half way through and I just have to say that it is one of the most depressing things I have ever read! I’m waiting for some ray of light, some scintilla of hope to appear but it’s not – just a constant barrage of hunger, fear and despair. The most uplifting thing in the first 5 hours of reading is the fact they the man and his son found a cache of food.
Reading this book is like wading through a sea of grey, ash filled molasses…….
Sitting in the longe at Auckland airport about to catch a flight to Tokyo. God, these places or boring – or is it just that I spend too much time in them?
Another bummer is my upgrade request didn’t come through so I have an eleven and a half hour flight stuck in cattle class/economy/coach 🙁 At least it’s a day flight so I don’t need to worry about sleeping with my knees around my ears……..
Speak to you from Tokyo. Sayonara baby!
Just another quick one – there is a BIG update coming soon!!
Many thanks to everyone that sent cards, emails, texts, flowers and pressies for my birthday – you know who you are! I’m having a great day and really looking forward to my weekend away – flying to Auckland, shopping, cocktails and dinnercheap windows 10 key with the fabulous David and Claire (friends from London), a night in a hotel, and being able to sleep in – bliss! And I’m so looking forwardwindowskeysto lunch at Wagamamas – one of the many things I miss from the UK but is now here (although not in Wellington – yet!)
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It is Marc’s birthday today. Hardly saw him as he had to work, but we’ve just come home from having a very nicewindows 10 product key meal at Taste in Khandallah this evening – just the two of us which was lovely.
I know I needwindows10explained.com to do an update – so much to tell, so little time! Will try to get one done this weekend 🙂
Max started morning kindy on Monday 23 April so we’re now well into our new routine – now all have to be up, dressed, eaten breakfast and out the door by 8.30am every morning, which means we’ve had to set an alarm in the morning – for the first time since the boys were born! Max has settled in really well and there is now a lot more structure – I guess getting them into more of a routine for starting school. It’s now five mornings a week (instead of three afternoons) so he gets pretty tired by the end of the week which means a very PMP grumpy boy! It’s nice having mornings just with Elliot, and then a couple of hours in the afternoonwindows10explained with Max while Elliot naps – but now I don’t get any free time to myself (unless I can convince Max he also needs a nap in the afternoon – has worked twice so far!)
Other things that have happened:
Do you remember Softy – our monarch butterfly caterpillar? We came home from Max’s first day at kindy to find Softy out of the cocoon and drying his wings. We watched him over the next few hours until he climbed up on top of the fence, flapped his wings a few times and off he flew. We still have Silky and Smoothy in theirWindows 10 Professional OEM Key cocoons, but they should be hatching in the next week or so.
The boys spent a day out and about with Grannie Annie. She took them to the beach at Petone, the park and for a picnic. Max was most excited that he had had two picnics – one at the beach and then another when they got back to Grannie’s house.
They also spent a day out with Grandad and Ngaire, but as it was a public holiday they didn’t get to go on the steam train at the train museum (unfortunately it was closed). Marc and I took James (one of Marc’s ex-colleagues – visiting from Sydney) out for lunch and then on a tour of Wellington. He came back to our house for dinner, and had a great time playing with the boys.
The following weekend was Elliot’s 2nd birthday. We didn’t have a party for him this year but we did go out for brunch and had fish and chips for tea. Thank you to everyone for the lovely presents, and especially those of you overseas who sent him clothes – he got so many that he won’t need to wear too many of Max’s hand-me-downs!
Marc has been away travelling a lot – he had that week in Sydney, has just returned from eight nights away in Las Vegas, is in Auckland today and tomorrow, home all next week, then back to Auckland for two days (looks like that will be happening once a fortnight), then he heads back to Sydney for another four days the following week.
