R.I.P ZL4RW 73S

My dad died suddenly on Monday - it's been a long week with the funeral today.

Are you sore yet?

"Do you have any sore muscles?" Asks my 17 yr old daughter casually, as she whisks up a chocolate mousse for dessert.

"Nope" I answer blithely while puttering away on the Internet.

"Well you need to work harder next time then!" She GROWLS at me!!!

We trained together yesterday - bit of bag work, bit of pad work, and a medicine ball applied, from height, frequently to the stomach region.

I love my stairs

I was 'doing' my stairs yesterday and was amazed at the love hate relationship I have manufactured for each repeat of the stairs.

First time up is pretty much always my least favourite. The ipod isn't always on the right tune. It's harder that it should be and there are a whole heap still to do. 2 and 3 are much the same. I start to wonder how I ever make 10, my quads ache.

By number 4 I'm realise that my breathing is actually OK and that was almost fun.

Five and I'm cruising - Piece of cake, halfway already - ah hah! It is working...

6 - yeah another one down.

7 - Not a good one. 3 more to do, breathing a little more heavily at the top.

Maybe that will do - I know I can do ten - do I need to ten again? Maybe 7 is a good number today?

At the bottom, look up the stairs - find a better song - My sharona - the perfect beat (I never said I was fast!) and I make number 8 without too much bother - keeping in pace with the beat.

9 - replay that song - Phew, a bit harder to get all the way to the top on beat - but do-able.

10 and it's over again for the week. Feeling GOOD.

But should I do another? - Just because I can? Nah. Head home on wobbly legs and think about how bad I'd look doing any syllabus right this minute.

Tip of the day - kata

Tsuki no kata:

Keep all stances tight and low. Look in direction of first two punches - 45 degrees... Rotate hips for gedan, then gedan/chudan punch. Keep sanchin stance tight on turn...explode into two jodan punches. Keep fist chambered for mae geri. Keep in same 'plane' for junzuki punches/nukite strikes. Kiai on first junzuki. Swing around hard for first nukite. Swivel into next nukite - but set stance first and then strike hard. etc, etc.

Great to have an hour kata classe now, and to just concentrate on one kata for the whole class. I'm getting the feel or this kata finally - so tricky with all the stance changes at first.

More classes please!

Loving my karate at the moment. I feel like I done the right training at the right pace this time around. I may never be a fabulous brown belt, but I am being the best brown belt I can be. I'm really looking forward to this grading being over though so that I can concentrate on refining my techniques. I don't want to change too much at the moment, just do the stuff I need to do as I know how now. But, I can't wait to then spend the next year (or so) polishing, polishing, polishing. Relaxing into the moves and really making them work, rather than just remembering what the moves are.

I seem to be sweating heaps more this time. Poor Senpai Zoë was apparently sprayed with sweat each time I kicked her tonight. I had put my shin guards on for the whole class (have a few bruises from yokusoku) and they are coated in a shiny vinyl stuff. Obviously the sweat was pooling and then swishing out each time I contacted her. Yuck! That is so disgusting...It's usually the guys dripping on us girlies. Maybe 'more fit - more sweat'?

It's just so much fun!

6 weeks

Phew! Six weeks. Panicking a wee bit. Time to choose between fitness and technique...ahhh no, no, no.

"Technique before Strength, Spirit before Technique" This will be my mantra for the next 6 weeks.

I should be good with the spirit, I'm doing my best with technique. Strength? - yeah, well going hard there too, but will always be pushed to the limit I guess and then technique gets sloppy and then there's only spirt left (that and a good jab - punch, keep the hands up!).

These beauties are not designed as landing gear, when swept. I went down like a tonne of bricks - still don't know where the foot came from.


Meanwhile Senpai Zoe is not back training after gaining a mild concussion (foot applied briskly to the forehead). Three weeks and still experiencing; headaches, nausea, noise intolerance and difficulty concentrating at school. It's a laugh a minute in our house.

I'm still dreaming kata and kihon, etc...Sad as the dreaming is not helping the reality. Just need time in the dojo now. Scared I'm not doing enough. Scared to do more in case I get too tired or injured. Tricky, tricky, tricky...

Light week

9 weeks out and this is my 'light' week. Not sure how I will cope with that? Probably feel like I'm slacking off.

