A week of nothing and everything

This blog is rapidly becoming a graveyard for my stream of consciousness ramblings, so I hope you're ready for another one. This week has been quite trying on many different levels and ended up with us losing a very close family friend. RIP flat-screen tv. But good news - our insurance cover does stretch to completely unforeseen incidents like an almost 7 year old twirling around in the lounge sending her hairbrush microphone flying out of her hand and into the tv screen. I bet we won the prize for most random insurance claim this week.

In other parenting news, my children had a half-day at school this week so I let them wander around the streets like little unwanted urchins until I finished work and could claim them. By the time I arrived at our meeting point, they had picked up another stray who I dutifully delivered home but not before being asked if this child could come and spend the afternoon at our house. You know that moment. The one where you're given a split second to agree or come up with a really good excuse. Being quite tired and ill-equipped to deal with another person in the house even though this child is completely likeable and toilet-trained, I just couldn't muster up any enthusiasm. All I really wanted to do was have some time to myself at home in a sunny spot somewhere. I could have been a normal parent and just said "No, I want to be a cat" but I like to let people down gently so instead I trotted out the very useful and suitably vague line that I had made other plans which only disappointed 25% of the children and 100% of the parents in the car. Don't hate me girls when you read this a few years from now. Mum was just tired. Somehow, I needed to turn my fake excuse into a real plan. This is why we ended up at a mall far, far away from our house on the pretext of buying some birthday gifts and ultimately into a 2-dollar shop with rubber balls that look like breasts which my children disturbingly delighted in squeezing and bouncing on the floor. We didn't buy those. Who buys those??!

And in ever-so typical fashion, I had a complete reversal of mean-spiritedness and offered to have three little friends over after school on possibly the coldest and wettest day of the year so far just for the pleasure of sitting in peak hour traffic with them to deliver them to their Brownies outing. Turns out I might have given them a bit more than afternoon tea as I now have a violently unreliable stomach and I think all their mothers will be quietly seething about that. Sorry.

This is all very bad timing as my baby turns seven today. She has lost her only decent winter jacket and of course we've had a polar blast of epic levels blanket the country for the past two days. In my weakened state this morning I couldn't even be bothered arguing with her to put on her sister's spare one. It is three sizes too big for her and she'd rather die of some cold-related illness than wear a jacket with the sleeves rolled up so she went dancing off into the sleet with her thin cotton hoodie and threadbare 3/4 leggings with a gaping hole in the knee and it will all save me from gift-buying because she'll probably get pneumonia for her birthday. And a possible stomach bug.

Happy birthday.

No man is an island but a mother is a car

Our car has broken down. The outward signs of neglect have been there for a while. It's got dents, it's covered in scratches and someone smashed the wing mirror off it one night several months ago. We never got around to fixing it so our family has been driving around with a completely useless, shattered wing mirror stuck to the side of the car with duct tape. The other day, the accelerator simply cut out mid-drive. For a moment, I thought the breaks may stop working too and when you're on a single lane road high on a Wellington hillside at the time, those are not very comfortable thoughts to have. We rely so much on our car but spend very little time thinking about what a workhorse it is and how much more difficult our daily life is without it. Until it is no longer there. Then we realise how much we actually depend upon it to help get the family to where we need to go. Before the throttle issue arose, there were other household matters that were given priority over having the car repaired. If we choose to ignore the warning signs, eventually things can, and do, wear out. There's an analogy here. I am our car. Overworked, barely keeping it all together some days, careworn and feeling like I could do with a bit of TLC.

So here I am, holed up in my bedroom on week one of the school holidays, avoiding the kids. I ate half a block of Black Forest chocolate and now I hate myself. Ironic really, since I was wanting to spend some guilt-free time to myself doing something that makes me happy, which, by the way, is not playing The Game of Life for the third time today. The countdown is on till at least one of the girls finds me to make them some food. They probably won't even physically come find me. They'll just yell at me from the bowels of the room that vaguely resembles our lounge and then I'll very likely yell back to tell them to stop yelling at me.

I've said it before and it's worth saying again - solo parents everywhere, I salute you. I only need to make it through till 6pm this evening when my husband gets home and then the load suddenly becomes more manageable again. The rational part of me knows that my children aren't even all that challenging and we've actually had a pretty good week so far. It's just that my Child Appreciation tank is very empty today. Mostly, I am just tired. Tired but grateful for children who have very low expectations of what their holidays should be like. Zero expectations. As in turning swatting houseflies into a game to see how many each of us can land. We don't actually do that. It's mostly me standing very still poised to strike while waiting for one to land and then I pounce like a middle-aged Miyagi. Maybe that's the real reason why I am so tired.

Bloody houseflies.

Waiorongomai Station

This is one of those places that you don't really want to tell anybody about because it is that special that you don't want the secret to get out. My husband competed in his first half-marathon in Martinborough last Sunday, and I thought instead of getting up at a stupid hour to drive a couple of hours to get there on the race day, the far more sensible option would be to book some accommodation and make a weekend of it. Just two hours' drive from Wellington, Martinborough is very popular for weekend city escapes and even though I started looking three weeks before the race day, I could not find any accommodation for a family of five anywhere in the township. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it meant that I stumbled upon the cutest bach near the shores of Lake Wairarapa, just a half hour's drive away from Martinborough.