As for me – I’ve been busy taking the boys to kindy, playgroup, music, supermarket shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, kindy and playgroup committees and all those other things mums get to do! Have also spent evenings getting my business up and running. I’ve been sorting and displaying samples, packaging up stock, and now just have to get people to see the products! I seem to be off to a good start – sold 23 cards in two days last week, and have four ‘coffee and card’ events booked in so far for May/June. The products pretty much seem to sell themselves as they are fantastic quality at less than shop prices. Will just have to see how it goes.
Bet you were wondering what we’ve been up to? I realise the last big update was a month ago – we’ve been pretty busy, so I’ll just note the major things we’ve done:
Marc’s football team had a pre-season game on Sunday 25 March which they won, and Marc’s legs seem to be OK (he was out for most of last season with Achilles problems). He’s played again a couple of times since then, and all’s going well.
I did a turn at parent help at Max’s kindy before end of term. It was nice to see what Max gets up to there and how much he’s changed since he first started going. The younger kids now follow him around including three or four girls who always want to play with him. He’s off to morning kindy at the beginning of next term (five mornings a week) so he’ll be the youngest for a little while. It will be interesting to see which of the big kids he follows around!
We’ve also spent a lot of time with Ian and Ngahuia – who live down the road (both colleagues of Marc when he worked at Dell – and he now works with Ngahuia at NetApp). Ian’s daughter Megan has been in New Zealand (visiting from the UK) so we took Ian and Megan along with us to playgroup, music, swimming, Junglerama, and the local park. Max and Megan are a couple of weeks apart in age and got on really well….
We also spent a lovely relaxing weekend with them at their holiday home over the hill in the Wairarapa. The weather was great and the kids (and I&N’s dogs) spent most of the weekend running outside.
The following week was end of term for playgroup, music and kindy – with Max having a party at kindy on the last day – not because he is moving up to morning kindy – but because Linda (his favourite teacher) was leaving to move to another kindergarten. She has been fantastic with him and he (and the other children too) will really miss her.
My mum also had her birthday during that week, so the boys and I had lunch with her, and that night Marc and I, my sister Ali and her partner Clay took mum out for dinner to a fantastic Cambodian restaurant in town where we had a lovely meal – we’ll be going back again I’m sure.
Easter was nice but busy. I attempted to make Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday. I used the recipe in my breadmaker book and they turned out to be absolutely revolting – next year I’ll do it the real way and knead everything by hand. Saturday the boys had a birthday party to go to for Max’s friend James who was turning 4. His party was great and the kids enjoyed a treasure hunt, pass the parcel and playing musical statues (which was entertaining as it’s pretty hard for 4 year olds to stand still!) After the party we went to Ian and Ngahuia’s for a BBQ – the weather was pretty mild so we sat outside to eat dinner (possibly the last time for a little while though). Sunday the boys were excited to find the Easter bunny had left them an Easter egg each, and they also enjoyed running around outside finding the ones hidden there.
They were also given Easter treats by Ali and Clay, Nana Jan, Grannie Annie, Clay’s little niece Emma (she’s not even one yet!) and some money from Grandad Len and Ngaire – thank you to all of you. The rest of the weekend is a blur as it went past so quickly, but I know we enjoyed a really nice BBQ dinner at Grannie Annie’s, we collected and put together bunk beds for Max, moved the boys bedrooms around, farwelled Megan, Marc played football, and I managed to do a little bit of gardening too!
We then had two weeks of school holidays to fill – so have had lunch on various days with Marc, Grannie and Nana, morning tea with Auntie Ali, various playdates with Max’s kindy friends, a visit to the library, a birthday party for my friend Nickie’s son Ryan who turned 2, and Max and I did lots of weeding and hacking of bushes on fine afternoons while Elliot slept. Marc is currently away (for the second week of the holidays) on a training course in Sydney so it’s been pretty hard going entertaining both of them all day, everyday! Thankfully he gets back tonight.
I’m also busy setting up a little business so that should kick off in the next couple of weeks – I’ll tell you more about that soon.
Not making any promises but I am going to try to update more often (more than once a month anyway) in the future!
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by Margo Roark.