my beautiful week 12

- I wake to the sound of long awaited steady falling rain.

- A small brown spiky ball scuttles across the road and up a driveway. We slow down to watch a hedgehog in a hurry.

- Chocolate cows with faces of creamy bemusement stare at me as I stride purposefully up the road beside their paddock.

my beautiful week 11

- Brightly coloured stained glass windows filter morning sunshine, casting blessed rays over the Benediction café.

- The steady metronome of footsteps crunching gravel settles my restless mind in a walking meditation.

- I wait with pounding heart at the finish line for Talya to appear. Before long I see her long legs racing down the home stretch, chest lifted, broad smile across her happy face. “I can’t believe I won!” she exclaims with joy.

press pause

I've been noticing more and more how easily I get distracted by the internet. I can so easily whittle away a half hour or more just browsing blogs, following link after link, stumbling across treasures and pearls of wisdom along the way. It's a great way to connect with like-minded people and find inspiration for things as diverse as poetry and paella (and discover that maybe they're not so different after all). But the thing is that the more time I spend on the internet the less attention I pay to my own life and my own voice. It's not that I spend all day on the world wide web. If I added up my total time each day it would probably be less than an hour. But I've developed a habit of stopping suddenly in the middle of doing something to pop over and see what's going on in there. As if it won't still be there when I am finished what I am doing.

So, inspired by Fiona Robyn's week long internet fast I decided to make Sunday a 'day of internet rest'; a sort of search-engine-sabbatical - a day to press pause and find some space before the week got off to another busy start.

I started the day with a walk in the fresh autumn air and came home to pancakes for breakfast.
After a productive morning of catching up on housework and bit of gardening, I put my feet up and read my book on the couch. The girls were playing happily outside and Glenn was busy in the shed.
Before long my eyelids were drooping and I had nodded off! An hour later I emerged planning to concoct a vegetable quiche for dinner but Glenn suggested we get Chinese takeaways. After dinner of fried rice and spring rolls I whipped up a batch of chocolate brownies for lunchbox treats and then sat down to watch the TV2 Sunday night movie - Fool's Gold, while completing two more squares of my blanket.

All in all, it was a very restful Sunday, just like Sundays were made to be. I woke up this morning feeling refreshed and ready for the week. And it was great to find that when I logged on today the internet hadn't come crashing down in my absence and all my favourite blogs had been updated with fresh and interesting posts!
It felt so good that I'm planning on making every Sunday my day of Internet Interrupt.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

my beautiful week 10

- A baker in the café kitchen carefully measures sugar into a large stainless steel bowl. I wonder what she is conjuring for the hungry customers of The Ginger Crunch café?

- A man and a young boy paddle a small white boat across the sparkling blue sea, basking in the sunshine of their Monday morning adventure.

- Shelby plonks herself in the middle of my yoga mat right where my feet need to be. I transplant her to the couch but she leaps off and sprawls herself mid-mat in a languorous interpretation of cat pose. I surrender to the power of meow.

Have a great week!

in the blink of an eye

They say that good things take time,
But really great things happen in the blink of an eye.
- Hannah Montana

You walk into a hotel lobby in Cape Town at 8am on a Monday morning to meet a consultant from New Zealand so that he can follow you along the motorway to the office (did we not have maps or gps back in 2000?). En route to the office you make a mental note about his blue eyes.

Then you wake up one morning and ten years have passed.
You’re living in a cottage in rural North West Auckland, married to aforementioned blue eyed New Zealander. You’re the mother of his two blonde daughters (and you're quoting a fictitious popstar created by Disney!)

Life changes in the blink of an eye.

And you learn that Love is not something you fall into, it is the thing that holds you together after you have picked yourself up from the fall.

It is not a red rose, or a box of chocolates, or a letter, or a kiss.

It is not a wedding, or a song, or a baby or a house on a hill.

It's none of them, but all of them.

It is in the next breath you take and the next beat of your heart.

It is the thing that you know will carry you through tomorrow no matter what it brings.

And it really is.

All.

There.

Is.

happy birthday dear sister

Today,
One year ago,
we stood on a beach together and
plunged into salty waves
In celebration of four decades of our sister-friendship.

I stood on that same beach today
And plunged into those same waves
I watched the ebb and flow of the tide
And looked out towards the horizon
To where you slept
While I stood in the sunlight
Remembering.

Our sistering
to me,
is like our breathing
always present
as vital as heartbeat
life sustaining.

Today I pause to honour you and
Thank you for being born,
my sister-friend
Happy Birthday.

my beautiful week 9

The thing I love most about collecting these daily tidbits is that I can look back on what feels like has been a rather dismal week and realise that despite my gloom, there has been plenty of loveliness. Here are 3 of many:

- Shelby is fascinated with my knitting project. She swipes her paw at the twitching strand of wool each time I yank it towards the next stitch.

- I head off for a walk along Inland Road and before long a light shower of rain has started to fall. I continue, enjoying the cool freshness and quiet softness that comes with rainfall. The road is gravel and meanders up into the hills past fields of sheep, rundown barns and clusters of cabbage trees.

- On the drive home from school we see our dance teacher walking towards the hall to teach her Friday classes; her red sequined skirt sparkles in the afternoon sunlight.

* photo: Cabbage Trees by Diana Adams