The family bach as museum

I think because of all the upheaval over the last year, and the decisions to be made about living spaces this year I am much more aware this trip how the bach acts as a mini museum for so much of my parents' family stuff.

And it is "stuff". Our family bach is slightly unusual in that it was actually bought to be a family base following the closure of Arthurs Pass School where my parents had been teaching for twelve years. My younger sister and brother actually treated it as the family home even though my parents were living in Glenroy.

As a result much of the household miscellany from my childhood lives on at the bach. There is the teaspoon engraved with Rawene Hospital that apparently I took home with me when I was a baby. There are the remnants of my parents' wedding dinner set, the pots that cooked our meals, the huge heavy duty electric fry pan that still sets the gold standard for the breed in my mind. Blankets, sheets, chairs, curtains, puzzles and board games.

Layered over these things are the decorative additions and extras all of us have contributed over the years in recognition of the role the bach has as a place of belonging, the crocheted afghans, my sister's Sarah Moon print, the pottery dragon that was a present for my Dad.

And with each thing my eye rests on there is a memory - the German biscuit tin that Oscar gave us, being called to adjudicate as a teenager when my Dad was winning Scrabble (also against Oscar), the reference books of native plants, the cushion covers made from old curtains, the curtains that came from the schoolhouse which prove that polyester never dies :)!

I marvel sometimes at the small size of the pots which cooked a family of six's meals. And the bar size fridge which was all my mother had when we were growing up.

When my parents first bought the bach we all used to talk about building a bigger house on the section - now, although there are some limitations, as we have our own families and have our own houses with lots of "stuff", all of us value the simplicity of limited space and limited options. While we still do have conversations about the bach's future, they now reflect it's role as a tangible reflection of our family's story and the life that formed us.

Of Christmas trees and tea towels

Last weekend I set about the task of organising a Christmas tree. Traditionally we get the Christmas tree (or trees) up around the time primary school finishes - sometimes a little earlier. I have tried to delay it until after Jon's birthday on the 19th of December to try and separate the two events but he kind of likes being a Christmas baby.

Of course the fact that here he finished school on the 4th December meant the nagging started early this year! There's not a lot of room in our apartment so we went for a small six foot tree and as most of our decorations were (a) still in storage and (b) scaled for our 11 foot trees in New Zealand we spent up large at the $2 shop on small decorations, with a few additions from Oxfam and David Jones.

Then after much convolution the last of shipment was finally moved to storage close by where we have 24/7 access so we were able to get the boxes of Christmas decorations. While the main thing I wanted out of the boxes were the nativity sets I unwrapped everything (still looking for those remotes!) So many memories of children choosing in the Kirkcaldies Christmas shop each year and gifts from family and friends. I kept out a few but had to keep reminding myself that next year we'll have more space, and be able to hang them all again. In the meantime Jon was pretty excited to finally get a Christmas train to go around the tree!

As for the tea towels - last weekend Nick was back in New Zealand in the far North for his uncle's funeral. They stopped in at the Stone Store in Kerikeri and he bought me these seriously cool tea towels. They are a little bit retro and very NZ - he even had them go out the back and find a kea one. Now while gifts of tea towels always remind me of a hysterically funny conversation about gifts from mothers in law at a morning tea in Pukekura Park for my friend Teresa's birthday (was it 29 or 30? - too close to 20 years ago for comfort); in this instance I was heart warmed that he had recognised something I would like in the middle of a difficult time and had even gone to the extra effort to get a specific version. He's not a spontaneous gift giver by nature and while he was pleased he got it SO right - now he is worried about how to match it for Christmas!

The problem with hats

The thing is, I love hats - especially pretty ones that remind you of Edwardian garden parties and summer weddings. I just hate wearing them.

In New Zealand I can get away with this most of the time. In winter I can usually make do with loose hoods and wide scarves, and in summer I opt for shade and high SPF sunblock. It is rare for me to feel any need for the shade of hat brim. But here in Brisbane it is a bit of a different story.

The thing I dislike is the feeling of something going around my head, the very thought of it gives me a headache. And of course my youngest child seems to have inherited this

aversion as well. I have tried lots of different hats but they really do annoy me. But I'm also finding that going without head covering when I'm out in the middle of the day is also quite uncomfortable.

I think I may have already provided myself with an option when I consider my winter alternatives. I might invest in some more light silk scarves.

And along comes Christmas

I have developed this theory, that from about the beginning of November time falls into this vortex that spins faster than the rest of the year, so that the last two months of the year flash by.

All of a sudden it is only a few weeks to Christmas and I feel caught unprepared again. And this year it's compounded by working out which bits of Christmas we'll do here in Brisbane and which bits will fall by the wayside. Will I do the Christmas baking I usually do? Will we have a whole turkey? What about decorations? A tree?