Today I arrive a work with great plans for the day, but having 'forgotten' to plan my food. Someone calls in sick and I end up out on the buses morning and evening and working the afternoon as well. I finally get home at 9.30 pm after doing the grocery shopping and picking up boy from his bass lesson...so how did the food go on a 'relaxed' day?

Carb, carbs, bloody carbs. Breakfast was fine same same old...eggs soft boiled, yum. Then darling husband turns up at my first bus port of call with a date scone and a mocha! He thought he was doing me a favour - chilly day and he knew I was under-prepared both in clothing and food for the day. Lovely, lovely, lovely thought. But a bad start - and he didn't know I had already grabbed a bag of pineapple lumps from one of those damn boxes in the staff room, double bad.

Lunch fine-e-oh. Grabbed some sushi - just the cost ($7.50) was irritating as I usually bring my own - not sure where my head was this morning...Oh yeah I do! I didn't hit the gym at 6 am as usual - I 'rested' until 7.15, so out of routine already.

Any hoo, saved the date scone until 3.30 and afternoon tea. Then ducked out at 5.30 for a quick mocha and a toasted sandwich (bread,bread bread!) then arrive back for the evening shift to find Mr Man (why is he so nice?) has left a wee helping of nuts, a plum and a chocolate bar for my supper! Fortunately I had presence of mind enough to get out on the bus and save them for tomorrow.

Home late and a plate of casserole from the slow cooker and a slice of brownie that Jack made after school.

Not so bad in quantity, but choices not great. Carb city - no fruit or vegies to speak of...and NO EXERCISE AT ALL.

Tomorrow calls - back to gym for light work out then plan breakfast, lunch, tea and snacks. Drop first karate class and just go to brown belt class. That is the plan :-)

Tuesday tuesday

Tuesday brown belt classes ROCK! Great syllabus, great teacher, great fun and you get sweaty too! Excellent way to finish a long day on the buses. I LOVE being a brown belt!

Twelve weeks

All is going well. Date for grading has changed to a Wednesday night - very strange after years of Saturday morning gradings. Should be OK as night is when we normally train. The going to work the morning after could be a little tiring - no nice lazy weekend to relax over.

Training and eating are going to plan. Worry not enough of one and too much of the other - but that's par for the course.

It really is twelve weeks this time.

I'm going to invite all my 'lady' friends and workmates etc to this one. Not sure if they will be impressed - probably just see me cry. But it will be a long wait (2 years?) until the next (Shodan) grading.

I saw a 6 on the scales for a day last week! First time for a while, it's gone again just now. But obviously hovering around the corner.

Babble babble, been a hot day.

The crossing

Tongariro and Ngauruhoe
Emerald lakes
Red crater on Tongariro
Jo, Jack and Sean with Ngauruhoe behind


All went really well. Took about seven hours, with an early start of 6 am. Jack walked well.

The craters looked amazing the lakes and ground steamed around our feet. The army was apparently practicing off in a far valley, but at the time we were convinced the craters were booming! Very scary.

The weather was perfect, still and mild for the ascent, bright sun with a breeze on the tops and then overcast for the trek down and out through the forest.

All over and back to our car by 2.30pm and zoomed off to Taupo for a lovely relaxing spa or two.

Fondue do

Had a fondue do last night to celebrate Ben turning 21. His dad provided the beef, venison, rabbit, blue cod and paua ( all culled with his own fair hands) for the main, while I did the dessert fondue; chocolate, fruit and marshmellows. Veges were optional. Tequila seemed to be the drink of the evening. Fun times.

Today I was in at the dojo, I have a good routine that gets me through all my syllabus and keeps the heart rate up for 45 minutes, ends with a circuit - ugh, burpies are hard on my back. But loving getting back into it all. Stairs tomorrow then away for the week to the North Island and the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. The long range forecast is improving for our time up there, however there are swarms of jellyfish at Mt Manganui -double ugh!

Ben 21

1 week

2 years

7 years

14 years

18 years

Just a day

Today turned into a rest day. Listen to the body! I was just was a little sore in too many places to head in to the gym for another cardio session, this is the joy of being in what I'm calling week -1. Next week is week 0, more holiday, with no programed training apart from a seven hour wander amongst some volcanoes (although I'm dithering about taking my gi to Auckland, there is a class on Monday night I could attend...might do that yet). So this week was a ease in after Christmas and I feel as though I've done OK. Weights again in the morning.

