Today

Kate, Ciara, and me ... enjoying a rhum and coke expertly prepared by Sean. Not just because of the rhum and coke, but because of her mother's good care and her father's doting, Ciara is thriving and continues to be a most agreeable baby. She eats (drinks), sleeps, and is beginning to look around and take longer breaks between sleeps. She is awfully cute!!!
Kate and Sean are both very well. Sean is off on three weeks of paternity leave - such a great idea! He's busy painting a bedroom at the moment, just on time for Jimmy Rhodes and his daugher Alice's impending visit. They're in New Zealand for three weeks, old friends from Kingston. They will be arriving in a few days.
I'm doing some gardening ... of all things!! The kids have a fairly large, terraced garden that is in need of care and attention. They've hired a gardener and I'm supernumerary. I can weed and mow the lawn. Also, last night I planted two trees: a lemon and a lime. Woohoo!
I hope you will enoy this video of Ciara (pronounced 'Keera', in case you've forgotten). It's from at bath time yesterday.

Dunedin Revisited

I'm just trying this out. Haven't visited this site in a year, since I was in New Zealand last year. Now, I'm motivated to dust this blog off as I have a few video clips of the new baby to publish ... if it works. Ciara (pronounced 'Keera') will be two weeks old tomorrow. She's a lovely little baby - very good-natured and quite beautiful (to our eyes, at least).
I arrived in Dunedin one month ago and have two months left before I set sail for Somerton once again. The time is going altogether too quickly, of course.
We are managing to fill our days with a mix of childcare, little toots into town or to visit friends and, for my friend Maureen and me, loads of trips to the little repertory cinema downtown.
Now, enjoy this little video clip of Ciara and I'll be back soon with more news of us and our escapades.

New Zealand Posting No. 3

There's so much to report that I don't know where to start. I guess I'll begin with what I did yesterday. I left Dunedin by train north along the west coast to a place called Palmerston. Although the journey would only take about 45 minutes by car, the train meanders and climbs and takes double that time - 90 minutes. We started off with views of the Dunedin Port followed by views of the Pacific Ocean, with beautiful mountains thrown in for good measure.

At Palmerston, there was a bus waiting for us and we were driven to the gold mines that are inland and still operating. Actually, some of the 'mines' look like wrecked mountains. They extract the rock and then 'melt' it down so that they can syphon off the gold dust and eventually make gold bars. I find it hard to conceive of rock being melted! But that's what they do.

Lunch was served in an old mining town hotel - a hot dinner that was followed by a delicious dessert.

Eventually, we were driven to a small town where our train was waiting to take us back to Dunedin, via the Taieri Gorge. More spectacularity!!! The little train chugged up steep mountains and ran along a most impressive gorge.

I left at 9:30 a.m. and arrived back at the Dunedin Station at 6:30 in the evening. What a wonderful adventure!!

New Zealand Posting No. 2

Probably like you, I'm busy trying to get Christmas greetings into the mail by the end of this week. I'll still be too late for the deadline but at least my friends will know I was thinking of them at this time. Here is a photo of me taken in Los Angeles. If you look closely, you'll see the famous Hollywood sign in the background. I stayed in Los Angeles for four days enroute from Heathrow to Auckland. The little hiatus helped work off some of the jetlag caused by an eleven-hour non-stop flight ... in preparation for the twelve-hour flight to New Zealand from Los Angeles.

The second photo is of Kate and Sean's house. Almost all of the windows face out toward the inlet and the hills. The views are superb - I feel as though I'm living in a resort! The house is spacious and very comfortable. They love living here but will be moving soon as this was a sabbatical rental and the owners will be returning after Christmas. However, they've already got another home lined up, with comparable views I'm told. We'll see ....

The third photo is one of Kate taken recently. Instead of deer-crossing warnings, they have Kiwi-crossing warnings. Cute!

Kia Ora from New Zealand

This is a long-overdue posting that will be brief as there's too much to catch up on. I'm on a two-month visit to New Zealand to spend Christmas with Kate and Sean who moved here in August of this year. Quite predictably, I'm loving New Zealand. It's spectacular!
Here are a couple of photos to tantalize you.

The first picture is of the view from the mountainside near Company Bay, where Kate and Sean live for the moment. The second picture is of their temporary quarters. The window you see is their living-room window and it overlooks the inlet and hills across the way ... scenery that you want to freeze and carry around. It's truly beautiful.
It's spring here ... lucky me. Nightfall is at around 10 p.m. and the days are getting warmer and warmer. I think I'm lucky to be here at this time of year. However, my friends Sandra and Rodney said that they were in Dunedin (where Kate and Sean live) in January a few years ago. It should have been hot but instead they had hail of a size they had never before experienced. So, we'll see ....

Joy comes to visit

Well, Joy arrived from Kingston for a nine-day stay on March 31st. I met her at King's Cross station in London. We travelled by train to Newcastle to spend a few days with Kate and Sean. From Newcastle, we returned to London where we stayed overnight (thanks to hotwire.com Website, I get fantastic hotel deals) in a Hilton hotel and went to see Porgy and Bess, an excellent musical. It was playing at the Savoy theatre, next door to the Savoy hotel.

Joy lived in London as a child and so she finds it very exciting to be there. We saw a few sights and met with Erich the next day. He came over from Germany. We all travelled to Somerton on good old Berry's Coaches. The drive takes us past Stonehenge ... always a very exciting scene to behold.

We all celebrated Easter together. It was April 8th and we were able to have dinner outside. Brian and Lili were here ... as was Kate! She surprised us by coming down for the weekend. Her very kind friend Shmaila worked all of her shifts for her so that she could spend Joy's last few days in England with her.

The photos: Joy on her first night in Newcastle, Joy/Sean/me on a Newcastle walk, Easter Sunday at Gill's ... there were thirteen of us!

Life on the fly!!!!

This is a quick ... and merciful rendition of what I've been up to. It goes to the end of March. There will be more :-).

It's great to steal a few moments in the early morning to write a little bit about what has been going on in my life lately. It's been fun, it's been hectic, it's been absolutely insane!

Where do I start? Well, after my visit with Judi and George to Kate and Sean's in Newcastle in early February, there was my old Montreal boyfriend Ron Pickering's very brief visit in mid-February. He flew over for five days for his aunt's funeral (she was 92) and then stayed with Gill and me for a few days.

Then, Judi Ryan arrived for nine days in early March. She came over for Crufts dog show (she's a stay-at-home mother of 22 ... Irish Wolfhounds and Ibizans) and to see me. We had a lovely time together.

Right after Judi left (the day after), we had a Korean student for the weekend. She was on a homestay visit - an arrangement whereby foreign students are guests in English countryside homes.

Then, at the end of March, Kate and I had a four-day visit to Kingston as our dear friend Harry Lawson was in hospital and very ill. The good news is that Harry is now recovering. He's defied all the odds, thank goodness!!

That's enough about my activities for now. Here are a few photographs. The first photo is of Kate and Judi Ryan in a pub, poring over Kate's portfolio. The next one is of Gill, the Korean student, our friend Frank, and me. The third is our celebration of Kate's 31st birthday on February 16th. The fourth is a poor-quality photo of Ron and me at Heathrow Airport.

More later ....