A day in Christchurch

Silly me; I guess I forgot to read my own blog, and I’d forgotten that I’d already said some things… eagle eyes might notice that my last post was edited slightly LOL

So we spend a day in Christchurch, which is a nice little city, exploring in the “el cheapo” car I rented to get us to the rainbow gathering (since it’s not so much fun hitch hiking with a child). It was a nice car – and being pretty old and crappy, way cheaper than I’d expected. and it was GREEN :) 

We went to the Canterbury Museum, which was pretty cool. There’s a house there entirely decorated with Paua shells which was awesome. The house had been in a small town in the south, and this old couple lived there and opened their home as a tourist attraction for decades. After they died, the museum got all their house and rebuilt it in the museum.

Littletree got to have a go on an old Penny Farthing bike

But her favourite exhibit was the 19th century toy shop that had an amazing doll’s house

After the museum we strolled around the botanic gardens, which was lovely. Littletree ran around smelling flowers

While I took pictures

And we played in the rose garden

 

Littletree learned about sundials

And then we lay down in the grass for a rest… while Littletree practiced her cartwheels

Finally Purple got up and played a bit too

You can see more photos from our time in Christchurch on my flickr page HERE. Stay tuned for the next instalment of the world rainbow gathering.

The Road to Rainbow

Back home at last! It’s been a long journey, and I managed to come back with a 2GB chip full of photos! It seems prudent to spread the telling of our journey to the World Rainbow Gathering in New Zealand over a few posts, so I’ll start with the way there.

After all the packing we got underway, and were dropped at the airport by a friend… only to find that our flight to Sydney was delayed. Great. Before too long the PA announced that anyone on our flight to Sydney with a connection to Auckland or Christchurch (which meant us) should go back from the departure lounge to collect our baggage in the check-in terminal and report to customer service. Flashbacks of our recent adventures with delayed flights running through my head, we collected the bags and schlepped back through security to find out what was happening.

 We were told to wait and a shuttle bus would drive us to Brisbane, 90 mins away, where we would be put on a direct flight to Christchurch, which would land only 25 minutes after our original flight. As it turned out, the exact same flight that one of my best friends was taking!

Littletree complained the whole shuttlebus ride that she hates it when our plans are messed up, and she’s not happy taking a 90 minute bus ride rather than a 90 minute plane ride. At least she had gum (which she managed to get in her hair)

We finally arrived to Christchurch, and managed to clear customs (who insisted on taking all our bags apart and washing our tent pegs) by 1am. I picked up our rental car and we navigated to a house where many rainbow people were crashing. Amazingly, the owner of the house had managed to keep a double bed free for us, and it was like sleeping atop a massive hippy temple – about 15 scraggly bodies in tatty sleeping bags were sprawled on various cushions around the room, and we tiptoed in to fall asleep in the mattress in the middle of it all.

The rainbow house was fun – connecting with rainbow family, loads of fun people for Littletree to play with, and a boy her age who had pet mice. We stayed a day there, recovering from the journey, and hanging out.

Stay tuned for the next instalment of our travels!

Adventures in Packing

Things are a bit frantic around here, with us working like mad to get all packed up to go to New Zealand for the World Rainbow Gathering, and getting the house cleaned for our house-sitter to arrive.

Littletree was “helping” me pack, but mostly getting in the way ;)

 

In the end, she was thankfully distracted by the arrival of presents in the mail

Then I went down to the basement with her so she could try out her new (hand-me-down) rollerskates

When that got boring, we got out Littletree’s latest project – drawing with a feather in ink.

And while I’ve done a great job on playing with Littletree today, the packing still has a ways to go – somehow there’s a huge pile of things to go into the backpacks, but they’re both full already! WAAA!

This will no doubt be my last post till after the Rainbow, so long till then!

Christmukah Party

This weekend was the Christmas party in our village. It was a lovely picnic – lots of fun, everyone was hanging out in the park, singing carols, there was live music, and kids running everywhere

Santa arrived, on the village fire truck, of course.

