Author: thethingsnotsaid

Street Signs

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As I’ve been driving around Christchurch over the last six months I have seen loads of street names that mean something to me.  Either they are of a place back in the UK or they are the name of a friend or family member.  So I thought I would start taking pictures of them.  I have ideas of making them into something to put on a wall somewhere, but for the time being I am going to share them with you. First one.   I used to live very near the River Mersey and now I live near to this street.  It’s nice to think that we are not the first people to have come over here from Merseyside.  Mersey Street is actually a very pretty, tree lined avenue so whoever named this street must have had good memories of Liverpool.  Much like me.

Potential

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One day back somewhere I must have done one of those personality type test things that you often have to do as part of a training day when you work for a company.  I remember very little from these training days other than, sitting in an airless room doing silly tests with a bunch of equally uninterested adults is a drag.  One thing I did learn, that has stuck with me, is that I am a Completer Finisher.  Essentially I like to get things done, fully.  I don’t like to procrastinate, I am not a perfectionist but I absolutely hate being halfway. I’ve been thinking about this character trait for the last few days and I see how much it effects my life.  One of the ways being a Completer Finisher outworks itself, is that I am uncomfortable with potential.  What I mean is that as soon as I identify potential, in anything or in any form, I get twitchy until it is realised.  Let me give you some real life examples and I know …

Be England What She Will

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I have been living in Christchurch, New Zealand for six months since yesterday.  This feels like it should be an anniversary that is marked in some way so I thought I would write a blog about England, or rather my missing England. For the first five months of being here I didn’t miss England, which is testament to just how wonderful the welcome to New Zealand has been.  This place is beautiful, their way of life suits us perfectly and the people have been more welcoming than any other bunch of strangers I have ever met in my life – and I’ve been to a few new places in my time.  But about a month ago I started experiencing the odd melancholy feeling for my homeland and in the most curious moments. The first one was brought on by Postman Pat.  My son requested it, well actually he pointed at the DVD shelves and said ‘pat pat pat’ which I translated as wanting to watch Postman Pat but I’ve since deduced that he uses this …

Before and After

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I took my son for his first haircut today.  This was the first haircut I have taken one of my children to.  Yes Minnie is nearly three, but she has gorgeous blonde curls so I’m just letting them grow until they turn into a bird’s nest.  Plus my sister has told me so many horror stories about how hairdressers butcher curls I feel a responsibility to protect her from the abuse. Before I took my son for his haircut he looked like the little baby above. After his haircut (which ran really rather smoothly thanks to a pack of chocolate raisins) he looked like this. How to age your child in 15 minutes.  I now have a little boy.  Now I just need to get him to walk…

Water

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Water is a wonderful thing and now that the sun is making a meaningful appearance, my daughter is enjoying the delights of water play.  Almost every day she strips off and insists I give her a bucket of water to sit in.  Occasionally we treat her to the paddling pool but she seems just as happy with a selection of buckets and bowls to squeeze into. This weekend she got to enjoy water play with her friend Ethan.  And what a shocker, she kept her clothes on.  Hooray for sprinklers! Playing with water is such simple fun for children, and it’s actually an incredible privilege.  Nearly two million children a year die for want of clean water.  Put another way, dirty water kills 5,000 children a day. If that makes you want to burst into tears, go to http://www.wateraid.org and give the gift of water.

Spring is Finally Here

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September 2011 to September 2012 has been a long Autumn-Winter-Autumn-Winter, so to see blossom on the trees lining Hagley Park, Christchurch has been a very wonderful thing.  So wonderful I joined the tourists one afternoon and took photos of my children in the middle of this sunny magic. What I’m really excited about is my little boy venturing into the world of walking in this warm, dry weather, which has timed perfectly with the inevitable tumbles and falls he’ll be taking over the coming months as he finds his feet. There’s something so uplifting about the sun that it makes us all much happier.  Minnie has stopped squirming at the camera, which means I can stick her in a tree, point the lense her way and still get a smile. Taking photos of Jackson is a little trickier.  To be honest I would have tried propping him in a tree too but I think the people walking by would have frowned on it and the ever present policemen of Christchurch would have definitely pulled over …

Please don’t…

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I am breaking my blogging silence for words that really haven’t been said (see title of my blog site), but they have been simmering under my breath for quite some time now.  The following is to all you mums, young and old, who come across the path of me and my little ones during our days together.  It’s a little harsh but frankly, so are you! When I am standing in your shop, at your till, buying whatever essential item your shop sells that my family needs to go on with its week and my son begins to cry because he hates shopping and can’t stand being stationary, strapped into his pushchair….please don’t stop what you’re doing to tell me he’s crying, to tell him he looks tired and suggest he perhaps needs to go to sleep.  Instead carry on with your job, sell me the item, take my money and you will see, the moment I get to push him out of your shop the crying will stop, he will be quiet, peace will …

Pretty as a Butterfly

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We went to the Farmer’s Market for our gourmet porridge yesterday morning like we do most Saturdays (I ran there so totally earned my whisky soaked raisins and vanilla custard topping).  A new thing this weekend was face painting, I was tempted but instead we spent our $2 on Minnie. This is for the grandparents, enjoy.

Frittata

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In one of my previous blogs I said I hated eggs so it may come as a surprise that essentially I’ve cooked an omelete for my children.  I’m pretty shocked I went for it myself but not as shocked as I was when my children LOVED THEM.  Which is why I have decided to recommend it, I mean who knew! This recipe is from the River Cottage Baby & Toddler Cookbook.  This is a good book and they don’t shove their organically charged aspirations down your throat as much as you may think. As they say, you can put in almost any vegetable into this recipe and I would also be tempted to add in crispy bacon, chorizo or cooked chicken.  What I’ve written below is my adaption of the recipe – if you want the original, buy the book you probably won’t regret it. Recipe: 350g new potatoes (cooked) 2 tbsp olive oil 1 yellow pepper 8 cherry tomatoes Handful of frozen corn Handful of frozen peas Bunch of spring onions 5 eggs 100g …

Thick Vegetable Soup

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This recipe is very basic and therefore adaptable.  I am just giving you one example but there are many variants. It’s really more a principle that I am sharing here, which is, if you want to get vegetables into your children, have soup at lunch time.  My little boy has been harder than his sister to wean, and I cried a lot weaning her.  One of Jackson’s top three annoying-to-feed features is he doesn’t want to eat vegetables or fruit so I have to adapt.  I make fruit puree which he eats every breakfast with yogurt and five days out of the week we will have vegetable soup at lunch time.  This may change when we get into the hotter months. I generally use three vegetables from the following; carrot, swede, leek, parsnip, sweet potato, pepper, tomato, squash, pumpkin. This is the soup for the next few days (I make a batch and don’t worry if I serve it two days in a row – it’s only lunch). (I will try to improve my food …