A lovely tin..................

At the end of last year a good friend of mine moved back to France. We become good buddies over the last couple of years having coffee's together, going shopping and doing lunch. I didn't have much time to think about her not being around over Christmas because I wasn't here but now life is back to some kind of normality I kind of miss her. I can't just make that phone call to see if she is free to do something. I have lots of other good buddies to hang out with so I am not worried about filling my time with chatter and coffee but it was a particular kind of chatter, one with a distinct Yorkshire accent. Anyway all sadness aside, this week she sent me a wonderful tin full of French butter biscuits all the way from Toulouse. When we had our morning coffee today we tried them out. Oh they were oh so delicious it was hard to stop at two.

Thanks Melanie for thinking of me and I will always think of you when I look at this beautiful tin.

C'est la rentree...............

After more than 2 months break this newly toothless boy and his sister have gone back to school.............they were excited, I am very excited about the prospect of having a few hours to myself today and all the other days they are at school. To my surprise neither was worried about slipping back into an all French environment again considering they have spent all their holidays in English world( that's what I have nicknamed our house). I am truly amazed at how far my kids have come and other kids in the same situation with learning a language that is so foreign to them at the beginning but after a few years can slip from one to the other without a hitch. I think I have said this before, maybe not directly to the kids but I am so very proud of them for being able to do this.

After all that I am going to make a cup of tea and drink it undisturbed.

Vive la rentree!!!!!

Things for everybody at the camp site...........

The day my bum went psycho- Django
The daring book for girls- Juliette
Frankie- me
Ipod- whoever
Mat- everybody at some point over the weekend (with a pillow)
Coconut- for all of us if somebody can open it.......didn't happen this weekend!!!!!!

Dress no.1............

New dress made.......a new hair do........ready for the weekend ahead.

Me too we are off camping! Hurrah!!!

Felties & more..............

When we went home to Melbourne for a wedding last November we spied that a cousin had this fabulous book.......we purchased it not realising at the time how fabulous it was going to be but slowly over the past couple of months it has become a constant companion. It went travelling with us with some pieces of felt, the little box of embroidery thread and some beads. In times when a bit of quiet activity was required all the bits came out and a feltie was born. I recommend this book to everybody with kids of different ages and people who are starting out crafting as the little creatures are not complicated to make, they don't take alot of time and between myself and the kids we all get to have a hand in making them. I do bit and they do a bit so they can say they made it. We have just about worked through all the animals in the book some made as little gifts, some for xmas decorations and some are going to the future 'Feltietown' which is in the process of being constructed.


This book has created a feltie making junkie out of Django. I can tell you he is so in love with this book that he has even started creating his own designs.......you won't see this chicken in the book if you buy it.

Home again..................

Home.........what a lovely place it is and all four of us a finally back here. No more living out of suitcases, no more being a hinderance in somebody elses space and no more having to deal with traffic lights. Oh after nearly 8 weeks of driving around very busy places I was very happy to be back where I only come across one set of lights in my usual days driving. I can hear you saying if this is the worst of her holidays she hasn't got anything to complain about and that is very true we had a wonderful break away. Lots of catching up with family and friends, lots of fine food and lots of great activities. We ate food that we love but we can't get here, the kids and I enjoyed going to the movies and hanging out in our local park. I visited, but only briefly the fab lanes in the city and got to see a few of the cute little shops that have sprung all around town. I did make a special trip to Meet me at mikes and Patchwork on central park. They are the things that I really miss, not having regular access to places like this but hey I have come back to Noumea and everything I love about this place has jumped right out at me. The consistently beautiful weather( even though today is raining), seeing the beach everyday and how could I forget the regular visits to the fabulous boulangerie/patisserie..............mmmmmmmm.

In my week back I have tried to catch-up with what has been happening in blogland over the past couple of months but my attempts to read all posts have been thwarted through lack of time. I am back into the swing of the normal routine and kids still have two weeks of vacances left so as we all know that doesn't leave much time for frivilous activites but I am trying my best to read them in any spare moment I have. I also have an updated computer system but all is in French so working out how to navigate myself around takes a while too as I look up words in the francais/anglais dictionaire. I know it is all for the greater good of learning the language and to help me out even more I see that my favourite French gal living in Oz is writing her posts in both languages now. C'est fantastique!

Ok this is the longest post I have written for some time and am feeling a tad overwhelmed by it. I will come back with some tales from my trip and a few pics of some very fab thigns I got for xmas.......oh it seems so long ago!