Tomorrow night we are having a do for Ben who turns 21 on Monday (When I'll be away). Phew 21! I was married, owned a house , and had been working for 4 years by the time I was 21. Ben is at varsity completing a psychology degree, and has just moved away from home into a flat last week.

It won't be a big party, just a few family and friends. He wants to fire up some fondues, so his dad will come up with a variety of meat; venison, rabbit, paua, etc. While I get to do the chocolate and fruit for dessert. Half the family is still away on holiday, so we will do a big family lunch later in the month. I've spent the evening baking kiwi biscuits (Chocolate chip cookies) and sausage rolls - some of Ben's favs.

I've also put together a photo album and Cd of Ben from 0 - 21 years old. It was a very nostalgic trip thru my life, his smile seems to falter at about 7 when my first marriage broke up. And the photo of my mum with all the children, 5 days before she died, made me cry. It's been 9 years, but I've been missing here more and more lately - very odd

Slow start

Lazy days at home and work. I love this time of the year, even at work it feels like a holiday and is so relaxed. Great being there on my own, getting thru heaps of backlogged work.

The gym is all good too. Going at odd times as they are still on their Christmas hours, good to have a steady programme again and I can feel a little burn here and there. Not looking forward to the early morning starts that will take over in a week or so.

Been to the dojo a couple of times, amazing what you(I) forget in three weeks. I guess my new stuff just hasn't bedded into my brain yet. The floor isn't any softer either.

Went to Twilight tonight - wasn't looking forward to it as I loved the books, but once I got over the shock of the faces not being the faces I had in my head it was pretty good, mindless entertainment anyway.

16 weeks

Well, really it's 14 weeks until my grading. This week is an oddity with me home alone (yee hah!) and not working much and then I have a week away in the North Island doing the Tongariro Alpine Crossing - hopefully getting better weather than this! And then the fun really starts...

Training up for my 1st kyu grading. I have had a great chat with Senpai Di and between us have nutted out a training schedule. I've eased back into the gym this week after a few months of lack lustre attendance and I started with the lovely stairs again - a little depressed at how hard they are.

I know that a lot can be achieved in 14 weeks, but for me it's a matter of finding a good balance between work and exercise. I tend to be filled with guilt over what I haven't done rather than pleasure at what I have achieved. It's all so subjective as well - fitness. Sometimes when everything hurts and you're tired out it's very hard to remember that you're doing OK.

I struggle (a tad) with the whole food thing too. Always wanting to lose weight and yet knowing that I am perfectly fit and heathy as I am - a good fighting weight :-) But there is always that dream of looking great in a bikini - pipe dream that it is at 46. I am soooo shallow!

So anyhoo, yesterday I had a great weights session at the gym, ran some stairs, did my push ups, and ate healthily. Today is cardio at gym and call into dojo (first time since 6 Dec!) and run lightly over my sylllabus. Classes don't start up until end of Jan.

Plus I get to babysit Phoebe today - bonus, bonus, bonus.

Cruise pix

Not so pretty, but home is home. Vollendam docked at Port Chalmers.

Story seas just off Milford Sound.

Captain Cook's Cottage - in Melbourne of all places!

Last Supper.

Seán, Jo and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The little things

The Cruise was fabulous and Seán's lectures to the Elderhostellers were well received. I throughly enjoyed life onboard the ship as could be expected - little to do except read, eat and mooch about. Not withstanding the norovirus outbreak of course!

Favourite moments were; entering our cabin every night to find an origami towel creation, loved these ones the most; choosing from the menu each evening - such yummy food and no cooking or washing up to do for two weeks; chatting to the lovely people in our tour - especially Fran, Dorrie and Geri (our tablemates); visiting my home town at midpoint of the cruise and popping home with the children.

Tents and itouches

In a tent in Arrowtown with my daughter using her itouch and the neighbours wireless connection! They haven't passworded it, duh! Lovely night starry sky. Night night :-)

Cruisy

Five weeks to cruise time. Coming out of a long cold winter the body is a little pallid and while it's karate ready it's not so bikini ready. Not that it’s a tropical cruise, but there do seem to be plenty of swimming pools on the boaty boat boat.

So, a few weeks of cardio blast at the gymbo, a little mindful eating, a walk a day and then a new bi-ki-ni to stun all those elderhostellers who will be sharing my boat.

