When I was growing up there were 4 houses beside each other with kids of similar ages. There were 11 of us in total, 4 girls and 7 boys. This was before play dates were invented. There was no working around after school activity schedules in those days. Everyone just went out the front and played with whoever was around. If we needed more people to make up teams we knocked on the door and asked if they were coming out to play.
Supervision consisted of an open window and a parent who was vaguely within earshot. We played on the road or in the various gardens. The road wasn't a busy one, it ended in a cul-de-sac so shouting "car" was usually enough to ensure no-one was mowed down. The worst injury I sustained as a child was when I fell off the wall I was walking along in the back garden into a thorny bush while wearing very short shorts. My thighs have rarely seen daylight since.
We played games like Kerbs (where you have to bounce a football off the opposite kerb from various distances), Sticks (where you jumped between 3 sticks which were moved further and further apart) and Tip the Can (a cross between Chasing, Hide & Seek and Survivor). The games ended when dinner was ready or it got dark outside. The rules were fluid and oft-debated.
I was reminded of those childhood games recently when my own kids were out playing football on the reserve (sort of a mini-park) beside our house. They were joined by a couple of kids from up the road, then a few more from down the road came along and before they knew it, there were 9 kids milling about playing happily together. It started out as football, then merged into touch rugby before it descended into a complete free for all. The game ended when I called them in for dinner. In they came, sweaty and ravenous and full of chat about the games they had played and the goals they had scored, the winners and the losers, the kids with the mad skills and the ones who weren't very good but tried their hardest. History is repeating itself in the best possible way.
Not the Vivaldi hold music or the hotel chain, I'm talking nature, weather, traditions.
So here goes, my 3 favourite things about each of the seasons.
Spring
Walking on a windy day - nothing like a stroll on a blustery day to blow away the cobwebs and make you feel alive.
Downgrading the layers - the joy of being able to go outside without needing a jacket/thermal vest on.
Flowers - seeing flowers bloom in the garden and realising how much a pop of colour can brighten my day when I open the curtains.
Summer
Skirts - wearing skirts without having to think about tights which everyone knows are evil.
Salad - just wash a bit of veg, throw a few potatoes on and some leftover chicken and hey presto dinner is ready.
A cold drink on a hot day - is there anything better?
Autumn
Cosy clothes - I get to dig out my boots and my hoarder like stash of scarves.
Colourful leafy trees - much more interesting than plain old green leaves.
Goodbye suncream - No more having to smother suncream on my extremities every time I want to leave the house for longer than 5 minutes. Did I mention that I burn easily?
Winter
Frosty mornings - walking on crunchy grass and breathing out in big puffs so it looks like I am smoking (or vaping if it's a really big breath) never gets old.
Soup - makes me warm from the inside out and uses up that dodgy looking veg in the bottom of the fridge, it's a win, win.
Afternoon Escapes - those days when it's horrible out and the only place to be is on the couch with a good book, a large cup of tea and a cosy blanket. It should go without saying that this experience would benefit greatly from being child free, with the addition of chocolate only serving to enhance.
One of the many things I miss from Ireland is newspapers, or more specifically the weekend newspapers. I never had the time or inclination to read a daily paper but I did like the weekend papers, even if it usually took me the full week to finish them. Newspapers here just don't compare and reading the Irish papers online doesn't have the same appeal. I especially like the Review section of the Saturday Independent. It covers a good range of topics and introduces things I would not otherwise stumble upon in my everyday life.
My parents kept a stash of Reviews for me to read when I was home in July but a combination of jet lag and late nights meant that I didn't have the brain capacity to read them then. I brought them back with me and put them in my to read box. I used to put my to read stash on the bookshelf in the sitting room but the pile would look at me reproachfully when I was in the throes of a Netflix binge so I moved it to a box under the side table where it was out of sight but close at hand.
Yesterday I was dusting (a rare enough occurrence) and whilst giving the lid a wipe, I opened the box to see how much was in there. The excitement! I had totally forgotten about the Reviews. So what if some of the stuff is old and the events have already happened. There are book reviews galore, recommendations for shows that will hopefully make it to Netflix here and articles that help paint a picture of what Ireland is like beyond the front page headlines. I am beside myself with the unexpectedness of it all.
You know that feeling when you have to do something that you really don't want to do and it's not even that you don't want to do it, it's that you're scared. Stomach churning, heart thumping, s**t scared. It may defy all logic and make sense to no-one but you but still it persists. The fear.
Last week I faced a fear that I have been avoiding for quite some time. I could have dodged it again but I thought "No. I need to get over myself. How bad could it be?". You're probably thinking "Well done you, good woman yourself". Well before you get carried away, you should probably know that even though I did the thing that scared me, it only served to confirm that it was definitely as scary as I thought it would be and I should never do it again.
Let's just say that me and steep driveways where you feel like you are plummeting to your death on the way down and all you can see is sky when you are driving back up, are not ever going to see eye to eye.
A while back I was in a shop I had never been in before, in a shopping centre I had never been in before, in a city three hours from where I live. A woman came up to me and started chatting to me. Like full on chatting as if she knew me. After a moment's blind panic thinking, wait do I actually know this woman and I've just lost my mind, I realised that no, she was a complete stranger.
I interrupted her gently and suggested that maybe she was mistaking me for someone else. I figured my accent would quickly tip her off to the fact that I wasn't who she thought I was. Apparently not. She was adamant that we had met previously and my two daughters went to the same school as hers. I explained that I only had one daughter and I lived in Rotorua not Auckland. She didn't seem convinced.
So if you are an Irish woman who lives in Auckland, has two daughters and looks like me and now the school gate Mums think you are rude because you won't talk to them in Sylvia Park, I do apologise.
So there is this cool thing called Inktober which is a month long art challenge where artists are given prompts and are challenged to produce ink drawings based on their interpretation of the prompts. I thought this was an interesting way to encourage people to be creative whilst exploring subjects they possibly wouldn't normally consider.
All very inspiring but other than stick people, I can't actually draw so that could be a slight issue. Never fear, Pinterest has thrown up a writing prompts version of Inktober so I'm going to give that a go. This is really just a heads up that there may be some random posts coming your way in October but don't worry, I haven't completely lost the plot.
I'm a great woman for lists. My favourite being my to read list. I used to write it in my diary/notebook but a couple of years ago I started using www.goodreads.com as not only can I add in the books I would like to read, I also now have a list of books that I have already read. Especially helpful when publishers decide to change the cover of a book and thus trick me into thinking that I haven't read it.
When I head to the library I usually have a quick check of my to read list to see if anything is available. Today was the perfect storm - 5 of my to read books were available. Considering I am already in the middle of a book, I should probably have opted for moderation and just taken one or maybe two, but moderation is overrated so I took the lot!
For the foreseeable future my catchphrase is going to be "I'll just finish this page....".
