Holiday near home

There is nothing wrong with having a holiday near home. We stayed only 30 minutes from our house and experienced the contrast of autumn near the beach for a school holiday getaway.Seaside negotiations with a 4 year old:

( Fill in the blanks)

"My baby starfish,

I found it down there under the rocks.

I want to take it home.

It can live in sea water,

we can put it in the bucket and take it home,

but it's my friend,

it's a baby.

No I don't want to put it back in the sea,

it can live with me in water.

Ok I can look at the photo when I miss him"

Seaside negotiations with a 13 year old:

(fill in the blanks)

" Mum look at me,

up here.

Look I'm higher now.

Nah I wanna go higher.

Why?

No it's not.

yeah but we're not at Playcentre."

Finally a last word from Mum

"Ok if YOU get out of the tree, and YOU put the starfish back we'll go say hi to the goats and feed the eels"

Forget what you've been told about 4 year old boys.

The Montessori teacher stopped me on Monday to tell me about a conversation she had with the red head.

He told her " God gave me to my Mum as a special gift. I'm so glad cos she was just the Mum I wanted"

I of course nearly cried at that. Beautiful child.

After the school fair on the weekend he came home with his sister and presented me with this:

"Mum that's a love heart for you because we're in love"

Some stuff for my son.

To my son you are 12 today, I remember your birth well. I'm sorry that the next year or two was a blur in the post natal depression haze. I still feel the guilt of putting you in your cot and saying firmly "go to sleep" only to discover the next day you had a raging ear ache. You were a pretty content baby except in the middle of the night when you thought you were starving. Even back then you were a bit of a daredevil on your bike yelling "look Mum" to show me your skills. When you were 2 you nearly died from a bee sting. It was so sudden it was like being sucked into a parallel universe. One moment cooking dinner and the next calling an ambulance only to have them not answer me each time I asked if you'd be alright. You grew very close to your Dad when he became a house husband through injury and I went to work. You are an awesome talent, artistic and musical with an insane daredevil streak. The stunt bike you are longing to get at Christmas time is not being given to spoil you but because we understand that you seek thrills, Dad and I intend to let you experience the physical thrills you seek so that you may never seek them in drugs. Not much longer to wait for your bike. Please don't ask me to go on the tandem skydive with you either!

Tracy is the winner. Thanks for commenting everyone, it is so nice to be introduced to new people and their blogs and to hear from old favorites who you wonder are they're still popping in for a visit?

I've had inspiration from a friend in the last few weeks and it's exactly what I need with my sewing machine away.

The spinning display at the school fair sparked an interest with my skatey boy. He hassled me until I got my wheel out and dusted it off. He spun some lovely crude wool. There is something very special about beginner spinner's wool the way it gets really fat and thin then very twisty and almost untwisted, gives it a great rustic charm. Teenage boy ofcourse couldn't resist a dig at younger brother I'm sure siblings cruel words must have a long term effect. Gosh it's tiring.

Anyway the wheel was out and I'd had an invite to get together to do some spinning yesterday so I guess it was inevitable that I would feel inspired too. In the 70s when we lived on a farm my Mum was a great spinner and crafter along with all the other things a farmers wife gets to do. I first learnt to spin after watching her wheel go round and round all my life when she was put in hospital for almost 8 weeks with complications of pregnancy which devastatingly resulted in the death of my younger twin siblings. I missed mum so much when she was away. I connected with her I guess by fiddling with her spinning wheel which I wasn't supposed to touch but I did lean to spin. She is a great crafty role model. Being with my group of friends yesterday reminded me alot of the get togethers I went to with mum as a child. Very enjoyable. Something about crafting with a group of women rather than on your own feels much more fulfilling. Afterwards I came home and dyed some mermaid coloured wool and sat up very late spinning.

Flashback

I visited Janelle's blog to catch up, reading this post bought a whole lot of memories flooding back about Masterton where I grew up. Castlepoint especially as it was where our family use to rent a beach bach for holidays. I remember huge sand dunes with wind blowing so had it felt like we'd blow away and the sound of the waves at night was like nowhere I've ever been since. Dad use to go diving for paua and crayfish nearby and we'd sit on the lawn gutting them surrounded by seagulls waiting for their share. It seemed like such a long trip to us, in those days I don't remember seat belts in the back of the car and my brothers and I would fight alot and stand on the seats. Probably why Dad gave a reward to "the first to see the sea". Being a farming family I think we used to go at really odd times of year. Christmas was shearing and hay baling and August holidays were lambing so I think it must have been in Autumn because I don't ever remember the weather being beautiful and the beach was pretty much deserted. I do remember Dad encouraging the farm shepherd to eat kina and us thinking it hilarious when he couldn't keep it down. Other places I remember were: the "crying onion" fish n chip shop, golden shears (shearing and wool classing competition). The horseshoe pub/restaurant where Dad use to take us to try and get us to use our table manners though I'm sure we thought we went there to play pac man and use the warm air hand dryers in the bathrooms. I remember the vet clinic near the train station, playcentre where mum took me a few times until I stuck a bead up my nose and refused to go back. I remember sitting in the car outside the pub with my brothers. Dad would bring us a packet of chips and a raspberry drink and we'd call out rude names to people walking past then we'd send our youngest brother in to tell Dad we needed another raspberry drink. We left when I was 11 but I remember going back as a teenager and working in a shearing gang going from Kaituna to Ekatahuna, I'd say it was my favorite job ever probably because I was young, fit and having a ball.