It’s nearly April 25 and that date is an extremely significant day in the calendars of all Australians and New Zealanders as this is ANZAC Day, the day we remember those who served our country in war and in particular the many thousands who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. At the outbreak of […]
Green Olive Dip and…Do You Like Biscuits?
April 22, 2012 By 51 Comments
(This post will make more sense if you have read my previous post, Hangi Time). So the neighbours with the six children and the dirt bikes and the chickens and the rooster and the cigarettes and the long-neck bottles of beer and the bricks, tiles and concrete and the offensive language that landed one of […]
Pork Belly with Caramel Vinegar and…Hangi Time
April 21, 2012 By 48 Comments
When I was very young the house next door to us was sold and we had high levels of anticipation as to who would be our new neighbours. One day they arrived. And it wasn’t a subtle arrival either. They were a family of six children, three boys and three girls. They were very loud […]
Potato Scallops and…Thursday Nights and Saturday Mornings
April 3, 2012 By 38 Comments
When I was 15 I thought I needed a job. Part-time work was available for teens in most retail stores for Thursday night/Saturday morning shifts. (This was back in the day when weekend trading was only permitted on Saturdays from 8am until 12md. I went to my local shopping mall and walked from store to […]
Mongolian Beef and…Pianos, Rice and Tambourines
April 1, 2012 By 38 Comments
My parents believed their children should be ‘good all-rounders’ so as well as enrolling us in swimming lessons, signing us up for Little Athletics, dropping us off at Art Classes, making us do ballet with Mrs Warwick, somehow they found the time and the economic means to give us piano lessons. We didn’t always have […]
Chicken with Chorizo and…Mrs Hull and Jan Spick-and-Span
March 25, 2012 By 46 Comments
When we moved to Australia just after Abba had been here for their ‘Arrival’ tour and Elvis had sadly passed away, Dad had more overseas business trips and took mum with him. We were left with more hired help. One of them was Mrs Hull and she was really, really old. She was probably only […]
Hokey Pokey and…Mrs Ever-Ready
March 23, 2012 By 42 Comments
My father worked for multi-national companies and as a consequence was frequently away on overseas business trips. Sometimes my mother was able to travel with him so we would be left in the care of hired help. I don’t know where mum got them from, probably out of the paper, but they were all odd […]
Rock Cakes and…Transport, Torch-Light and Going Topless
March 22, 2012 By 43 Comments
I had another holiday in the Marlborough Sounds when I was 14. By then we were living in Australia and my parents gave me a trip to New Zealand as a Christmas present. I stayed in Wellington for a while and then took the ferry across the Cook Strait (wonderful voyage this time) and then […]
Caramel Pinwheels and…The Aramoana
March 21, 2012 By 31 Comments
When I was about 10 we had some family friends with a holiday house in the Marlborough Sounds. To get there you had to catch a ferry across the Cook Strait from Wellington Harbour at the bottom of the North Island to a little town called Picton at the top of the South Island. From […]
Cream Puffs and…Tact and Diplomacy
March 17, 2012 By 42 Comments
Some children are born with oodles of naturally inbuilt tact and diplomacy but for others it has to be an acquired skill. I was one of those children that needed to acquire those attributes and they were a long time coming. Just after my fifth birthday my father informed my mother that one of his […]
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