Waiorongomai Station is a sheep and beef farm owned by the Matthews family who are direct descendants of one of New Zealand's pioneering farming families. Seven generations have lived on the land which borders the lake and stretches to the Rimutaka Ranges in the west. There are several accommodation options available year-round from the expansive original homestead to two beautifully renovated farm cottages. Burlings Bach is one of them. After staying in the bach and reading about the family's farming origins, the connection the Matthews have to the land and sharing the pride of its history with complete strangers is really quite palpable. Burlings Bach was named after owners of the neighbouring property who leased their land to the Matthews before they eventually bought it. The bach accommodates eight people with plenty of room for everyone. It is fully equipped with everything needed for a restful stay out of the rat race. Home baking and freshly picked flowers greeted us on arrival and it quickly made me forget that we had spent four hours driving to get there after an accident on the Rimutaka Hill closed the road temporarily.

Just down the road from the bach is a lovely little ecumenical church, built by the Matthews family in 1927 to serve the whole community and as a way to honour all the families who have worked at Waiorongomai. The headstones of family members including the first pioneers, Charles and Elizabeth Matthews, stand in the grounds of the church.

With an already-full itinerary planned for our Wairarapa escape, we had very limited time to explore the farm itself but Bert and Ernie, the resident kunekune pigs, were a must-see. They greeted us like old friends when we walked down the track armed with our food scraps.

Waiorongomai means "waters of repute", a special name for a truly unique place. We left here feeling so well-rested and with a need to return one day with family and friends. Thank you Charlie, Karla and family for a very memorable weekend.

Mid-century chair makeover

Say hello to my new old friend. We've had a pair of these mid-century chairs for a while; they belonged to my grandmother and were used for a time at two of my sisters' homes before they came to live with us. I love that they've got a bit of our family story woven into them. They're just a classic style and built to last - apart from the fabric which was so worn in places that I had been hiding their poor condition under a throw. We always planned to reupholster them one day. That day came the weekend before last. This is how they used to look:

My husband and I have different tastes in home decor and DIY methodology, which complicates things. Put two fabric swatches in front of us that are different shades or patterns, and we pick the opposite to each other. When he decides that he wants to start a project, he just wants to get it finished as quickly as possible, which is great but it means making snap decisions at times and I hate being rushed. These chairs have waited several years to be recovered, what is another couple of weeks until we find the perfect fabric? Besides, there were a few steps that needed to be taken before sewing covers could even start. The chair back foam was glued well to the metal frame and needed to be cut away. The wooden parts of the frame needed some touching up and the shiny varnish sanded back so a matte Danish oil could be applied instead. A full day was needed for the oil to properly harden.

We had foam cut to our specifications for the seats (515x515x125mm). The old covers were in such poor shape that they could not be used as a template when we cut out our new fabric so making the new covers was the most time-consuming stage. What am I even saying?? I have no idea if this was the most time-consuming part, I didn't do anything in this project except take the photos and look at fabric.

Speaking of fabric, there is so much choice available now - it's actually really overwhelming. I went to several fabric stores in Wellington and looked online (I told you I like to take my time and cover all my bases) and I have to say that even though we bought elsewhere in the end, I was most impressed by the service and speed of delivery of the samples I ordered from Martha's Furnishing Fabrics in Auckland. The generous size of the samples they sent out really gave me a decent idea of whether or not the fabric would look good en masse and they even included five extra fabrics that they thought we might like. I also wanted to show you this amazing print I really loved that I found trawling through fabrics online. I obtained a sample (which was a different colour from the screenshot) from Fabrics Direct in town. It sat on the chair for a whole weekend and I started having second thoughts about it. At $65/m, I wasn't really prepared to take the plunge and then decide after it was too late that the colour didn't suit the rest of the house.

Charles Parsons Maze in turquoise

My husband was thinking more along the lines of a textured solid colour similar to the original chair fabric. We ended up settling on a textured neutral from The Fabric Store in Wellington. It probably was not on either of our radars before we started looking seriously at all the fabric options so I guess keeping an open mind is the lesson in all of this. It's not an upholstery fabric though, but at $38/m it was a price we felt we could afford, particularly because we also needed to replace the foam too. These chairs can really handle bold prints but when I thought more about it, opting for a neutral will mean these chairs will remain timeless and it's so much easier (and cheaper!) to add colour with cushions.

Can I also just add that a husband working at a sewing machine = so hot. Buoyed by the success of these chairs, he is going to tackle the last taboo of sewing - ROMAN BLINDS. Should I tell him that those things are best left to the professionals? This should be fun to watch. He's insane. Insanely cute, but still insane.

Five free(ish) events in W-town this weekend

It's been one of those weeks where the weekend can't come soon enough. It motivated me to look up what is happening around Wellington and it turns out there are actually quite a few family-friendly events, so I thought I'd share what I found with you. It also happens to be Children's Day on Sunday, so let's go out there, take in the sights and sounds and have some fun with the family - or at least feel relieved that yours won't be the only family that can't have an outing without someone having a decent whinge about something. If you're not a fan of heaving crowds, take this as a heads up for the places to avoid this weekend. You're welcome.

