Category: Photos
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Diamond Head and more
I’m day four in Hawaii and I’m having a really nice time. There have been no earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or tsunamis so far and Ben and the children seem to be managing well without me. A bit too well in fact 🙂 Yesterday we hired cars and drove around part of the island. There was…
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Life before kids…or not
My mother-in-law is currently staying with us so Ben and I took advantage of her offer to babysit and go out for dinner child-free. This is the first time we’ve done this in more than seven years. I kid you not. We went to Takapuna and left early so that we could walk along the beach before…
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Browns Bay, Auckland
Today we took Dad to Browns Bay, a beach suburb on Auckland’s North Shore. Once upon a time it was a summer holiday destination for Aucklanders wanting to get away from the city, but as the city expanded geographically, it engulfed this pocket and turned it into another suburb of Auckland. Now it’s very popular…
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Auckland’s Sky Tower
I thought I should give Dad a break from doing chores around our house so today we took him to the top of Auckland’s Sky Tower, a 328m structure in central Auckland. It took two years and nine months to build and cost NZ$85 million. There are some impressive views from the top, a couple of…
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LOOK: a pic of me in a bikini!
Don’t be daft! As if I’d post a photograph of myself in a bikini on the web for all to see. I just wanted to see how many perverts there are out there and whether my stats increase with this title. We did go to the beach today though – to Takapuna beach – where…
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Musn’t grumble
We are back in Auckland and I am down and teary about that but I’m going to try hard not to complain so will leave it at this. Our last couple of days in Thailand were not without drama. We were taken to see some wild monkeys on Friday and fed them a bag filled…
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Thailand
I am in Khon Kaen in the North East of Thailand and it is hot and dusty here. This is the dry season in the North East and the countryside is looking very burnt and dead. It is not a pretty place and it is very poor and very crowded. It is geographically flat and…
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The Cairngorms
Today we left the city for the country and visited the majestic Cairngorms, the highest mountain range in Britain. It was spectacular and my wish for snow finally came true. The scenery was a mix of woodland, mountains, castles, villages, rivers and fields but I’ll let my photos tell the story. The rest of…
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The Silver City
We are in Aberdeen, a city known for its extensive use of granite as a building material and because of this it is also sometimes called the granite city or the silver city. On the train here from York, I tweeted that I was heading north in Scotland. Someone responded to my tweet with, “Ooh,…
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A beautiful frosty morning
I have been longing for some snow but there has been none. We haven’t even had a proper frost, that is, not until this morning and the first real frost did not disappoint me. I used to love frosty mornings when we lived in Christchurch with the sound and the sensation of crunchy grass beneath…
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The Yorkshire Dales from the Settle-Carlisle Railway
Yesterday we finally made the trip to Carlisle through the Yorkshire Dales on the Settle-Carlisle railway. I have been wanting to take this train journey ever since we arrived and I have Bill Bryson largely to blame. Here’s what he said about it in his book, Notes from a Small Island: The Settle-to-Carlisle line is…
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A new year: 2014
Elizabeth had a great birthday party yesterday. It was fun for the adults too and not without a few mishaps. At one point, Daniel vomited on the coat of one of our guests. I think he ate too much. Then a four-year-old in attendance was very taken with Ben’s costume and began requesting bits of…
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Happy birthday, Elizabeth
On this day, four years ago, Elizabeth was born. In hindsight, it wasn’t very well planned but she was due on the 17th of December and kept us waiting. After two weeks, the hospital staff refused to let me wait any longer and so on New Year’s Eve 2009, I was induced and Elizabeth was…
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A day out in Nottingham
We had a superb day yesterday. Our hosts took us to see some of the sights in Nottingham the first of which was Wollaton Hall – an Elizabethan mansion completed in 1588 and since 1926, home to the city’s natural history museum. Natural history museums are always interesting places to visit, especially for children, but…
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Geocaching in Nottinghamshire
We are visiting friends in the countryside of Nottinghamshire and it’s lovely. I’m never quite sure whether I’m a town mouse or a country mouse. I love the city with all its lively energy but then I come to the countryside and I love the peace and the beauty. I think I will be forever…
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Viking poo
The photo below is an exact replica of a 1000-year-old Viking poo found beneath the city of York, or Jorvik as the Vikings called it. This poo and real ones (not replicas) can be sampled (held rather than eaten) at the Archaeological Museum in York, called Dig. We took the children there today and it’s an…
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Winter sports are the best
We went to Newcastle for the afternoon. It started off badly: there was rain, the children wanted to go home and we had nothing planned other than to walk around in the rain for a couple of hours before going back to York. But then things changed. First we ran into someone famous: Then I…
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Clifford’s Tower
Finally, after almost all of November on my own, I have my husband back and I’m very happy about that. I have a lot of respect for single parents and for parents where one of the couple spends much of their time travelling. I will only be on my own for about a week this…
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