insignificant ramblings of a 50-something woman
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We gotta get out of this place
There are three volcanoes erupting in New Zealand at the moment. Mount Tongariro in the central North Island has awoken from a 100-year slumber; White Island in the Bay of Plenty is erupting, and an undersea volcano (miles and miles away from New Zealand) has produced 25,000 sq km of pumice. None of these pose…
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Tennis, prostitutes and triangles
Daniel has started taking tennis lessons. We thought it would be fun for him and a good way to develop some bat and ball skills and so far he’s enjoying them. His first lesson was last week and I haven’t mentioned anything to the coach about his suspected autism but one thing about autistic children…
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Relatives
We’ve had some lovely visitors this past week. Our niece, Frances, was with us for a whole week and we all enjoyed her visit very much. She sketched a picture of Freud for us before she left. I love it! Thank you, Frances. She’s a very talented young lady. Then we had the pleasure of…
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How many features does a clock need?
Over the past year or so I’ve started teaching myself how to write apps for the ipod and iphone. I’ve made a couple of very simple ones which were accepted into the App store which is a feat in itself. I don’t know how many people know this but every single app is checked by…
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Sheep in Auckland
We visited a friend of ours today and she has some pretty cool neighbours. Sheep! Lambing season has begun Checking for dags Freud has completely bounced back and is practically 100% again. How does he do that? Now he’s back to scavenging for food in the rubbish overnight, lungeing at cats and barking at dogs.
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A day at the beach
Freud has perked up again. He’s a bit of yoyo. One day I think, this is it, he’s going to die, then the next day he recovers and continues onward. He’s not 100% but he has started eating again. The Vet gave me some acid-reducing medication as kidney disease can cause ulcers and gastric bleeding,…
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Freud
Freud has stopped eating again. He has not eaten anything in more than 24 hours. We do not know why because he had some blood tests this week and his kidney levels, although abnormal, are similar to the test from a couple of months ago. There must be something else wrong as well. Yesterday afternoon…
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Fairies and butterflies
It’s a busy weekend of birthday parties this weekend. The kids were invited to a fairy party yesterday and Elizabeth dressed up as a fairy. Boys were not required to be fairies. We’ve got another party today. There was face-painting too. Daniel understood what this was about but Elizabeth was a little unsure until… …she…
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The perils of wearing designer fakes
Since moving to Auckland, I have become more acquainted with my iron than I’ve ever been in my entire life (aside from the short stint I had working on a private motor yacht as an ironing lady). How can this be? For the first time in a long time, I have a burgeoning wardrobe of…
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Zero shades of grey
I’m not referring to the notorious book, although I have read 50 or so pages of that book and it was 50 pages of dreadful drivel. Instead, I’m referring to my hair and the increasing number of grey strands I keep finding. Do I keep them and pretend to be proud of them or should…
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Cousins and The Tepid Baths
Ben’s nieces, Frances and Jessica, came to visit us this week, all the way from Switzerland where they live. Daniel and Elizabeth both had a ball with Elizabeth particularly sad to see them go. Fortunately Frances is coming back to stay with us for a week at the end of the month, once they’ve finished…
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Nappies, Auckland and the beach
Elizabeth is completely toilet-trained. No nappies anymore, ever. Not even to bed. Daniel on the other hand wears the biggest, most-expensive night-time nappy which still fails to hold everything and he often wets his bed. How long will this go on for? It’s always depressing coming back to Auckland after a trip away because it’s…
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Mount Ruapehu
We are back from our little adventure and it was a bit of a disaster because we were all so sick. We just felt rotten for much of the time and depleted of energy with sore throats, chesty, phlegmy coughs, headaches and all the rest. We’re still not right but have passed the worst of…
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Speech therapy and some videos
Daniel was finally assessed by a speech therapist yesterday morning and he qualifies for Government support which is great. Starting next term, he’ll have weekly sessions with her and she’s confident we should see some improvement in his speech. We have all come down with the dreaded lergy here which is very bad timing because…
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Freud and Matt
When you have an old, sick dog whose days are numbered, you spoil him: Having a blow-dry after the bath. It is winter after all. He’s not trying to kiss me. I’ve just put some chocolate in my mouth. Matt Harding has a new video on youtube. For those who don’t know who Matt Harding…
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Gorgeous Elizabeth and quakes
Elizabeth is such a cutie. I got some good photos of her this week: The news this morning reports of a Mag. 5.2 earthquake in Victoria, Australia. That’s pretty big for Aussie but reassuringly, it’s the biggest earthquake to hit Victoria for over 109 years. I say reassuringly because although earthquakes happen everywhere, they are…
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Daniel the artist
Daniel has a tendency to get obsessed with things. His latest obsession is with drawing. He can spend literally hours drawing pictures of all sorts of things. He’s churning through reams of paper too – we have to somehow teach him to be less wasteful. Today I took some photos of his works of art:…
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Crafty day
It has been a delightful day of crafts for me. Elizabeth and Daniel have been invited to a birthday party next weekend and I’ve heard, from a good source, that the birthday girl is very interested in Mermaids. So I went to the fabric store and bought the fishiest-looking fabric I could find and made…
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Playground-hopping
We went playground-hopping today and found an absolute treasure of a playground at Hobsonville Point which is on the very western edge of Auckland harbour (Waitemata harbour). It had some very interesting sculptures for children to climb on and interact with and was a big hit with our kids. We saw two magnificent rainbows while…
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The dog and the children
Freud is looking really well again and is pretty much back to his old self of chasing cats and barking at strange men. He’s to have another blood test tomorrow so we’ll have a clearer picture then of how much the bacterial infection was to blame for his renal failure. Meanwhile Daniel has an ear…
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