FOR THE PLAYGROUND ENTHUSIASTS
If you have preschoolers, Civic Square will be turned into a giant playground with the help of the Wellington City Council, which will include good old-fashioned games like an egg and spoon race and facepainting.
Where: Civic Square
When: 4 March 11-2pm

Hailing from Spain and brought here as part of the New Zealand Festival, Arquitectura de Feria is a fantastical playground made from recycled materials which has been installed near the waterfront. There are swarthy actors (who may or may not be Spanish) and all the rides are people-powered, including a Ferris wheel made from toilet seats.
When: 2-10pm daily (except Monday) until 19 March
Where: Frank Kitts Park, Jervois Quay

Photo credit: Ireen Demut

FOR THE CULTURE VULTURES
Wander around to the Performance Arcade, a series of containers further along the waterfront to view some artworks and enjoy some live music playing into the evening.
Where: Wellington waterfront
When: 5 March from 1.30pm/6 March from midday



Along the way, be sure to check out the stunning and sobering "Fly Me Up to Where You Are" flag art installation conceptualised by Tiffany Singh for the New Zealand Festival, which bear the hopes and dreams of thousands of schoolchildren from Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

FOR THE ANIMAL AND NATURE LOVERS
Free entry for children on Sunday only - worth a mention for the fee-paying adults accompanying them.
Where: Staglands Wildlife Reserve
When: 6 March 9.30-5pm

Where: Zealandia Sanctuary
When: 6 March 9-4pm

Event schedule accurate as at 3 March.

{Giveaway} The Road to Ratenburg

A wonderful adventure story from beloved New Zealand children's author, Joy Cowley, The Road to Ratenburg is a fast-paced tale of a family of city rats who find themselves unexpectedly homeless. Desperate to seek refuge, Spinnaker Rat, descended from a long and proud line of ship rats, sets off with his family and Roger, an irrepressible and exasperating tag-a-long rat, on a quest for the fabled town of Ratenburg. They find themselves facing many dangers on their perilous journey and learn a few important lessons about themselves and others along the way.

This book would work well to read aloud not just for bedtime reading but also if you're a teacher looking for a book that will generate discussion about prejudice and tolerance, and the unbreakable bond of family. The chapters are relatively short and the black and white illustrations by Gavin Bishop add to the telling of the story.

Who doesn't love a good map?

Reading level: 8-10

RRP: $19.99

Released: March 2016

Gecko Press kindly sent us an advance copy to review and to coincide with Joy's appearance at the New Zealand Festival of the Arts Writers' Week in Wellington on 13 March, I have another one to give away to one of my lucky readers anywhere in the world. Just leave me a comment below and if you follow me on Facebook, you can enter the giveaway there too to double your chances.

GIVEAWAY CLOSED. Congratulations to Kate Mullooly, who entered on my Facebook page. Thank you to everybody who entered.

Weekend read: Just What Kind of Mother Are You?

Summer holidays are nearly coming to an end and I can't say I am excited about the return to the juggling act once the new school year gets under way. One thing that I love to do over this time is to pick up a summer read or two because I can push aside more easily any sense of guilt about having a million other things I should be doing and just read until the book is finished, even if it means staying up really late to do it.

This is exactly what happened when I read "Just What Kind of Mother Are You?" by Paula Daly. It came recommended to me by a friend (hi Isabel), just when I was looking for something light to read and I finished it in two nights. Without giving too much away, it is a thriller set in a UK village where a pattern of abductions and violent assaults on teenaged girls starts to emerge. The story primarily focusses on mother of three, Lisa Kallisto, who is juggling the daily realities of running a busy household, work, being a good wife and friend and how the precariously-stacked deck of cards falls down when her best friend's daughter goes missing. While most of the story is told from her perspective, the reader is also able to enter into the mind of the abductor with several chapters chillingly told from his point of view.

The plot moves along swiftly and didn't require too much thinking on my part so in that sense, it was the perfect summer read. This is the author's debut novel which probably explains why it felt like certain passages in the book were over-explained to the point of being unnecessary. The ending felt rushed, confused and implausible, which was so disappointing. My quest for the story with the perfect ending continues. It certainly does not deter me from reading her latest works though.

Have you read any of Daly's other novels and would you recommend them?

Dairy | Egg | Nut-free recipe: Pikelets

1 cup flour
1.5 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 t baking soda
1 c milk alternative (I use soy)
2 t white vinegar
1 t vanilla essence
Extra oil to grease pan
Topping of your choice (I use mixed berries)

Combine all dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
Make a well in the centre.
Pour all wet ingredients into the well and whisk until smooth.
Heat frying pan greased with 2 T of oil and pour 1/4 cupful of batter into the pan.
Cook for 1-2 mins or until bubbles show on surface of batter and base is golden brown. Flip the pikelet and cook through.

Makes 10.

* Adapted from taste.com.au egg-free pancake recipe.

The art of killing the joy of shopping

Find a window when everyone is calm and in great moods. Ignore it. Go instead when everyone is starting to get a little irritable with each other. Shop with all the children. Loud ones. Ones who don't listen. Ones who love to antagonize their siblings. Ones who run in the opposite direction to where the rest of you are heading.

Go with a list. Or don't. It doesn't matter, you will buy at least one item you didn't really need and something else will be forgotten. Get almost everything on the list apart from one item that you saw in the first shop you went to that is now on the other side of the mall. You didn't buy it at the time because you thought it would definitely/almost certainly/may be/wasn't on sale in another shop. Make sure all of you are fist-gnawingly hungry and wearing jandals that are about to break. Stop to look in a shop window at a dress that would have fit you in 1994. Listen to the deafening sounds of the mall music. It sounds remarkably like Mum, Mum, Mumma, Muuuum Smiggle.

