Rituals

We have a ritual. Every morning one of us pushes the other one out of bed to put the coffee on. Good coffee, proper strong, Italian Espresso, dollop of honey, glug of soy milk, hot strong, I don't do anything without a big mug full. But this is not the ritual.

Every morning once the coffee is in our hands and the first gulp down, we stick on our jandels and sweaters and go say good morning to the vegetables. This is the ritual.

Recently a programme has started on the telly about a comedian called Radar who has undertaken the challenge to become self sufficient on his own small holding in the country. There was a trailer on telly yesterday with an image of Radar looking at his vegetables growing and he says, "I never thought it was possible to fall in love with a garden". Pete stopped mid-stride across the living room floor at the voice of a kindred spirit and said, "my god, that's exactly how I feel".

And so we have a ritual. Every morning is a new battle for pete to nudge me to respect the ritual. But it is a ritual none the less.

The baby

Mum's Oma, dad's chosen grandad. My favourite sister gave birth to the first of our next generation, Nova Indigo. She's a knitting pattern baby is what the midwife said, which we all immediately translated to...um, perfection.

Lou was brave and tough. When you're born a girl you always hear about how painful childbirth can be but somehow you glorify it in your head or tell yourself, for you...it will be different.  Well now I've seen childbirth and I know, for me, it won't be different. Lou's muscles were so fatigued after 21 hours of labour they shook with exhaustion. Her limbs were still and her face was set with a clenched jaw and eyes that kept trying to hold back the reality of the hurt. She was tough and strong and resolved and she delivered a perfectly formed, tiny little girl with a rosebud mouth. They call her boo, we call her indigo, Nova is too strong for her yet when she is so tiny.

Not much aunty'ing to be doing at the moment. Nova's just feeding feeding feeding and sleeping, crying, squirming, lots of squirming. and lots of poking out her tongue. Everyone keeps saying she's tasting the air but it looks like she's eaten something gross, got the flavour stuck in her mouth and can't bare it. She pulls faces like the ones mum taught me a while ago to stretch and tone the muscles in my jaw and cheekbones. Seriously, there are exercises for this. Make sure you do them in private.

She is the softest thing I have ever kissed, bar nothing. Her skin is like melted ice cream or sunshine or something less try hardy poetic. IT IS SO SOFT. She likes being scrunched up, I guess like she was in the womb, you'd think she'd want to STRRRrrrrrrettttch out all her limbs but she's way happier when you just hold her like she's a basketball.

She's just so very perfect.

Oma and boo. Yucky hospital photo but I keep forgetting my camera!

I like hiking. We love Rangitoto

Everyday we walk, almost. New Zealand is made for walking. Even the walk to the dairy is scenic for us. As I've said before, Taka beach is roughly an 8minute walk down the road from the flat and from the beach, the view of Rangitoto is stunning. See for yourself....

Last Monday we got sick of looking at her and thought, well gee, why not take a hike eh? 5 minutes to Devonport, 25minutes on the ferry and we were there, it couldn't have been easier.

Hi, I'm Pete, I'm about to hike up a dormant Volcano that I've been looking at for the last 9months. Better yet check out my hiking footwear! TA DA! RANDALS, cause i'm tough.

 Hi, my name's Amber, I'm so happy to be hiking, I'm so happy to be hiking, I'm so happy to be hiking!

 

Walking over volcanic rock took it's toll in the jandels, but pete?, didn't complain once. We read on our mini map that 'Rangitoto' means blood sky but not from some tremendous hot molten lava spewing eruption as you might think. It was actually after a maori chief was killed in a battle on the island. Interesting yes. It's those bits that keep you reading isn't it.

We climbed to the trigg (for non hikers that's the black and white wooden structure next to me)

And looked back out to this..... taka beach and Auckland City beyond. Worth every between the toe jandel blister.

We took the long coastal walk back down to the ferry, chatting, arguing some, mostly chatting.

As we slid into our upper deck ferry booth for the journey home...(very much revelling in the bliss of slipping off our jandels under the table), we looked back smugly at all the people still stuck on the wharf waiting for the next ferry. This kid started swinging on a horizontal pole to kill his boredom and as we watched he swung out hard, lost his sweaty palm grip and slammed back first onto a wooden step. Shock, pain but mostly shame slid across his face. and we laughed. Not mercilessly, more hahaha, ouch, hahaha, bummed out buddy. Our day was complete.