Today I started to make decisions almost sub-conciously. I bought a copy of the November Cuisine magazine without even looking inside - partially cos the cover is typically beautiful, partially cos I buy it most years, but also because I know it always has a range of food options - from the traditional spread to dinner for two. I have a Christmas recipe folder as well with the torn out pages from previous years editions. I'm also hoping that the review of bubbles might help me traverse the Australian shelves even if the old favorites are absent.

Walking through the market this morning I was already starting to plan some Christmas shopping (although shhhh - the bracelet I bought for $10 which Nick thinks I got for one of the girls is actually MINE!) We actually collectively decided our four older children's presents over coffee, and I picked up a couple of small things for the beginnings of extended family presents in the shop by the bus stop that caught my eye.

The trickier questions are the logistics of getting the boxes of Christmas decorations from storage over the next couple of weeks. I saw a great little tree with lights at Target this afternoon that will be rather swamped by our decorations scaled for an 11 foot tree! And it is tempting to do something different this year and leave the stored stuff until next year when we plan to have a larger apartment with our own furniture.

In the meantime I've just checked that the first Sunday of Advent is next Sunday (not this) and am contemplating what Jon might need for this season to be special. Last year was going to be the last year we had a Playmobil Advent calendar but I'm wondering if we need either one more or something to replace it. Plus the more I think about it, the more I want to have an Advent wreath even though I have no idea where to get the greenary. And maybe I'll give in to the allure of the lights in the supermarket and we'll do something festive on the balcony.

That's as far as I've got for now...

It's in the usual place

That was the text Tash sent me about where to find the car when I arrived in Wellington tonight. I was thinking about that as I drove "home", and I thought that it goes quite a way to explaining some decisions we've been coming to in the past couple of weeks.

One of the main things I've realised is that this move is a bit different than previous ones. There is a process you go through after a big re-location where you need to adjust to being in the new place. It's not just getting used to living in a new place - it's the emotional disengagement from the old one. The thing is that this time half our family is still in Lower Hutt and as a family there is still a certain need to have somewhere we can all be together that is ours.

So we've decided that we may not rent our house out again in January so we still have a home to go to when we are in New Zealand. Tonight I had to detour through Evans Bay as the Terrace Tunnel is being closed for maintenance and as I watched the lights of Wellington and Petone reveal themselves along the foreshore, I felt the unwinding of being in a safe familiar place. For me both/and has always worked better than either/or. I can live both in New Zealand and Australia and love both of them for the unique things they have to offer.

The quality of light

I remember many years ago watching a programme on the development of a distinctive New Zealand and Australian school of art, which placed heavy emphasis on the influence of the different kind of light that exists in the Southern Hemisphere.

I was thinking about that as I drove home tonight - perhaps because that difference is most evident as we begin to loose the light. Brisbane doesn't have daylight saving and I'd say 5.45 pm pretty much matches the sunset level we get in New Zealand at 8 or later by this time of year. The motorway is, by and large, tree lined for most of the drive and the definition of the leaves as the light just begins to fade is truly beautiful. Tonight it crossed my mind that sub consciously it is almost like driving down some of my favorite roads on the West Coast.

It is also a light that, while Antipodean, is also subtly different from Christchurch or Wellington. I decided today that I think it is slight more yellow, or stays yellow for longer - it has the warmth of the desert rather than the coolness of mountains and sea.

I'm hoping there is enough sun when I get back to New Zealand this weekend to make a decent comparison!

No longer a tourist

The moment comes when you realise that you are no longer looking around you with the eyes of a stranger. Since getting back from New Zealand on Monday I'm increasingly aware that we have probably begun to cross that bridge of behaving a bit like we are tourists on holiday in a new city to a being actually resident.

The first clue I had was talking to work colleagues about bringing Jon's skateboard through the Australian equivalent of MAF inspectors. In describing the tense moment where we wondered if his decidedly scruffy wooden deck and slightly rusted wheels would get through I said "I was really worried what would happen if he couldn't take it home after bringing it all that way". I even paused after I said it, realising that even a week ago I would have probably phrased it differently with NZ being home e.g. "he couldn't get it into the country after bringing it from home".

Then a couple of evenings later we were walking through the central city (on a mission to get new grip tape for scruffy skateboard) and I was thinking what a lovely evening it was, and how nice it would be to have dinner in one of the sidewalk cafes around the corner from our apartment. This was of course while all my NZ friends were discussing heavy wind and rain. But again there was no mental comparison - this compared to that - it just was.

There are lots of other little things as well - the jigsaw puzzle of the main routes we travel falling into place so we now only use the GPS if we are going somewhere totally new. The weekend routines moving to something a bit more laid back, as opposed to "what shall we go and see today". Jon beginning to have friends over and starting to tell me he can go places by himself e.g. "we can catch the bus into town and go to the movies" (yeah right!) The scenery as I drive to work just being what it is rather than jarring slightly because the trees are wrong. I even managed to remember this weekend that the supermarket closes at 5pm on a Saturday (I kid you not - it ain't all better!)

And I guess that's a pretty big step to feeling "at home"