Make it especially fun by shopping as closely as possible to lunchtime so you can wade through the mall and be tormented by the smell of kebabs. Always have prearranged plans set for the afternoon in the back of your mind just to keep those agitation levels on high. You don't have time to stop and eat.

Pop into Kmart for just one thing. Come out with a trolley-full. Be secretly glad for Kmart. Extra points given if you find a trolley without a wonky wheel. Go through the self-service checkout. Individually. Confuse the machine and force a real live store assistant to approach you to fix it but he may as well be a robot because he won't smile or talk to you at all. Do this with every other scanned item in your trolley and watch the queue of impatient people behind you grow, just for fun. Reminisce about the time that you were like the woman at the terminal beside you with children younger than yours who do the unthinkable and just let her use the machine uninterrupted. Reminisce about the time you used to do everything uninterrupted. Count you still have the same number of children as when you entered the store and doublecheck that they are all still wearing their own shoes.

Debate whether it is safe to go up the escalator with a haphazardly-stacked trolley. Decide that though it would be kind of fun to see what would happen, it's better to use the lifts and then play a game of Work Out Where They Are. Give up looking for the lifts and hike up three stories using the disability ramp with at least one of your children trailing behind and crying on the level just below you. Resist the urge to line up your trolley with the wonky wheel at the top of the disability access ramp and let it go on them all. Let them catch up. Warn them that if their behaviour continues, they're getting bundled into the car and going home. Definitely no Smiggle. Follow through. Feel triumphant at their forlorn faces. Then feel really guilty. Buy yourself an ice-cream on the way home to cheer yourself up and eat it in front of them. Feel guilty about that too and give them a couple of bites. Icecream fixes everything.

Four free activities in Rotorua

Rotorua is full of things to do for the adventurous thrill seekers and those who want to experience Maori culture (although perhaps in a less authentic way - it is a tourist town after all), which is great if you have plenty of money to spend. We stayed there for four nights but people could easily spend a week here and still not see and do everything that there is on offer. For nature lovers, there are walks for all ages and fitness levels. When you're in beautiful surroundings like these, it's easy to forget that this area forms part of the Taupo Volcanic Zone. Once you breathe in the sulphur you are reminded of the natural forces at play that continue to shape the landscape. For the budget-conscious traveller or families who still want to experience what Rotorua is renowned for without the price tag, here are four activities that should be on your Must Do list - and best of all, they will not cost you a cent except for the fuel needed to travel there:

1. Hot'n'Cold Pools - Waiotapu Loop Road (20 minutes south of Rotorua off State Highway 5)

Once a well-kept secret, it is well and truly out now. We took the second turnoff to Wai-O-Tapu (Sacred Waters) Thermal Wonderland which is a few hundred metres past the Waiotapu Tavern and we were glad we did as the pools are quicker to reach this way. If you are traveling north from Taupo, it will obviously be the first signposted turnoff that you'd need to take. You'll probably be greeted by several parked cars and camper vans parked near the first single lane bridge along this narrow stretch of road so you know you're in the right place. The pools are a short walk down from the road and can be accessed from either end of the bridge. We arrived at about 10.30am and the area was starting to get busy but there was still plenty of room in the pools to find your own spot. It was grey and drizzly on the day we went but it was actually the perfect choice of activity for the weather conditions. We were warned about the possibility of rubbish, thieves and boorish behaviour from other pool users but we saw nothing that made us feel unsafe at all. In fact, this was one of the highlights of our trip and is well worth the journey. The right side of the bridge was where the best pool was found with the water being a more reliable temperature. The pool on the left side of the bridge was too hot to even get in when we were there. If you arrive expecting a hotel-grade spa with clear water, you're in the wrong place. The water is murky, you will get grit in your togs, you will notice the smell of sulphur (although I didn't find it as strong as in other places in Rotorua) and you will get scratched on barbed wire or blackberry bushes if you're not looking where you're stepping on the shortcut out of the pools. Bring a towel, river shoes and an open mind.

Recommended fee-based alternative: Polynesian Spa (thanks Sara)

2. Waiotapu Scenic Reserve

Not much further up the road is the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland which is quite spectacular and you really should visit it if you can but if you're short on time, drive past the attraction and a very underwhelming brown sign marked 'Mud Pool' points down a side road. We may have missed this scenic reserve altogether if we hadn't seen a large tour bus coming out as we drove past. Not far down the road is a viewing platform and short walk to the other side of a large mud pool complete with strong sulphur smells and plopping mud. The area was not crowded at all when we arrived before midday but it was still raining so we had to run for cover and this was the only photo I took, which doesn't really do the area justice.

Recommended fee-based alternative: Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland

3. Lake District

Wherever you go in Rotorua, you'll never be far from any of its lakes. Lake Rotorua is the largest of the 18 lakes in the region and has several nice spots for swimming and walking. There are plenty of black swans which we were told can be quite aggressive but we didn't have any problem sharing the lake with them - just don't feed them. The Blue Lake (Tikitapu) is the smallest of all the lakes near the city of Rotorua, but it is my favourite of the ones we visited. We loved it so much here, we came back twice. It had been raining for three days straight and was still drizzling on our first visit, but something about the mist descending from the hills and how beautiful the water looked just made it feel really special here. The road to the lake is well-signposted, simply take State Highway 30A round Lake Rotorua and turn right onto Tarawera Road. The Blue Lake is the first of three lakes you can access in the area. This is another place to head to even when it is raining although we found on our second visit here, the wind made it less pleasant swimming in the lake. Even though the Blue Lake Resort is right across the road from where this photo was taken, the lake has a feeling of being in the middle of nowhere.