The kids crowded around him while he gave out presents, and poor Littletree was the only child standing there politely with her hands out.

All the other kids were yelling and pushing and grabbing, while Littletree stood patiently waiting… and in the end, “Santa” passed her over about a dozen times giving little candy bags to the louder kids, and she missed out all together.

Littletree was so sad – it was the first time she’d ever seen a Santa :( She didn’t even really want the lollies, but it really sucked getting passed over like that when she was the only child not jumping around and pushing.

We sat down together for a hug, and she told me that he wasn’t the real Santa; just a man dressed up, and the real Santa is just something people believe in.

She got over it pretty quick, and went to play with her friends until it was sunset - time to light the Hannukah candles

I really enjoy the ritual of lighting the candles, and singing songs. 

 

We thought it was pretty funny to be lighting Hannukah candles at a Christmas party, but no one else seemed to know what it was. The Hannukiah did draw some interested guests though

Merry Non-Specific Holidays to everyone!

Scrambled Egg

Littletree came home in the morning after a sleepover at her friend’s house, and announced that she wanted to make breakfast.

All she needed help with was finding the appropriate pans from the shelf.

She broke eggs into a bowl and beat them up

Added milk and salt and pepper, and poured it into the pan (not spilling too much)

Then we all sat down to a yummy breakfast – scrambled eggs on toast

Pretty awesome stuff! and it looks like my plan of breeding my own tribe of servants is coming to fruition! Bwahahahahaa!

Dive!!

It’s been really hot here this week, and we’ve been going swimming a lot, both at the local creek and the pool in town. Littletree has been improving her swimming so much, and is even putting her head under water and doggy paddling around.

The other day she started practicing to jump into the pool; I feel so awed by her achievement, and her journey with fear of water. :)

Littletree is getting a lot more independent in general, lately. A new family moved in next door with a 5 year old girl, and Littletree has been walking out to play with her several times a week. Then she started venturing 100M further down the road to our neighbour’s where they have a son the same age as Littletree and a 3 year old girl. The kids have a great time. Occasionally, Littletree even rides her bike down a further 200M from there to another family, where a 7 year old girl lives.

I love it that quite often all the neighbourhood kids get together and play around, riding bikes, climbing trees, running around. I love the sense of community, and that we don’t really have to worry about cars, and everyone knows everyone, and that I feel safe for Littletree to go out for walks to friends’ houses on her own in the afternoons.

Life is good :)

Technical Littletree

Littletree has been getting into more intellectual pursuits lately. She has a little notebook she calls her “homework” book, and spends lots of time writing things in it, copying sentences from books, writing out sums and stuff.

I bought her a wall chart of the multiplication tables and she loves it to bits. It’s so cute, not only does she spend hours reading it and telling everyone the times tables, she snuggles with the chart like it’s a security blanket and carries it around with her all the time.

Purple started to teach her more about computers, and the two of them sat drawing turtle graphics pictures with LOGO (Logic Oriented Graphic Oriented) language. I remember spending hours programming LOGO when I was about 8 or 9.

We’re reading our first chapter book without any pictures! I’m really enjoying it, and I love the idea that now we’ve opened up our story-time possibilities dramatically. Previously, we could only choose books that had at least a picture every few pages.

The book is fantastic, a story about a hunter faery, called Knife (the US title is Faery Rebels which isn’t as good a title or cover – try to get the UK edition if you can).

Catchup

Química came up for another visit this week; she’ll be staying till we go to New Zealand for the World Rainbow Gathering.

Littletree has been really bonding with her… well, really bonding with her iPhone anyway!

Purple has been getting back into practicing his Flute, much to the admiration of all the local wildlife (lucky his code was compiling).

I get a new bookshelf for my midwifery books – about time, coz they were totally taking over the kitchen shelf.

The books and folders I use more regularly I have lined up on my desk, which is at a comfortable level of clutter

I’ve been getting lots of free time to study lately – Littletree has been exploring new levels of independence, and a new family moved in next door to us with a five year old girl. Littletree walks over to her house to play almost every afternoon.