Author: thethingsnotsaid

Bye Bye Summer

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So today feels very much like Autumn.  It’s rained and the night has come noticeably earlier than normal and I almost put the heater on this morning.  Before we turn our attention to all things wrapping up and staying warm – I thought I would celebrate the wonderful summer we were blessed with…it was almost like God new after two Autumns and Winters in a row the Family Cowles needed some sun and fun. Bye bye ten minutes before bed time when Gareth and the children water our thirsty vegetables. Bye bye going to the beach for an hour and splashing in the water to keep cool. Bye bye summer, we have loved spending time with you, see you in a few months time!  

Looking forward to the dentist

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I realised last night that I was actually looking forward to my appointment at the dentist for two fillings.  I now know I was a fool as my entire mouth is numb, there is an ache in my jaw and the sound of drilling is still ringing in my ears.  Plus there is a dent in our bank balance that I would rather have spent on shoes. Bearing all that in mind, what kind of a week did I have that made me look forward to such mouth violation? My week contained  32 hours of work, visitors in the house who weren’t keen on children (eat my food, sleep in my house and wash your clothes in my machine – like my children peoples!), ferrying my children to various lovely friends houses to look after them while I did many hours of work with visitors, husband working 12 hour days and PMT like you wouldn’t believe. Highlights were… Minnie announcing for the tenth time that she doesn’t want me to be her mum anymore and …

Hope

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My little girl’s middle name is Hope.  This is because when I had no hope, Minnie gave it back to me.  This person, when she was only five cells big, was my gift of hope. I will always be thankful to my daughter for that gift.  The Bible says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life”. And I think if Minnie hadn’t been the little embryo that could, my heart would have been very sick indeed. I’ve been overwhelmed by how much I love Minnie this week.  Which is odd to me because she has been a right little madam, pushing boundaries, telling me she wants another mummy, being rude to visitors in our house, generally looking nothing like the daughter I would like to see as the result of my parenting!  I’ve had to discipline her so much, setting her boundaries and not letting her go over them (the harder part of the boundaries!).  I am exhausted. It has made me wonder about where we will be …

Parting is such sweet sorrow

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It’s about 11,700 miles from Christchurch to Liverpool and that is why we don’t get to see friends and family so much.  For the first nine months of our move to New Zealand we have had no visitors, which has been good for starting our new life but not so good for missing our old life and loves. My mum and step-dad arrived on the 17th January, a long awaited date that had a “how many sleeps until” countdown monitored by Minnie since her birthday in November.  None of us could quite believe it when finally we could say, only one sleep to go. It’s hard to believe that was five weeks ago and we said goodbye six days ago.  Life gets busy again and we’ve already had another UK visit from our heroes Nic and Jen.  Alas they left as quickly as they came and once again I am left with a slightly low feeling as we get on with our day sans amis. Making friends is such a risky business, a roller coaster …

Some days are hard to win

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This week was the first week in the New Year that I am officially a working mum and Gareth is back to his day job.  We knew that my squeezing in 24 hours of work into an already busy week and only gaining 8 hours of total child free time was going to be somewhat of a challenge.  We warned ourselves that it would take a month of seeing what I needed to hand over to Gareth to find those productive hours at home and this week gave us the first glimpse of where I lack in available hours!  Thankfully it is halfway through January and the majority of Christchurch don’t go back to work until Monday or even later so it’s only me (and our bank balance) that’s noticed how few hours I’ve worked. I love working from home and working on a freelance basis.  I know it will be the best option for our family once I have work established and we’ve all got ourselves into the rhythm.  Gareth let me have the …

The end of the holidays

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One of the very many things that changes when you have children is your experience, and therefore expectation, of holidays.  I categorise it in the list of changes that you hadn’t 100% signed up for when you decided to have children.  Sure you knew from friends who had gone before you that holidays wouldn’t be the indulgent luxuries they had once been but I hadn’t realised just how much holidays with children looks almost exactly like normal weeks with children! There are some subtle, and very welcome differences though…you get a sleep in until 8.30am every other day, which in turn gives you freedom to stay up past 10pm a few nights in a row.  When one or both of your children have their daily tantrum on your local supermarket floor there is another with you to share the humiliation and in fact will carry out said child so you can finish your shop in peace.  You get to be more imaginative with what you do in the day and can pack it out with …

Happy New Year

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I can’t step into 2013 without saying something. One of the first things you do when you get to a new year is you compare where you were 12 months previously.  Last year we were in Bath with Gordon and Rhiannon, and if memory serves me well we went out for a cosy lunch in a quaint country pub on New Year’s Day.  This year we are just us four on a beach and a pack of crisps for lunch (yes mother, I really do feed my children crisps for lunch some days). Then you think about what you have achieved during the last 12 months.  For us this is: Leave England, all our friends and family to travel across the other side of the world Arrive in Christchurch where we knew three people (Jonnie, Rich and Lucy) Gareth starts a new job Gareth and I buy a house The family joins a church We all have birthdays – 36, 35, 3 and 1 Gareth and I have our 10th wedding anniversary (celebrations still to …

Minnie Turns Three

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Over a month ago my little girl turned three.  It was a long awaited day, although not as long awaited as five will be – since two and a half she has been trying to convince anyone who asks that she is five years old.  But this November we settled for three and she did it in style. Her party came first.  It would seem there are many little girls in the city of Christchurch that were born in the month of November so we found our slot in a long line of birthday parties.  And we had ourselves a Madhatter Tea Party, I was going for the Johny Depp version – Minnie was thinking along different lines….PINK! I’m an event manager so planning wasn’t too much of an issue.  Games, check. Party bags, check. Invitations, out. Menu, planned. Large, pink hat shaped, way more than I can manage cake, committed. As with any event, the weather is the only detail you can’t control but thanks to our ever faithful God it was perfectly tuned …

Toad in the Hole

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When I decided to add this to my library of blogs I thought I should finally find out why sausages in Yorkshire pudding mix is called ‘Toad in the Hole’.  You’d think as I once lived in the good city of Wensleydale I’d know already, but I don’t.  Allegedly it’s because the sausages peeping out of the Yorkshire pudding resemble toad’s legs popping out of a hole… well yes of course.  Needless to say it’s raised some Kiwi eyebrows over here when I’ve mentioned I’m cooking it.  They can’t judge, they have yo-yos and cheerios. So this is a good hearty meal and it includes sausages, and what child does not like a sausage or three?  You are meant to make it with onion gravy, which I would if I was cooking it for adults but I think that extra effort would be lost on my children so I let them have tomato ketchup.  I would like to stress at this point, that on average we have one meal a week that has ketchup with …

The comedy of children

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I find being mum to two small children really stressful, I think more than the average mum because I am a certified control freak and a nearly three year old and 16 month old will not be controlled, some days they won’t even be gently guided.  I’m finding it doubly hard this week so thought I’d share a couple of funny stories from the past few weeks. First of all, the quick wit of Minnie:  I often treat her to a juice bottle that is covered in garish pink patterns and Dora the Explorer on, you know the type, allegedly water but really highly flavoured and full of trash.  I buy her the bottle as a treat and then for the rest of the week I fill it with water – how clever am I.   Anyways one dinner time I thought I would educate myself on exactly what’s in it and picked up the bottle to read through the ingredients.  My suspicions were right, seriously no natural stuff in there.  Minnie starts screaming at me, …