Since you've come all this way, it would be rude not to go and see another one of the lakes reshaped from Mount Tarawera's destructive 1886 volcanic eruption. To get to the pretty lakeshore of Lake Tarawera that is pictured above, continue on down the same road past the Buried Village/Te Wairoa (this archaeological site and museum is also well worth the admission fee). Turn right when you see a small sign that says 'Boat Ramp'. A short winding sealed road will take you down to a spot known as Kotukutuku Bay where there are toilets and, randomly, a cute wooden cafe. This activity is only free if you don't buy the food, drink and yummy homemade fruit ice creams. In between Lake Tarawera and the Blue Lake lies the Green Lake (Rotokakahi) but it is tapu and no swimming or recreational activities are allowed on the water so we only drove past it. The last lake you can access by car in this area is Lake Okareka. We visited it on our return loop home (turn onto Okareka Loop Road just before the Blue Lake Resort). It's quite a lovely settlement but we were pretty laked out by this time, so I didn't even take a photo.

Recommended fee-based add-on: Buried Village

4. Government Gardens
Located in the central city and right on the Rotorua lakeshore, the land was gifted by local iwi to the Crown in 1880, which was then developed into a health spa to encourage foreign tourists to visit. The Tudor-style Bath House now houses the Rotorua Museum. When a building looks this good even in the rain, you know it's a beautiful place and it is easy to see why it is one of the most photographed sites in the country. This cultural heritage trail pamphlet is very handy and outlines several sculptures and points of interest in this one location. You can also download the brochure from the Rotorua District Council website.

Recommended fee-based add-on: Rotorua Museum

Because of the inclement weather when we visited and the fact that I had a child wearing an arm cast that we needed to keep dry, we were hampered a little by what we could experience together. I've mentioned that there are plenty of nature walks. We would have loved to have walked to Okere Falls and if your family is keen on cycling, there look to be some really great mountain biking trails too. If we'd managed to stay another day, we would have also checked out the Redwoods. There is a newly-built tree canopy walk which would have been fun to experience. We have been back in Wellington for just a few days now and I am still thinking about how great Rotorua is to explore, and the free hour parking in the central city was a nice surprise. Have you ever been there? What free activities would you recommend that I haven't included here?

A letter to Stu

Dear Stu

Yes, I know I said that staying in Wellington over the summer is amazing. It really is. But so is spending four days in Rotorua. Just not at your place. It was a completely spur of the moment decision to take a family holiday because my children had never been to Rotorua before and I thought my lucky stars were shining bright when I managed to secure three nights' accommodation during the busiest time of the year in one of the biggest tourist destinations in the country. 

When you offered us a free night's accommodation so we could prolong our stay in the adventure tourism capital, I thought I had struck gold. Once we got to our home away from home, it quickly became apparent why it was seemingly the only available lodgings anywhere in the country over the New Year break. Perhaps at $150 a night, I was expecting too much? Perhaps given we had one night gratis I have little grounds to complain? I say Stu, instead of taking the $30 that I paid to have the house cleaned after our stay that you spend my $480 to get a commercial cleaner in to give that place a good clean. It's my gift to you.

We just had to look past the odd smell, the general filthiness and the hole in the toilet floor and those annoying soundless flies that just do circuits around each other in the middle of the lounge and the fact that there was no bottle of wine even though it was promised in the listing. We needed that wine Stu to dull our senses. We tried to escape out the front door but it was jammed shut. So were some of the windows in the lounge. Except for the one that did open and the entire window almost came out of the frame. Should I go on? I think I should. When you ticked the box on the listing that says that the house is toddler-safe, surely you meant it's because it has a high chair and not because of the lawn with some broken glass on it next to a shared driveway with people tearing up and down it in their cars daily? I am sure lots of toddlers know not to suck on mouldy bathroom curtains. Look, it's not all dire, Stu. If people preferred to pay to camp on your lawn, the house exterior and train tracks across the road are both quite lovely to look at.

I'd like to leave my Qualmark star rating. It's five stars from me for any holidaymakers who are after a P house experience.

Summer in the city

People leave Wellington en masse at the end of the school year. But I like it here, especially over the summer holidays. It's like this place gets a massive people enema just when it is at its most appealing.  For a few days, there's no work to think about, little chance of rain and even less chance of running into someone you don't like very much. Even the wind has disappeared and that's something to celebrate. It has been calm four days running, so our windless day quota has been met for this decade but put a wine in my hand and let's call it summer. The quiet too is something to appreciate when you're a parent of children who like to yell at each other all the time. I try to be Calm Mum and the irony is not lost on me that it almost always ends up with me yelling the loudest of us all so I can be heard over their yelling just to tell them to stop yelling. We had no neighbours for a few days and I conducted a test to see if their arguing would eventually stop on its own if I didn't intervene. One child will eventually come into the house to find me to help sort out the problem/dry some tears. What I learned is that I need a better hiding place. After a period of thinking that I am getting redundant as my children grow up, it turns out I am still needed for some things. Paying school and activity fees, conflict resolution and being Santa.