I'm hiding away a few good reads for the trip as well. Including a smattering of NZ books that I 'should' read, being a good wee librarian. I imagine they will get left at the bottom of the suitcase though, and the light & fluffy chic lit will be chosen instead. But I can try.

Brown

I have been a 2nd kyu, brown belt, for a week now and only been to one class – that’s a bit of a record for me. Usually I can’t wait to head back in and learn my new syllabus, but I was pretty tired after this one. A few bruises, here and there, but mainly weary of training.

So, a week off…and gosh, I feel even worse. I think it’s a myriad of things; the end of winter, lots on at work, fighting off those bugs that I have successfully kept at bay for the last couple of months, etc. It could even be my stupid thyroid medication – big fuss in the news about side effects caused by a new formulation of a drug that 70,000 New Zealanders have to take. Weary, weary, weary.

It was a good grading though, I felt pretty decent most of the time – can’t jump for nuts and the stairs that I have been racing up and down for months felt ten times worse on the day– but hey, that’s the point I guess.
So, my next six months (apart from learning my new syllabus) is all about learning to spar – better protection and better techniques – punching, kicking. I want a yokogeri like my daughter’s.

Anyhoo, the photos are pretty crap so only a before and an after. And I guess I’ll drag myself down there next week.

Glorious wattle

Spring is just around the corner and our wattle is in full bloom. Each morning we wake to tui and bellbirds singing as they fossick for nectar – or whatever it is they fossick for in trees.

Is there such a thing as light sparring?

No, and the bruises prove it.

Mind the head

An update as instructed…

Ok, ok, Senpai, I do feel guilty about not heading down to the dojo tomorrow at 6am, but it’s just so cold!!! I have no excuse; I’m just not going. And worse, I probably won’t make Tuesday night class either – work thing, grrrr.

One of my favourite senpai sent me the following video clip with the helpful comment “What do you think of my new move?” Much is made of me not protecting my head and much is made of a certain other senpai, who will be visiting on the day of my grading, being able and willing to kick to the head. It was enough to make me wince. Whether it’s enough to make me block my head? Who knows?

A snowy day on the bus

Last Saturday up in Halfway Bush. We usually cancel the buses when the weather is like this, but it caught me unaware and once I was heading up the road it was too tricky to turn back. Fortunately the bus is quite heavy and, while it was snowing, it wasn’t icy so there was no slipping or sliding.

I even had the right bus for the conditions - note the penguins on the side :-)

Excuse the photos, I only had my camera phone.

Beach training - Timaru June 22nd

A couple of new senpai

Last fight is over

A hug with mum at the end. Zoë's friend and mentor,Senpai Di rushes up from one side while Sensei Seán, Zoe's brown-belt teacher (and stepfather), comes from the other side.

Zoë's last fight was with me, Grrrr!

I was told halfway through the grading that I would be Zoë's last fight. The candidates often get to choose their own last fight person - often their training partner or an inspirational teacher and Zoë had been thinking bout two or three different people. But she wasn't given the choice in the end. Jun Shihan told me it was me and I was flabbergasted, It was a big honour to be given to a green belt! So I asked a few blackbelts for advice and was told to go really hard out. So I did.

Awesome Zoë

Well, my wee girl just rocked. Most amazing weekend; from the trip up to Timaru, when she got a little emotional, to the day of her grading where she shone right though to the last fight - which was with me!

It's here at last

Sunday: kata class
Monday: sick in bed
Tuesday: work
Wednesday: sick at home, but not in bed
Thursday: back to work, general class,sparring class
Friday: annual leave, off to Timaru
Saturday!!! Zoë's shodan grading
Saturday night: party, party, party...

Gut-buster

Saturday - ran a 7.3 hilly gut-buster that my gym organised. Got 2nd in the run/walk section. i did it with Phoebe in a push chair. Whew, haven't run for ages.

Another week slides by

Friday: gym after work.
Saturday: rest day (lollie day!).
Sunday: kata class, stair running with Zoë.
Monday: gym in morning, bag workout pm with Zoë.
Tuesday: general class.
Wednesday: skived off two classes! Took Zoë to optometrist and went home and cooked tea - sat and ate tea with family - a rare treat!
Thursday: general class, sparring class, lasagna at Senpai's.
Friday: gym after work.
Yippee the weekend!

