The Kaiapoi Women's Institute

A couple of months ago I spoke to my friend, lets give her a blog name...Martha (you know who you are!), about getting together with a bunch of like minded ladies, generally Mums. The purpose was to share homemaking/crafting/gardening ideas with each other. This went down a treat as Martha had been thinking the same, and in fact her sister had set up a group where she lives. So we set about getting our little club together, and hey presto, the Kaiapoi Women's Institute (youth division) was born.

Here's the current KWI members (must think of a better name!)

Mrs T - Friend, Working Mum, 1 son, 1 Husband, 1 Golden Labrador puppy soon to be received. Look forward to meeting you Bessie!

P4Perfect (formerly P-Lala) - Friend, Sister in Law, Domestic Engineer, 2 sons, 1 Husband and soon to be new home owners at the wonderful Pegasus Town development. Why can't you stay living in the VM Commune?? What's wrong with us?

Martha - Founding Friend, Working Mum, 2 sons, 1 husband, 1 doggie called Morris, 1 insatiable appetite for anything gardening/crafty/baking etc etc etc. Do you get the name connection? Here's her blog; http://fromplot2plate.blogspot.com/

And last, but most certainly not least...

Miss MoneyP - Newest friend and a great find! - Working Mum (2 jobs), 2 daughters, 1 Husband, hidden craft talent, Netball/Athletics Extrordinaire.

Last week we met for the second time. We shared recipes, ate a wonderful frozen cheesecake made by this months host, Mrs T. Quaffed some wine (the painting took some concentration, so not a huge amount was quaffed). It was simply wonderful! Our purpose is to cover some of these topics on a monthly basis;

• In the Garden
• In the Kitchen
• In the Cleaning Cupboard
• In the Craft Basket
• In my Mind

Of course in a fun, non serious/but deadly serious kind of way.

Most of the subjects are self explanatory and In my Mind I feel is the opportunity for us to have a moan and groan or chat about anything that might be bothering us. Which I reckon I could probably hold court with for most of our meet up.

We decided on our first night to do Miss MoneyP's kids paintings. Boy did I think it would be a challenge. However, it was surprisingly easy. I haven't yet finished my cow painting for Master L's bedroom, but here's a picture of our wee group and our achievements. Aren't they fab??


Suggestions on a name other than Kaiapio Women's Institute are all welcome. In fact they are invited!

Auld Davie

My Papa (Mum's Dad) passed away on Thu 11th March. It was his 84th birthday. For those of you that may not know, my family are all in Ayrshire in Scotland and I live in New Zealand with my husband and kids. I haven't felt the distance between my family and I as much as I do right at this moment.

I'd give anything to be with my family to help them mourn and join in their grief. But I can't be there. My kids need me and I need my kids right now. On Friday, I spent most of the day writing a little poem that I'm hoping will be able to be read at his funeral on Thursday.

A Tribute to Auld Davie

Shaking your false teeth, making gurning faces,
Grabbing my knee, tickling me in different places
You’d continue until I’d squeal in defeat,
Then stand me up and dance whilst I stood on your feet.

Sitting down to many Sunday dinners that Gran used to cook
You’d distract me and point out the window to “look!”
Then season my Sunday lunch with pepper, your favourite,
Get the meat on your plate, cos you knew that I hated it.

My Papa, My friend… A big torment!

Holidays, parties, family times, a lot to remember
As I write this my heart is like a burning ember
Funny songs, silly nicknames, Dirty Agnes was one,
I remember we used to have so much fun,
Planes, steam trains and pipe band music,
Playing on your keyboard, and teaching me how to use it.

Tales of the good old days and photographs to ponder,
I’d look into your face with a huge sense of wonder,
Sitting on your knee, never to old for a cuddle,
Then you got older and your mind started to get in a guddle.

You’d get confused with our names, never find the right one,
You reverted to calling everyone “Lass” or “Son”
Too many to remember I used to say,
You just continued to do it your way

Today I give thanks, for the time that we had.
My memories they simply make me so glad,
That I knew you, I love you and I’ll always have,
The best parts of you with me, here in my heart.

Goodbye Papa. xx

**NEWSFLASH**

Numbers 1 and 7 from the previous post are now struck off the list. Can I get a "hell-yeah!"?

Here are some other events that require recognition.

Today = bad day. As in one of those Mummy days where you shout at your kids for doing kid stuff and then you feel guilty for shouting at them. Then you feel mad at them for feeling guilty for shouting at them, cos if they hadn't been awake between 1:30am and 4am then you wouldn't be feeling so god-damned crabbit and cranky to shout at them in the first place.