Speaking of which, Christmas lists are not worth the paper they are written on, are they? Knowing my children as well as I thought I did, I got them to write their wish lists one week out from the big day because a) I hadn't had much time to think about Christmas before then and b) it would give them less time to change their minds. Ha. Ha. HA! It's most pleasing to spend hours scouring the internet, trawling through listings, ringing all the local sports shops and venturing into crowded malls to find a pair of elusive roller-skates that your child has been non-stop begging for ever since she went to a friend's roller-skating party six months ago, only to hear your beloved child say after a Christmas breakfast of a mouthful of a stodgy marshmallow snowman that she wanted rollerblades. The very ones that her sister got for Christmas. She loved this book though. Partial win.

We spent a couple of days over Christmas up at my husband's family's block of land, far enough away from Wellington to feel like you've gone somewhere but not so far that we are bereft of all conveniences like a hospital which, as it turned out, was required 30 minutes after we arrived. After a few decent attempts already, one child finally fulfilled her year-long ambition and broke her arm in spectacular fashion falling off the trampoline. So that's a fun way to start the summer holidays and to end the year, in a full arm cast, with not much for a one-armed bandit to do except to turn it into a game to keep her cast clean and dry. We stayed long enough to enjoy a lovely Christmas with family but not so long that we'd end up being the last to leave so we could avoid having to clean the toilet.

Here's a picture of my husband and children returning from hauling one very large and least Christmasy-looking tree up to the shed because it's not Christmas without a tree to decorate in plastic baubles and our children's handcrafts.

The offending trampoline is in the naughty corner

Happy New Year to you all wherever you may be and however you choose to see it in. Thanks so much for reading and leaving me comments or just reading then clicking out, whatever your style. I'm honoured you chose to spend that two minutes on me. Truly. See you again in 2016.

The Day the Crayons Quit

Three days until the gift-bearing big fella comes and I'm still out there pounding the pavement on his behalf. He gets all the kudos while someone else does all the legwork, it hardly seems fair. Until you meet Bret McKenzie in Iko Iko, which is what happened to me today. Technically, I didn't actually 'meet' him. He was standing in the middle of the shop looking quite normal and not at all famous when I saw him and stared for longer than is polite trying to work out why he looked so familiar. We didn't speak to each other and I didn't even think to take a surreptitious photo of him which was completely a missed opportunity. It's quite reassuring to know that even famous people who happen to be one half of the world's fourth most popular folk duo also leaves his Christmas shopping till the last minute.

So, did he buy anything, you ask? No, but I did. I found this book, which half of the world already knows about anyway, I am sure, given it was sold out in quite a few places already. I can't believe it's already been out for a couple of years and I've only just heard about it. The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt is a delightful story that injects distinct personalities into different crayon colours. It will have children seeing their crayons in a completely different light.

Pink crayon got some sass

Perfectly pitched for boys, the central figure is a little boy named Duncan who likes to draw pictures of dinos and other animals but I think any child will absolutely love it, especially if you have a little artist in the family, as I do. Oliver Jeffers' accompanying illustrations are cleverly child-like and humorous. This book is destined to become a favourite in this household. I just wish I had thought of writing it first.

The space in between

This post has taken such a long time to compose, mostly because the words just wouldn't come. This time of the year always makes me feel contemplative and instead of staring at a blank screen as I have done so many times since my grandmother passed away six months ago, at last the words are coming.

Even after a dicky hip reduced her mobility and melanoma claimed part of her nose two years ago, she continued to live independently but we all knew there would be no coming back from her declining health that eventually forced her into a rest home. The matriarch of a sprawling family, she was a binding force that would bring us together from far-flung places to celebrate her milestone birthdays. We'd all had time to prepare and go and say our goodbyes before ill health could take its toll and reduce her to a frail, white-haired woman with a whisper of a voice.

Born at the tail-end of WWI in Hawera, she died just half an hour away from her birthplace, with a few of her most treasured family photographs and images of her beloved Saviour dotting the walls in her tiny room that backed onto a lake. Even with round-the-clock care and family coming and going, she died alone, as it happened. Strong-willed, determined and always one for not wanting fuss, maybe she designed it that way. 

When I think about what a treasure our family has lost, it helps me to look instead at the dash, the space in between her birth and her death. Although it is hard to forget how she was the very last time I saw her, reflecting on the space in between brings so much comfort. We'd jokingly refer to her sometimes as the Queen. Ever the Royalist, she followed all of the news out of the Palace with great interest. We all really hoped she'd be able to reach her 100th birthday to receive a telegram from Lizzie.

Hers was a life lived through great change. She grew up through the Depression, raised her own family on rations through World War II and witnessed huge advances in technology. Regardless, she had simple tastes, preferring to listen to the horse races on the wireless and peeling potatoes for her evening meal in front of the fire while she directed her outrage at someone's scandalous behaviour on Coro. 

The youngest of six children, she lived her life on her own terms. At a time when most girls her age were accepting marriage proposals, she went on a roadie with her brother riding his motorbike over shingle-covered backcountry roads. Even when it came time to settle down, she took an unorthodox approach, stealing one of her friend's boyfriends. His Protestant parents didn't approve, not because she was a boyfriend stealer, but because she was Catholic. In an era when marrying outside of their own religion was shunned, Grandma told his parents "I am marrying Bart, not you". That was Grandma, she was not one to conform or mince her words, and you could always be sure of an honest opinion even if you didn't ask for it.

