Our Schoolboy

In January, just as he turned four, we had the slightly agonising task of deciding whether Kazuo should start school this summer, or defer until he was five and a half. In England he would start this year as all children begin school in the academic year in which they turn five. In New Zealand […]

Start as You Mean to Continue

This may seem like a morbid start to the year, but we took the wee one to St Andrews Cathedral a couple of days ago to let off some steam (read: pursue the enemy alien baddies and use the force to rescue the goodies) and this message captivated me entirely. The topic of mortality is a bit of a […]

Christmas Recap

And, January disappeared! Where did it go? Before the rest of the year escapes me…let me fill in a couple of gaps. Christmas was a fab festivity. Finally I get why it becomes all about the kiddoes – Kaz had a marvellous time. With all of it! He began by eagerly anticipating the arrival of […]

Happy Father’s Day – ish

I know, I am a little late. But last weekend we were so busy having a lovely time that I didn’t get on here to record…and then the week filled up with graduation events at the University and sadly I didn’t take any pics of that (note to self…all that lovely ancient pomp and ceremony […]

Upheavals

It has been a strange week in the world it seems. Yesterday I had the somewhat surreal experience of looking after my little corner of the department while everyone else worked down the street as stewards for the visit of these two: It was a big day for my new department – many of whom […]

Transition Time

The Holmes and Rahe stress scale is a list of 43 stressful life events that can contribute to illness. Some years I have gathered a pretty impressive score on this scale…Making big changes to one’s life can either be rather liberating, or downright terrifying. Strangely, although I think I am a pretty stressy, nervy, risk-averse kinda girl, I […]

How We Celebrated Two Great Years…

After Christmas came the birthday…and this year Kazuo had it all figured out. Birthdays involved a party which consisted of friends (thankfully we could finally muster up a couple of lovely ones with whom we have recently had the joy of becoming acquainted), balloons, his birthday banner and a cake with candles: I decided to […]

Saying a Fond Farewell

This leave taking has been going on an awful long time really…and is kinda taking it’s toll, both Kazuo and I are fighting off our own special little bugs, and we are all fairly tiredy. But in the interstices, we are still feeling very grateful for all the loveliness (much of it joyously unexpected) of […]

Big Spring

Last weekend we had our first US road trip in over a year. Somehow time and other scarce resources have just meant we put off exploring more of the countryside until our departure became very imminent. We were not really in a position to venture much beyond the borders of Missouri, and we wanted company […]

Sisters

I only have one of these. So my experience cannot be considered representative. But I am grateful for my sister. She is kind and thoughtful and an excellent house guest. We have just had a visit from Aunty Kelly (christened ‘Cakie’ by the wee one) whom I had not seen for over three years. [Hence […]