Cue tears at playgroup this morning. Thanks Auntie P-la-la (your new blog name) for the hug.

However, I can confirm that today is almost over and I've survived.

Music Man in Auckland overnight on business. Kids fed, bathed and in bed asleep before 7pm with no tears and mummy shouting. Cue *fanfare*

Today was a contradiction of emotions. Nothing a glass of fine red didn't sort out.

Now, where's my to-do list....?

I've been busy, busy, busy....

...procrastinating!

Yes, its been one of those weeks already. Here's the stuff I haven't done.

1. Haven't paid the speeding fine I got travelling to our holiday home. There's something about Murchison (place) and me. Last year in the same town, travelling to the same place, I reversed Music Man's car into a parked 4 wheel drive. This year a cop with his blues and two's howling pulled me over for speeding in a 100kph zone. I'll tell you I was clocked at 113kph. I am sorry, truly sorry, but I was having a debate with Ella in the back seat. Just like the year before. Thankfully this year, Music Man and I didn't have to argue about it!!

2. Paid car insurance, i've still got another week to get onto that one. Can you see a common theme?

3. Organised a meal planner for the week, so we're just having a "what shall we pull out of the freezer today" week.

4. Tidied the computer desk.

5. Applied for Kiwi and UK passports for Master L.

6. Tidied out my car.

7. Cleaned my car.

8. Looked at places to go for a holiday in Scotland.

9. Ironed Music Man's shirts.

10. Cleaned out the fridge.

11. Blogged about our Holiday.

There are innumerable (word?) other things I haven't included above that are boring and mundane, but still need to be done.

On the upside I have achieved a few things this week.

1. Spoken to Mum and Sister on the phone.

2. Spoken to Emirates on the phone to do various bits like confirming seats, meals and accommodation for our trip.

3. Watered houseplants.

4. Had my sis-in-law over for lunch yesterday.

5. Did a load of washing.

6. Procrastinated.

7. Procrastinated some more.

8. Blogged on here, which is probably classed as procrastination too.

Well, the way I look at it, some weeks you win and achieve a helluva lot. Other weeks, it starts badly and you've just got to do as much damage limitation possible.

My damage limitation last night involved eating too many chocolate biscuits whilst folding a pile of washing and watching Greys Anatomy and Private Practice.

What? You didn't know I've got no self-control?

At least I can multi-task.

I'm back

Its been a busy couple of weeks. Been on a week long holiday with family and had a lovely time, but it took almost a week planning to get everything packed and organised to go on holiday. How does that happen? We had a lovely time and I'll do a seperate post on it when I get time to upload photo's.

Here's a quick update of what's been going on lately.

Organising - new filing trays for paperwork and a cork/white board combo for my to-do lists. I always keep them in my head and therefore ALWAYS feel overloaded with stuff to do. This way its out of my head and I feel less stressed. Phew.

Broken camera - we've had ours for a few years now and it's finally given up on us. I'm working on Music Man to invest in a new digital SLR when we travel home to Scotland. Nikon D70 is a preference.

Booked flights to Scotland - between packing and organising for holiday, this was the other thing that took up most of my time before we went away. Music Man's a procrastinator when it comes to spending cold hard $$, and I'm not as persistent as I need to be. I was that week though and we're (finally) booked to go home to see everyon on 7th Sept. I'll do another post on this too.

Bronchitis - After my trip to Queenstown and Wanaka I felt a little off colour. Trip to the doctor confirmed bronchitis. Eew! A week of amoxycillin, still no better and my lovely family and extended family had to put up with my hacking cough all week. Back to doc on Monday and stronger antibiotics this time. Its working, I can feel it.

Doctors - on the aforementioned trip to the docs, we had Master L's 15 month check up which included his vaccination catch ups, so my poor wee baby had to get 3 injections that day. Its my commitment as a parent to protect him and the wider community from the diseases that these vaccines are created for, but boy, it still hurts to watch your baby being assaulted by a nurse with needles. Poor boy.

Weather - Summer arrived this past fortnight, oh, just about 10 weeks late. Its been great, in the high 20's, but the Slip Slop Slap routine is not that romantic and protecting my babies skin (and mine) from the harsh New Zealand sun is a huge chore in itself. I've decided that 25 degrees celcius is my ideal temperature, when it hovers pre 30 degrees I get sloth like.

