Tag: Family
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49: the perfect square
Today I am the perfect square and will be for the next 365 days. It’s my birthday and I’m 49; 1 year before I’m half a century. This is me at my 1st birthday with most of the birthday cake on my face. Elizabeth is performing in her first musical theatre production this week: Sister…
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Grandad visiting, end of school, and allotmenting
There’s lots happening at the moment but the big news is grandad is visiting which is fantastic. Daniel is keen to catch up to grandad’s height and he’s getting close! Daniel is still growing and grew almost 1cm just in the last month so he may yet make it. Yesterday was the last day of…
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Merry Christmas 2023
We are in Aviemore and it has been an eventful couple of days with Ben spending much of Friday night puking. He’s mostly recovered now but Elizabeth fell victim on Christmas Eve and spent the night puking and Christmas Day unable to eat very much. There are 10 of us in the house so we’re…
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Autumn in Aberdeenshire
Stunning autumn colours in the Scottish countryside today. This is Scolty Hill in Aberdeenshire: the best little corner of the planet. The tower behind us in this next photo is a 300m high monument built for a local man, General William Burnett, who fought alongside Wellington in the Napoleonic Wars. There’s a spiral staircase inside…
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Granny is here, a wave from the King, and a knitting trail
My mother is visiting from Australia which is extra special because it has been more than four years since we last saw her. Today we drove out to Braemar in celebration for lunch and a walk. As we drove past Crathie we saw lots of people gathered and realised the King was about to leave…
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2018 in review
I scanned through the posts from 2018 on my blog and was surprised by how much I did and accomplished. I hope I will have as much energy in 2019. It started with our January 1st walk up Bennachie which was marvellous. There was ice, lovely views, and an incident that involved a dog stealing…
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Sisters
I got to see my sister on my recent trip to France. And my niece and nephew. It was my niece’s birthday. I have visited Antibes several times over the past 20 years. This next photo of me was taken on one of my first trips, when I was about 21. I’m now 42 and…
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Baby photos
My father sent me some old family photos. Here are some early ones of me. I think, though I’m not 100% sure, that the first one was taken at my 1st birthday and that’s my chocolate cake all over my face. I’m pretty sure it’s my birthday again in this next one and that’s more…
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A new home
It has been a hectic and stressful week this week. Settlement for the house we bought was on Friday and we moved in yesterday. But the most stressful part was when my father took a turn for the worse on Thursday night. He had an emergency heart bypass last Tuesday and seemed to be recovering well.…
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The stay-at-home parent and the working parent
I love my job. It’s so fulfilling being able to help people with their websites and most users are profoundly grateful for the support. I also feel privileged to have this little window into their lives: to see what they’re writing about and what their interests are. I feel extraordinarily lucky to have this job.…
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Happy Easter everyone!
My Dad is visiting us for the weekend. Whenever he comes, we seem to end up visiting Bunnings – a mega hardware store – numerous times. Bunnings is Dad’s temple and since I’ve always got a list of jobs for him to do, we end up making numerous trips there. Although so far this weekend…
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Devonport
My very lovely sister is visiting us from Brisbane. I haven’t seen her for two years so it is a big deal for all of us. Today I took her to Devonport which is a quaint village on the North Shore. I know I complain endlessly about Auckland but my complaints are related more to…
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What to do about a sore neck?
For the past few months, I’ve had a sore neck. The pain was just on one side of the neck (right side) and spread down into my shoulder and the upper quadrant of my back on that side only. It wasn’t debilitating, but always there and so irritating. The pain in my back and shoulder…
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Tennis or Karate?
First day back at school for Daniel today and we were all a bit sad about that. Daniel’s love affair with school seems to have waned lately, although he still seems moderately happy with the place. According to his teacher he was exhausted all day today and at one stage she suggested he should come…
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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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Elizabeth
Gosh I’ve been so slack with my blog recently! I’m so sorry. Things are just all go here. Today I caught Elizabeth using a bic glue stick like it was a roll-on deodorant and applying it to her armpits. Elizabeth has a new favourite book – a pink, tizzy thing: We bought Elizabeth some underpants…
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