May 2009

May 28th, 2009

returning



I’m back online.

twitter
flickr
getty

Lovely NZ will be being tended to again, soon too.

Less than a week in this house. The cats fly out on Tuesday. We fly on the 16th after a couple of weeks at my brother’s. Hong Kong first. Then Auckland – currently creaking under the weight of all those feijoas. Excellent news.

10 Comments »

May 25th, 2009

everything all in good (Astrid) time



Sometimes as parents we wonder whether Astrid shouldn’t be doing this, or that. Because everyone else’s children are, and have been, for ooh – well at least this long.

But Astrid – no way. Astrid is all about Astrid time. Expert at digging in the heels. Expert at immovable. Astrid will not do anything she doesn’t want to do.

No way.

Jose.

We told you how Astrid can shake her head no no no nope nope. No. No Absolutely not. Definitely No. You know we had to invent the Astrid Wiggle so she could find a way to say yes. Now it’s more a dance and a little song than yes. But if something really good comes along the Astrid Wiggle tells us so.

But Astrid can now Say Yes. Only when she feels like it. Often Astrid will still shake her head when we think she might possibly mean yes. And when she asks for something she’ll shake her head as in, no. I know I’m asking but you’ll probably say no. So it’s no? Right? No? Yeah? Shaking head. No? Right? Can I? No?

But all of a sudden. Astrid is now VERY interested in all the things we lamented she’d never want to do. Like cleaning her teeth. Like washing her hands. Washing her face. Using the potty. Washing her hair. Cutting her nails. Cutting her fringe even. All now wanted, and asked for.

All the No’s. All the No’s are now yesses and can we pleases.
All thank you to a nice new facecloth.

And a little bit of Astrid time.

7 Comments »

May 25th, 2009

me and my pans

I don’t know whether i’ve mentioned this – but my main ambition for our trip to the uk this time was to furnish myself with a nice set of le creuset pans. So I’ve been monitoring amazon – and I must admit I’ve been kicking myself for not just buying everything I wanted when the satin blue was half off – but i think I’ve found my final two pieces to complete the set.

Because my life is so exciting I spent all of last night looking for the best pan to buy before we go back because they’re six hundred dollars in New Zealand (also not a joke) and our red habitat one has well and truly died. And because I’m not averse to the odd bit of mixing and matching – and because we like yellow – we bought the olive pan which is quite nicely reduced. I found a nice Tefal Jamie Oliver one but that would be one step too far in the mixing and matching department.

And while I was buying the olive pan I discovered the 26cm olive baking dish which I already have and love is reduced from £20 to £7. And the ramekins are a bit of a bargain too. Anyway just in case anybody wants to know, that’s not bad.

As long as you like yellow that is.

edit: changed my mind today as I saw the olive pan in a shop and it’s way too shallow and small so I bought the non-stick lidded wok instead. And the baking dishes at that price have sold out.

6 Comments »

May 14th, 2009

(muji) spree



It all began with a pair of black shoes and a navy raincoat.

Nothing like a few pieces of beautiful simple design to refresh one’s everything. I feel brilliant walking down the road in a lovely black jersey knit dress, black leggings (today indigo marle), grey cotton socks, simple shoes and a navy cotton jacket.

Brilliant.

12 Comments »

May 12th, 2009

Fleeting



Not been around here much of late.
I’ve been slightly grappling with the whole blog thing. The whole flickr thing.

The other day I observed the arrival of purple wisteria petals, fallen from the pergola – and thought to myself, in a past time I would have returned swiftly with my camera – and now I don’t really care. But apparently I do. Because today I returned with my camera and took, just the one photo – late evening in the front courtyard.

Soon to not be our courtyard. Soon we’re on the move again. I’m going to miss this house. This little house that’s too small for us but I think I’ve loved it more than any other house I’ve lived in even including the big one in mount albert. But that’s the one we need to be back in for the kids to grow up. They need space to move around. Big long halls to go careening down, leaping over sofas, chasing each other out into the garden and back again all through the house, up the hall, into any one of three bedrooms, rumpus room, kitchen, sunroom, living room, dining room, out onto the deck and back into the garden they go…

Every time we think we want to stay we just think of the space for the kids and we know it’s the right thing. For us. For now. Oh but do we love it here though.

People have said to us we must settle down. We must stay somewhere. We’re crazy. We’re mad. We should just settle down. In part yes, that’s absolutely right. But we’re already planning our next trip here. A different way to be here. A bit easier. A bit less of a wrench. Maybe a bit more Auckland than London, but London too nevertheless.

You know it was only the other day I noticed the wisteria.
And already it’s on its way out.

10 Comments »

May 12th, 2009

installing xampp and wordpress



image – late summer garden 2008

I’m building a wordpress site locally so I’m using XAMPP to create a local MySQL database.

A foolproof tutorial on installing XAMPP and WordPress can be found here.
And if you want to install Drupal and XAMPP the best tutorial is here.

1 Comment »

May 2nd, 2009

Rufins cattins



That’s what we call him sometimes. Rufins.

2 Comments »

May 2nd, 2009

last IKEA hurrah







We’d been avoiding the fact but Edith is well and truly filling up the moses basket now. And the mattress is all lumpy and rubbish. So off we went to IKEA last monday. For the last IKEA hurrah. To buy her a cot as we’d sold Astrid’s fancy organic one. And some frames for prints that have been sitting rolled up for far too long. Two wall-lights also because we never could find any in Auckland that we either half decent or remotely affordable. We got these, in white – perfectly fine and as usual for us, the cheapest.

Oh how we’ll miss IKEA. They won’t let it into New Zealand because it would put all the crap overpriced furniture places out of business. The government’s excuse was, “IKEA cannot come to Auckland – it will cause too many traffic jams”. And guess what, I’m not joking.

11 Comments »