Just some 'me' stuff...

Weeeell... Where to begin. I've never EVER 'blogged' before. I tried once to keep a diary, I was about ten and filled the first twenty or so pages with gripes about my family (for whom I was the black sheep/problem child/wedge in the door...etc etc) and Dion J, my future husband (as far as I was concerned) the boy I was completely in love with at primary school!! I'm not the most focused person in the world, I get bored easily and give up too soon. I find myself lecturing my own kids on this very problem "Stay to the course, don't get distracted, FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS!!" what a hippocrytapotamus!!! (daughters word haha).

I was born in the UK, in a little place called Romney Marsh. My parents owned a lovely farm in Ashford and I spent the first couple of years of my life there. When I was about four we moved to New Zealand. We were soon living in the beautiful Marlborough sounds in a holiday camp for teens and school groups etc. I remember some of the experiences we had there, like the times my dad scooted around the bay in his nifty run-about towing my sister and I on a wooden toboggan, fishing on launches with tourists, hiking in the bush and joining in 'Hi-di-Hi' type activities. We would play on the beach and watch the big ferries go past each day, the waves made by their wake would wash over our sandy feet. My parents ran the camp and were always busy needing help looking after my sister and myself, we had various babysitters and nannies... odd people at times, hippies and crystal gazers haha. I remember one night, it was stormy and the wind was very wild. I woke up and after discovering my parents were not in the house - I (needing another person to share the fear with lol) woke my younger sister (I was six she was five) and we went looking for mum and dad. We walked outside in our nighties sobbing as we followed the gravel road which led from our house to the entertainment hall thingy where laughter and music was coming from. I think we were allowed to join in the fun and soon forgot our indignation at having been left alone at home.

I reckon considering we lived in a cove with no road access we were pretty safe. I'm not as relaxed as my parents were, might have a lot to do with the times we live in. I don't know why I get this knot in my gut and my heart leaps into my mouth when I see my children doing the same things I did as a child myself... what's up with that??? When we moved (we moved approx thirty times from memory lol) to a farm in the Bay of Plenty I used to jump on motorbikes and hoon off up the hills without a care in the world! I came up with a game for my siblings and I (two sisters and a brother) to play which I would NEVER let my own kids do now... We would put on my dad's wet weather gear (oilskins?) and climb to the top of a bush covered hill which was steep and dangerous. Once at the top we'd throw ourselves off and try getting to the bottom as quickly as possible and by any means necessary!! I don't know how I avoided broken bones and lacerations!!! But it was fun, and every day on the farm was like that; cabbage tree races down another steep grassy hill, waterfall climbing, riding horses/sheep/cows/pigs bareback with no bridle etc... we were indestructible!!

I feel like my kids have missed out because they've spent most of their lives thus far in a city section so small you couldn't play ball for fear of losing in to the eight bordering neighbors sheesh!! We don't live there anymore thank goodness, we've moved to a lovely big section with a trout stream in the aromatic city of Rotorua!!! but that's another blog...... Anyway, that's a brief introduction to moi.... there's more to come, but thanks to my lack of focus it may be a while until you see it haha!!