One week to Zoe's shodan grading and we think she has a broken toe! Off to X-ray it on Monday...

Wed - Thurs classes

Wednesday fitness class - no Kyoshi, so a slightly relaxed class with Senpai Laura. Some odd combination that, as usual I just never quite get the hang off.

Wednesday green belt class - just me as usual. Steve and I did self defences, kata etc. Good to get the repitition. I almost have them sorted.

Thursday general class, same old same...then Senpai Gary, from Timaru, took Karl and I for 20 minutes or so and we got to do self defences again - yee haaa! Doing OK too. Senpai had a few suggestions, just got to remember them...Did yokosuko 1,2,3 as well. Got to learn not to jump the foot sweep, just move back and flick the leg up...

Thursday sparring class. Taking it slightly easy for a couple of weeks as the two kyu gradesare in their last weeks of preparation for shodan grading. They did mainly fitness stuff while the rest of us practiced blocks and defenses and then had about 20 minutes of free sparring.

Pizza and chat for supper.

Tuesday beginners class

An hour long beginners class. Good enough fun. Focus on some basic kicks with a little cardio thrown in.

Partner work - YES!

Training today was great! I was honoured to be invited to the dojo to train with the other shodan candidate. It’s kinda cool, because as a ‘slightly older’ woman sometimes I wonder if I’m taken seriously, or if I’m keeping up. I know I occasionally squeal at the wrong moment, my eyes water on occasion – often after a particularly strong impact, or maybe my age (lack of suppleness) just doesn’t always lend itself to a spinning, jumping, sotomawashageri (I imagine I look like a inebriated grasshopper)

So, to be asked by Steve, who is in serious kick ass training mode, three weeks out from his black belt grading, to come down and do some partner work has just made my week. I’m a happy girlie. It was fun too. I’m finally getting to grips with my intermediate self-defenses and learning how to fall a bit better. So, anyway...bag work, kata, self defenses, yakosoku, Steve’s self defenses, kibadachi combinations…an hour of fun on a public holiday.

Twelves weeks (again!)

Jacob's ladder from the top

Time to get my exercise on the up and up. I never really stop, but start to take it a little more seriously as a grading comes closer. I haven't got a date for my brown belt grading but assume it will be late August. That's 12 weeks and time to get serious.

Zoë's Shodan grading is in Timaru, in three weeks! Whew, that's come about really fast. She has been really lucky with; her training partner - the lovely Karl, her brown belt syllabus teacher - Sensei Seán, and of course her mother - the amazing me! I have been watching over her quietly. She doesn't take advice well from a lowly green belt. But I've been making sure she stays healthy, sleeps and eats well. I pick her up from parties when she's drunk(!) only the once, thank goodness. And best of all I go stair running with her each Sunday after kata class.

Jacobs Ladder was our stairs of choice for this training – and what a killer set of stairs they are. Funnily the first time we went to find them we got the wrong stairs and thought we were pretty hot shit making it up and down 5 or 6 times. Later that week we discovered the real Jacobs Ladder…287 stairs of alternating steepness and widths – the last 25 or so are really, really, really steep. I only ‘made’ it up 3 times and if the truth was told I only ran it properly the first time.

Zoë was amazing, having a real goal helps, (your mind is a powerful thing when running stairs) and a mother who yells encouragement from behind for those last hard stairs when your legs are dead. Anyway last week she could run it 5 times, so we thought this week we would head back to our home ground stairs (195), of a nice uniform width and grade.

Man, we powered up those stairs 10 times, talking, chatting, and not having to bend over and almost puke at the top of each set. We rocked!

Anyhoo…Lots exercise, eating well, and refining techniques…12 weeks… here I go again :-)

Visitors from Paris

Had a lovely evening visit from Rebecca, Pedro and Alexandra. Rebecca is a freind of Julie; whom I meet in Noumea, New Caledonia and who has also visited us in Dunedin and now lives in Paris.
(Pedro, Alexandra and Rebecca)


They came for dinner on a rare night when all 6 children were home, so it was 11 for tea, squished around the table.




Jack entertained Alexandra with stones, shells and glass buttons while we chatted.

Seán and I then took them on a tiki tour to see the glow worms at Nicolls falls.

Lovely people, safe travelling!