She and Granddad moved into a house not far from Parihaka and raised their three sons and a daughter, my mother, on a farm against the backdrop of Mount Taranaki. When Granddad died suddenly in '78, the light in Grandma's eyes faded a little. As stoic as that generation is, she picked herself up and carried on, packing up her life and making a fresh start in Opunake. She loved her children, her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and there have been many over the years - and she never forgot a birthday. Her mind was sharp and her soul was young, too young to be rattling around in an old woman's body. She was the proof that you can live a long life on a sugar and salt-laden diet interspersed with the odd cheeky shandy.

A woman of strong faith, she had waited 37 years to be reunited with her great love, and was laid to rest alongside Granddad in their beautifully peaceful spot with a view of the mountain. Together at last. We'll miss you Grandma, place a winning bet for us at that big racecourse in the sky.

When coat racks give perspective

It's all quiet in the house and my only day off this week is looming large with piles of housework and even though I vowed this would not happen, it is exactly how I will be spending the day after all. All around me I just see the wanton destruction that a decade's worth of family life has done to this place. This house is a large-scale reflection of what is happening to my face and body. No amazing family holiday for us in some wonderfully exotic location this summer, I need to work just to be able to repair or replace all the broken stuff.

Our jug leaks and the automatic off switch is broken so if it hasn't already lost its contents all over the bench, it threatens to boil dry anyway and all the curtains in the bedrooms are just hanging by a thread from being left down permanently because the pull cords are broken. We've killed another broom and there's something stuck up the vacuum cleaner pipe that can't be coaxed out in either direction. My guess is that it is two years' worth of loom bands. Our entry, I'll admit, has never been a particularly welcoming space, but it's looking like squatters took up residence in there. The front door is swollen from months of wet weather and we have to kick the door sometimes just to open or shut it, which is always good for a bit of dramatic effect when someone knocks at the door. For the third time someone pulled too heavily on our poor coat rack, and three weeks later, it's still on the floor, in the same spot that it was when it fell out of the wall, just with a few more coats and bags dumped on it because it's still the coat rack. I will fix it, three weeks is more than enough of a clue that no-one else is going to do it.

Strangers can tell that children live here because there's a waterlogged soccer ball rotting in the overgrown garden. Somewhere in the corner there's a neglected pet bunny. Children also live here because there's a purple shoe in the lounge that I just tripped over to reach the half-eaten packet of Chit Chats I left out from binge-watching Breaking Bad the night before. I'm finishing off those biscuits as I write this. It's my coffee. A family lives here because there's a pile of washing to sort but never any clean, matching socks to wear and discarded rolls of toilet paper on the bathroom floor even after many patient attempts to convert the last person to finish a roll to put it in the bin. A family lives here because there are photos on the wall of a young couple filled with hopes and dreams for their future. If the grubby walls and marked furniture aren't proof enough of realizing those dreams, there are also some photos of babies growing up right before our eyes and if I stop and reflect on those images, none of the mess, the broken bits and parts that just frustrate me even matter. He tangata he tangata he tangata. A tidy house can wait. Except for the coat rack. I am going to fix it now.

A lesson in book censure

Nothing is more appealing to a curious child than a cupboard with a lock. More appealing still is knowing that the key to that cupboard is always kept in the lock, ready to be turned at any time when no-one else is looking. To a book lover, even more amazing than that is finding a pristine-looking book tucked in amongst all the important household documents. This was how I discovered, at age 9 or 10, 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'. When my mother found out that I was reading it, she wasn't particularly happy about it. She didn't want me to read it, but she didn't stop me. This is a very important lesson. Had she taken that book from me with no explanation given, I would have found ways to find it and not because I was an especially disobedient child, but because I would have been curious to know what was in the book to garner such a response from my mother. As it turned out, and perhaps just as my mother was hoping, I was far too young to understand any of the sexual content so I found it to be a very underwhelming book. In fact, I wondered what all the fuss was about.

Let's give our children more credit where policing books is concerned. To jump the gun with our responses to what we perceive will be damaging to them is to do a disservice to their intelligence. Over the past week, a young adult fiction book freely available to the public was banned from sale or supply in New Zealand after a complaint from conservative lobby group, Family First. 'Into the River' won Book of the Year and the Young Adult Fiction category in the 2013 NZ Post Children's Book Awards. It contains sex, drugs and obscene language. It also contains issues relating to racism and bullying. Aren't these topics that we should be talking to our pre-teens and teens about? I have not read the book, but now I really want to. I am not even the target demographic. This book was written for male teenagers, which is by and large, a difficult audience to reach. Surely something that encourages this demographic to pick up a book can only be a good thing?

Many of us may remember reading 'Clan of the Cavebear', 'Go Ask Alice' and the 'Flowers in the Attic' series, to name just a few. All of them contain confronting subject matter yet the overriding memory from these novels is not that they contained adult content but that they were powerful stories. The very fact that 'Into the River' is an award-winning novel demonstrates that Dawe's work has been judged by his peers to be a story deemed worthy of being told, shared and discussed.

The best way to get even the most reluctant reader to pick up a book is to ban it. With all the attention surrounding 'Into the River' over the past few days, Family First may have just done the complete opposite to what it had intended and actually promoted sales, given that it can still be bought from overseas websites.

What 'controversial' books did you enjoy reading as a teen?

Help! The Wolf is Coming!

If you are looking for a birthday or Christmas gift book idea for a toddler or preschooler, consider this board book by Cedric Ramadier, which quite literally, turns reading on its head. When we received our review books from Gecko Press a little while ago, this was the first one in the bundle that Aimee picked up. She was aged 5 at the time. She was drawn to it by its simple drawings which can tell a story within themselves but we discovered that this is also a very interactive book that engages the child with instructions for when to turn the page. The reader will find themselves tilting and turning the book every which way as the wolf inches closer.

