it's been a while...

Time has passed like fast flowing water and I realise that I haven't blogged for quite some time, scandalous, I know.

In short...

We moved South for the winter - buying a house back in the homeland and just in time really as the winter of all winters hit. Luckily we got to spend it with friends, in front of fires drinking luscious red wine (thanks Times Wine Club).

My beautiful baby became a beautiful toddler and amazes me at how much she makes me laugh, how much she learns and how much washing she generates!

Lovely husband took a full time job for the first time ever, has turned a beautiful shade of brown in the southern sunshine and has surprised me by being a genius at DIY (I knew I married well...)

And me?

Well the glamour crept slowly back into my life - in direct correlation to the weight I was losing - new clothes, fabulous shoes, nights of champagne, laughter and lovely people.

I tried my hand at the Good Life, growing my own vegetables and fruit - gardening, weeding and nurturing flowers. (No good for the nails....)

And then in March as the summer was approaching and I was dreaming of summer Barbecues, surfing and Mojitos I found out I was pregnant. A little sibling for the toddler. Thank goodness our house has three bedrooms!

So as I write this I am sitting on the sofa with an aching pelvis, thinking glamour as my waistline expands exponentially. High heels and hemlines are a distant memory as stretchy waistlines and comfortable shoes have become de rigeur.

However I am excited at the prospect of this new life growing inside me, there is no glamour in pregnancy but there is definitely beauty.

Holidays....

with wrinkly wet fingers

and salt on her nose

she'll dream of surfing

wherever she goes...

A Walk

We went for a walk in the forest today.

In the cool, cool breeze we ran down the track and the girl and I gasped for breath and giggled as the dog licked her fingers. The dog leapt in and out of rust coloured pools to cool his chest and the wind moved through the trees like water.

Tom Sawyer..

My, my.... the weather is SO hot.  Not the kind of hot where you can lie glamorously in the garden in a bikini slowly turning your pale skin to a shimmering, healthy brown, but the kind of hot where you sweat sow-like; it sits on your skin like grease on an egg and the cloying heat bakes you slowly from the inside... You get the picture!

My husband came home from work to find us girls lizard-like on the sofa and decided to rejuvenate us with a dip in some cold water.  

So we packed up and trudged off and threw ourselves in the river... Fabulous.  It was definitely more Tom Sawyer than Tom Collins...It made me feel like Huckleberry Finn...Magical...

The Mummy Mafia...

Before you have kids people will try to convince you of the sisterhood of motherhood.  Don't get me wrong - you do enter some elite club when you become a mother.  It allows you to discuss things with women that you would never have dreamt of doing in the past.  Rips, tears, bruising, grazing, piles... y'know the nuts and bolts of life!

However, don't be fooled... the Mummy Mafia are everywhere, they're not necessarily out to get you but they are competing with you, whether you like it or not.  They're the breed that make you feel guilty for enjoying motherhood; for not finding it that difficult, for losing weight, for having a baby that doesn't scream every night with colic...

I was invited to go swimming today by my local mafia - and I caved.  I wasn't going to go, they seem to have the ability to make me feel as though I'm in school again - the unpopular kid that smells a little - but I went anyway.  I told myself it was because my daughter loves it, I'm not so sure if that's the reason though.  Did I just go to be one of the popular kids?  Did I go because I just want to be liked?  Probably...

 

Lift-off!

Where to begin?

I used to be scared of living so to combat this I have always endeavoured to live an extraordinary life.  It's been wonderfully varied; intensely sad, wildly happy, and sometimes mind-numbingly mundane but so far it's been a blast.

In July of 2007 I moved to be with an ex.  Turned out to be one of my better impulsive moves - six months later I was pregnant, nine months after that I gave birth to our fabulous daughter, three weeks ago we were married and this morning we had an offer accepted on a house.  We like to move fast!

So here I am.  I went from Managing Editor of a fashion magazine to stay-at-home Mum in just over a year.  My only complaint?  Not so much champagne on this side of the fence....