Start time again - not that I ever stopped :-)

This is now the blog of a full time working mother. No time for the previous inconsequential marking of time and events to entertain the world and myself. No time to write of random guilt filled thoughts in the hope of working out how life should work. No time indeed for much other than work, karate, and eating. Always time for eating.

I am aware it is 3 months until my next grading – 2nd kyu! A brown belt! A reasonably serious grading, with 20 fights at the end. I feel tired and old just thinking about it tonight. Other days and nights I am excited and can’t wait for. But when I have had a couple of classes where I am criticized (constructively I’m sure) enough for me to feel absolutely useless, incapable of making any action truly effective, incapable of the simplest jab, reverse jab, it all feels like too much – am I playing at this?

My body is not a body that is particularly instinctive about anything (other than eating and reading). But I love my karate, I find it exciting and thrilling to use my body to perform moves that could be dangerous. I love pushing myself physically and I love the mind games that go with the whole hierarchical nonsense of martial arts – it’s all kinda fun when you’re ‘in’ it.

But gosh, winter has hit – the body is old, cold and not warming up in the hour-long classes, my back aches. And now I need to make more of an effort – get more fit (fitter). Techniques need to be snappier, sharper, and effective even. Know it all inside out, backwards, upside down. And it’s hard to motivate this sturdy, solid body when it’s just work, work, and work all week. I want to lie down and read for 3 months – not an hour, or a few days – I want months of lassitude, and total indulgence.

I don’t want to get up to frosty 6am starts to lift weights and pound out a few kms on the trainer at the gym. I sure don’t want to head down to the coldest dojo in the world and start rolling around on the floor – and yet that is what I will begin to do next week. 12 weeks to concentrate and get cracking. Blow away the cobwebs.

Its on again.

50 years ago...

My favourite couple in the whole world! Married for 50 years a couple of weeks ago.My parents-in-law :-)

18

They really are growing up. 20, 18 and 16, all have lovely 'friends' - seen here at Jed's 18th family do.

The easist cake ever - sponge roll covered in a 'replica' newspaper article all about Jed - he has a night shift job loading paper trucks in the wee hours of the night and tossing bundles out around the town.

Jed's $300 car!

Abel Tasman

A few shots from our fabulous walk in the Abel Tasman National Park late January. Just beautiful beach, after beach, after beach. The most glorious, in our eyes anyway, was Bark Bay. So lovely that we couldn’t tear ourselves of the beach and lagoon to retrieve our camera from the hut. It may just have been a combination of weather, tide and mood, but we couldn’t have dreamed of a more perfect place while we were there. But that place now remains in our memories.

Who has the time?

Yes, well. Time is an issue here. Working fulltime is a whole lot harder than I thought it would be. Apart from the step up into quasi-management stuff and all that that entails, it's the hours, and hours, and hours that are spent at work. When am I meant to fit in the gym, karate, supermarket shopping and....the children????

Wow. I don't, however, have a new respect for working mothers. I just ask why do it? Thank the Lord for my 12 years as a stay-at-home mother and then eight years part-time work. I think I would be mad if I had had to work fulltime for the past twenty years. I suppose I should be thanking the two men in my life who made it feasible for me not to have to work fulltime.


I have so much guilt about not being home after school and so much annoyance at how little time I have to myself. I have put gym and karate above so many other things recently, because I know that if I begin a slide into slothdom and chubbiness I will be no good in other areas of my life. And yet I have no time for those other areas anyway so in a way it's wasted effort.

Christmas Eve

It's not often we get our large and motley family all in one place now-a-days. Teenagers have a habit of actually leading lives of their own. Also, there are so many extended family branches popping up - girl and boy friend families along with all the steps and exs - that we all want to contact and to see on Christmas day. So, we are attempting to start a new family tradition whereby we will get together on Christmas Eve just before midnight Mass each year. Worth a shot anyway.


From L-R: Hugh, Joseph, Lorna, Seán, Me, Jack, Jed (eyes shut deliberately!), Zoë and Ben. Seán's to the left, mine to the right and Jack is ours - Almost happy families :-)

Home alone

For a while anyway… It’s an odd time of the year. Ben is away partying in Nelson, Jed, rabbit shooting in Bendigo, Zoë is baby sitting at her dad’s and Jack’s still up in Timaru holidaying with Seán and his children (from where I have just returned).

So, for a glorious night or two I am alone! What bliss, I look forward to this time of the year all year long.