THERE AND BACK AGAIN

Hi folks, 

Wherever you happen to be when you've taken the moment to stop by and read this blog, I hope you've had a tremendous festive season. 

Down here in NZ we've been enjoying the type of summer people write sonnets about. 

This makes a nice change from the weather's usual antics, which is to tease with wall to wall blue skies up until the week before Christmas before declaring all out war on holiday makers - anyone else remember Cyclone Bola?

Not this year. 

Since mid December we've been treated to endless Azure skies that dissolve into a golden evenings so delicious it's as if a honey pot has been tipped over upstairs. I've taken to reading/writing/living on the bench swing in our backyard which I've positioned beneath our plum tree. 

If it sounds quaint, it is. 

This is the life. 

I am exactly where I need to be right at this moment. 

Yet time waits for no one. 

2015…Two THOUSAND and fifteen.

When I was about seven years old my parents would let me and my sister stay up and watch a show called "Beyond 2000" - it was a real treat and not just because New Zealand only had three channels in those days and we couldn't get two of them.

The show profiled gadgets and gizmo's which were going to revolutionize our lives. I'm presume someone in Marketing choose the year 2000 as the target because it sounded snappy and back in the late 80's early 90's truly did seem like the future. 

I often wonder what became of those inventions. Could anyone have fathomed what life 'Beyond 2000" would really be like? As the clock powered towards 12:00am on the 31st of December 2000 I remember thinking, we're nearly beyond 2000…now what? 

This is what. 

Sitting beneath plum tree's. Chubby cheeks dripping with juices from freshly picked strawberries. Impromptu dance parties in the lounge (kitchen, bedroom, hallway…). Slip n Slides. Friends who make a 4 hour car ride seem like 30 minutes and you still can't stop talking. Sprinklers beneath trampolines. Sand (here there and everywhere). Easing in to the day with a long, lazy brunch that suddenly becomes a BBQ with the whole neighborhood. Falling in to bed on sheets that have been kissed by the sun. Adventures in your own backyard. Living. Life. 

Lately I've been feeling the need to unplug. 

I'm a huge fan of the future - the internet, social media, constant and instant connectedness - yet every so often I find it suffocating. I get caught up in the quest for perfection. The house that looks like a show home, a Christmas that would bring Martha Stewart to her knees, a vacation that doesn't involve either cold war between you and your husband or a gastro bug of some description, perfect squeaky clean children that couldn't look more like a Pumpkin Patch catalogue than if you ironed them flat and slipped them into the letterbox…who comes up with these things? Is this a thing or is this just my thing? In any case it's exhausting.

So I've decided to unplug.

Retreat. Perhaps that's a better way of putting it. I've found that if I am open, honest, attentive and loving to my kids, family and friends then things usually end up working out. The big things do at least. The rest truly doesn't matter. 

AND this is what I've been doing with my time. Indulging in an over abundance of every food group not recommended to man and traveling. In that order and, where possible, at the same time. 

I've got more than a few pictures to share - all in good time. 

For now I'll leave you with a few snaps of Mangonui and this "Look Up" video which manages to put into words everything I've been thinking only a bazillion times better…

Deep breath. Small sigh. 

Much love 

x