Thursday, July 26, 2007

The boys are back

We have our two boys home from their travels. Hugh returns after a year of gadding about London and Stuttgart and Ben after his whiz bang four-week trip to smooch with his girlfriend in London, Paris and Rome etc...

Funny enough both of them ended up with the new Harry Potter book as reading material for the long haul around the globe and both had finished it on arrival in Auckland. We really do live of the other side of the world down here! So, anyway, their respective sisters have now purloined the books for the next reading. I don’t buy books and would have been happy to wait for my hold to come up in the library in a month or two. To tell the truth I haven’t actually read the 6th one yet – so no rush.

Ben now has to settle in to another semester at varsity, while Hugh decides what to do next. At least Ben came home with his luggage. Hugh lost his on the way over to Germany a year ago and this time he lost one bag on the domestic flight between Stuttgart and Berlin and then lost his guitar on the fight to Auckland. There have been a few phones calls made and hopefully they will turn up soon. Funny enough Ben also bought a guitar home, a baby travel guitar -VTG100N – his 6th! It’s rather cute, but I don’t really see the need for so many.

Ben did rather well with his present buying – although he did mention that having three siblings made it a bit of an onerous chore. I got a lovely black silk scarf from Rome. ZoĆ«, a scarf and a multi coloured sweatshirt from Camden markets. Jed a t-shirt that looks like it says Coco cola but actually says cool fucker(!). Jack got a t- shirt, a shirt, and a wooden sword from the Tower of London. And a bottle of whisky for his dad. A lot of effort for a wee holiday.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

What's a girl to do?

Sighhhhhh….Not a sigh, not a sigh! Life is just so.………..tiring at times.

All is well! I am well, kids are well, husband is well.

It is winter, however, and a cracker winter it is, with frost almost every morning for weeks. But oh gosh, I feel quite discombobulated. There is definitely something missing and I’m not sure what it is. Do I need a career change, a new hobby? I seem to be just drifting along - crankily – not enjoying very much about a pretty relaxed and peaceful existence. I’m very grateful to be here and Dunedin, New Zealand is a lovely place and all that – but what is the point exactly?

Hopefully it is just winter blues time and there will be a ‘point’ around the corner.

Pointless moan out of the way…My new gym is turning out to be very successful. I’m liking the attention I get each time I’m there (3 x weekly for 5 weeks so far!) – ‘everyone knows my name’. And find that I push that little bit harder when someone is watching me. I had a set of measurements done today and all is going nicely – no weight loss (which is NOT the point of it all, says Jo vehemently!) but cm loss in all the pertinent areas, so I’m toning up baby!

I was really pleased that I managed to keep my gym visits regular over the school holidays – either I was a BAD mother or I was super organised and dedicated :-) I’m liking fitting visits into my normal day hours too, rather than the 6am sessions at my last gym – why did I do that? I just didn’t think I had the time elsewhere. But it’s pretty regular now. Mondays 5pm, Wednesdays 9am and Fridays 1.45pm. Plus cardio sessions in between, if I need a little time out from home. Of course I also have karate: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday. So I’m keeping the body at it’s maximum tiredness rating most of the time.

Maybe it’s time for my favourite winter (and so aptly named) pick-me-up?

Thursday, July 12, 2007

A boy and his girl






I have been so busy lately - no time to blog - school holidays, children, work, new gym - just go, go, go. Nothing much to say anyway.

Here are some more shots of my boy and his girl in various spots around Europe. He is tripping around the English country side at the mo and then has another week in London before he comes home.

Can you pick the spots visited so far?