Month: September 2017

When the dust settles

Published by

In a few days time, we will have been in the UK for five months.  That’s almost half a year!  It has gone by so quickly, but I also think I should get some kind of a badge for the 143 days of “settling in” graft I’ve put in. Repatriating has been one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life. It sits somewhere above emigrating and mercifully quite a bit below IVF on my hard things to do chart. I think what I find hardest is the underlying sense of being just a little bit lost in my life. Which is even more unsettling when you are a 41 year old wife and mother, who should really have her shit together by now. In actual fact my level of “togetherness” is probably not bad, all things considered.  I feel like I grew up a lot in my thirties and it turned out to be quite a decade of achievements and milestones, personally and professionally. I have my faults and I still wonder at …

Three countries in one summer

Published by

When we were in New Zealand we would often talk to ex-pats about their experiences of visiting home.  Due to the distance and expense the whole family would generally need to take four weeks off to make the visit manageable.  Even then, they would always come back totally shattered because the four weeks would be a mad rush around various friends and family homes scattered across the country, the whole family staying in one or two rooms, managing the children’s behaviour as they juggle tiredness and not being in their own space along with trying to squeeze in a few landmarks or “must-sees” of the UK, of which there are many! One person suggested to Gareth, when we had been considering it a couple of years ago, to go over in the UK summer, rent a big holiday house in some beautiful part of the country and book in friends and family to come and visit you.  That way, in between the two 32 hour flights your family has had to endure, they can stay …

Family Pizza

Published by

I don’t want to sound like one of those smug women who brags about how she cooks everything from scratch, knows the exact vitamin content of every meal she serves up and would just die if her child discovered Haribo. Mainly because I am not that woman. Frankly I think the love of Haribo is genetic, so my children don’t stand a chance. However I do like us to have a baseline healthy, balanced diet. I am genuinely fascinated by food and cooking, so it’s not too much bother for me to learn recipes, try out something new and explore what works for my family and what doesn’t. I’ve been enjoying making homemade pizzas for a few years now.  At first I did everything from scratch, even the tomato sauce but as I think it’s a pack of lies that strained tomatoes will ever reduce down to a thick sauce, I have learnt to cut some corners here and there. Making pizza dough is really easy and produces so much tastier, more satisfying pizzas. Unlike …