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.