The usual routine this week. Pre-school run. Nightly wakings from both Master and Miss. Catch up with friends. Pop in on the in-laws. Emails and phone calls. On top of all the other obligatory chores like laundry, cooking, baking, folding, hoovering, wiping, cleaning, cuddling and the same all over again and again. I feel like I'm caught in the Bermuda Triangle some days and can't escape. Oh, wait, that's just being a stay at home parent.

So, after my post on my holiday, I'm afraid that there will be no more pictures for a while. Unless with brute force I can convince my camera to start working again.
Will my blog be boring without photo's?? Your comments please! I love colourful blogs with great writing and lots of pictures, but I don't want to look at mine in a few months and get disheartened and stop writing because I won't have a camera until September. I need to know that someone other than me will read all this rubbish I write, sans photograps. Mum, you're bound by family law to read this regardless, so, sorry you don't count. Call it unconditional love.

It's smokin', baby

I'll start by showing you this. Click play to watch.

Whilst I was busy for 2 minutes having fun with the kids, this happened.

A word of advice. Do not try to "fast forward" the rise on bread dough by placing it on a hot ceramic hob. If you do, stay close to it and switch it off after a moment! Never leave it switched on with the loaf tin on top and get distracted for just a second as you will see smoke billowing from your cooker and have to salvage it like this.

To make something like this.

My beautiful bread was rising with a tasty mix of seeds and oats as a topping. As I ripped the dough off the smoking mess, some of my new bread rolls were sprinkled with the aforementioned topping. Interesting! Note how ununiform the shapes are. It kills me to show you this.

I'm grateful to this extractor fan on high.

And these kitchen bi-folds fully open.

I am not impressed that there's no bread in the house. I am impressed that the fug of smoke lifted and there is no residual smell. Thanks fan and doors :o)

Pah! Who needs homemade bread anyway.

One saving grace? I made perfect melt in the mouth meatballs tonight. I'll share that with you another day.

Oh, and I've got bronchitis. So does Ella. I knew there was something not quite right.

Planes, Facials and Sailing

I've had a very indulgent couple of days.

The next three things are something that I don't get very much of these days.


Hot coffee, and I mean hot coffee. I'm used to drinking lukewarm stuff. Reading my book in daylight hours and pamper time.



Me time. I don't get a lot of that these days. Looking at this photo I can almost see why two people have asked me if I'm expecting recently. NO! I'm not pregnant, I just like eating and forget to hold my tummy in when having my photo taken. I'm human.



Music Man works for a company that takes partners on Regional Meetings once a year. Lucky me! Whilst he was having his very important meeting, I got to relax, go for a walk into Wanaka in the South Island of New Zealand and get back for a small pamper session in the day spa. A facial. Honestly, It was so indulgent I almost felt guilty. Almost.



I didn't get any photographs of Wanaka. But did get some photo's that capture the effervesence of Queenstown, probably the jewel of New Zealand. This doesn't even honour the beauty of the place, but maybe some of its serenity. It's a busy bustling tourist area, but its still so wonderfully awe inspiring and serene. A contradiction in terms.

We were lucky enough to have an Americas Cup yacht racing experience.




This is one of the tour guides giving us the lowdown on where not to put our fingers. Yes I wanted to keep mine, so I listened very carefully. The ropes can have up to 4 tonnes of weight on them at any time, so I wasn't taking any chances. Yachts of this size normally have a crew of 17 when racing, we had a crew of 4, plus the tourists (us) on hand to help. We got to grind and help with the tacking back up the lake. I'm not one to indulge in deep water. 10+ knots on no wind, I think I may have just wet myself if there had been more than a whiff of a breeze that day.

After that it was off to the Gondola for lunch and a couple of runs down the Luge before heading to the airport. Man, the Luge was so much fun! I could have gone another few runs and taken the men on. The competitive nature in me wants to beat the boys. I've been like this all my life.





Fortunately for me, Music Man is so much more competitive. I left the racing to him. Next time boys, next time!

What a view.

It was a wonderful couple of days.

However. There's always got to be some lowlights.

Arranging three lots of people and day-care to look after my two kids for just over 36 hours - a mission I'm not willing to do again that readily. I almost cancelled going. Twice.

Packing for yourself is a small task. Open case. Chuck in the basics. Curse yourself when you haven't packed some essentials.

Falling into the pool very ungracefully in front of Music Mans colleagues - priceless! Gutted that I then had to blow dry and straighten my unruly hair when I'd done it the day before. Plan was no to do this. Hmm.

Going to bed with indigestion. Over indulging in food is so much fun. Until then.

Kids survived. I survived. I enjoyed myself actually. Don't want to do it again for a while. But I had fun.