It sounds very ominous, and yes, for sensitive children, it may well incite a little fear depending on the reader's tone of voice, but it is a great book to introduce them to the concept of building anticipation through a simple narrative. There is no better endorsement of this book than when my two year old nephew was introduced to the book just recently. He loved it so much that even after reading it to him three times, he cried when the book was taken away from him. Guess what he'll be getting for Christmas?

Reading level: All ages. Perfect for reading aloud to preschoolers.

RRP: $19.99

{Free Printable} Father's Day Kids' Quiz

Even though it's still wet and cold, I love that winter is officially over. It has been quite a rough season in the Paper Moon household and I am looking forward to getting back onto an even keel again. Spring is my favourite season; I love the promise of new beginnings, longer, warmer evenings and that my daughters were all born at this time of the year, which means launching into birthday party mode.

Father's Day is also fast approaching and for the last couple of years, it has become a little tradition for the girls to fill out a simple questionnaire for their Dad. Each year yields different responses as they get older and their relationships with their Dad develop. I still laugh at the answers my daughters gave the first time they did this. There are many questionnaires available on the internet; I first saw this idea on Mousehouse's blog and simply changed some of the wording on her Mother's Day questionnaire to make it more suitable for Father's Day. It's quite a revelation to see how children view their parents and serves as a great memento of this fleeting ride raising children.

This year, I decided to make a shorter version with more white space so Aimee could practice writing independently. Feel free to download my printable for your own personal use. Try it, laughs will be guaranteed.

Triangle crochet blanket

It has been a while since I have blogged about anything crochet-related but I can finally share a blanket I started over 18 months ago. I am not usually one to leave things unfinished for so long! Inspired by all the fabric triangle quilts I was seeing on the internet at the time, I started to make a child's blanket out of crochet triangles. It measures about 87cm x 114cm and is a mixture of acrylic and wool.If you are looking for a relatively quick project, this is not it. When I discovered that it takes me around 40 minutes to single crochet just one triangle, the enormity of the blanket project I was about to embark on hit me and I had to push through a few moments of ennui - and also downscale the size of the project to a baby blanket. It is now the second winter since starting this blanket and the cold nights we've been experiencing over the past few weeks have really been the motivator I needed to forge ahead and complete it.What I find with crochet is that I can never be sure exactly how much yarn I will need for any particular project. I used up some of the yarn in my stash and needed to buy more pale pink and grey only to discover that not just those particular colours, but all of the yarn I was using in this blanket has now been discontinued. Sad face. There is something to be said for not leaving unfinished projects languishing in a bag for over a year. It meant that I had to use the remaining yarn in my stash and resulted in enforced placement of some of the triangles where I would have otherwise chosen a different colour for greater balance. Similarly, the very simple double crochet border and pink single crochet edging was a result of not having enough yarn to work the border I really wanted to use. I had got almost two thirds of the way through the border before I realised I would not have enough yarn and had to unravel it all. In the end though, I am happy with the simpler edging so maybe this was just how it was meant to be.

Aside from how slow the triangles were to work up and running out of yarn, the other issue that I faced was finding the best way to stitch them all together. If I was more certain on colour placement from the beginning, a join-as-you-go method would have been ideal and I should have left long tails on each of the triangles to make the process even more simple. Since I had woven the tail of each triangle as I completed it, I put the right sides of the triangles together and slipstitched them. It results in a standard ridge-like join on the back of the blanket.In part because of all of the issues I encountered, I do feel such a great sense of satisfaction to have finally completed it. What are you working on at the moment? I'd love to hear from you.

The Bakehouse

A wonderfully evocative work of historical fiction, The Bakehouse by Joy Cowley is told from the point of view of Bert, a man in his 80s carrying a wartime secret. In the company of his great-grandson, he reflects on the events in Wellington leading up to one critical moment that changed the lives of several people forever.

The year is 1943 and while New Zealand lies far from the front-lines, there are signs everywhere of the threat of war. American servicemen are prominent in the city and with news reports updating the steady march of the Japanese in the Pacific, 11 year old Bert, with the help of his sisters Betty and Meg, decides to convert the disused and largely forgotten bakery hidden in the hills near their house into a bomb shelter. There, they encounter a young Kiwi soldier who has deserted the NZ Army and so begins a game of subterfuge with very real and devastating consequences for them all.

The story itself is compelling, with the threads of loyalty and betrayal running through the heart of it yet if the book is dissected further, there are so many linguistic features and themes that would generate great discussion in a classroom setting including the effects of war on ordinary people, the role women played during this time, the relationships between family members and the issue of morality when confronted with a complex, adult problem.

Given this is the centennial year of the landing of our troops at Gallipoli in WWI and classroom learning this year has focussed on conflicts and life in New Zealand during wartime, I knew my eldest daughter would have an interest in this book. It does not disappoint.

Reading level: 9-13 (note: adult themes relating to sex, while not expressly stated, are contained in the book)

RRP: $19.99

Released: August 2015

Thank you to Gecko Press for sending us a copy of this greatly anticipated novel for us to review. For your chance to WIN yourself a copy, head to Gecko Press's Facebook page. They are having a month of giveaways to celebrate their 10th year in publishing. The timing could not be more perfect!