Hello there! March already? Yes, I did have a wee bit of a blog-break, which a) was partly due to being away for four days and b) partly due to the wonderful head-cold I caught from too much communal living with snotty nephews.

I swear, all vestiges of creativity this past week have leaked out of me along with a gallon of snot, but I won't gross you out with the finer details (um, too late...) - safe to say that at the moment I love me some Coldrex in the morning, midday, and just before going to bed.

Anyhoo, the weekend away was quite lovely, and the bach was perfect, and the wedding went off without too many hitches, except of course for the bride and groom: they definitely got hitched. The tsunami warning at 6.30am on Sunday was a little bit alarming, but fortunately it proved only to be a minor inconvenience in that we couldn't go to the beach the WHOLE day.

And seeing as it was stinking hot, and some of us were ever so slightly seedy due to overindulging in keg-beer/cheapo sparkling wine, a swim would have been just the ticket...

Well, no big deal; at least we were all safe, and not in any great danger, and my thoughts soared up over the Pacific to the poor, poor people of Chile, whose lives had been ripped apart in minutes.

Monday I came home with Lil'Sis to a relatively empty house (via Hot Water Beach, just gorgeous, despite the tourists...) as the Other Harf had gone home Sunday evening with Miss 9.6 as they were both off to school camp for two days first thing Monday, along with the nieces.

The Other Harf managed to call later that evening from a cow trough in the middle of a paddock, where he was lying in wait as a Scary Person, ready to frighten the living bejesus out of 60 kids on the Burma Trail (a blindfolded night walk which follows a rope along a trail). My kind of evening!

The next night he called again, interrupting my Chick Flick (Julie and Julia) and Curry (takeaway Chicken Tikka Masala) evening with the news that yet again he had been chosen to be one of the Ugly Stepsisters for the Parent/Teacher offering of Cinderella - a role that he and Bruvinlaw had taken on at school camp two years ago. Coincidence? Me thinks not...

You know, I really do need to get along to one of these school camps one of these days but hopefully not get picked as the Ugly Stepsister.

I leave you with photographic evidence of a perfect summer weekend on the Coromandel...

Greetings to you on another gorgeous sunny Sunday! 

Today, after a quick trip into town to kit Miss 9.6 out with some new sandals for my cousin's wedding next weekend (miracle of miracles, praise be and hallelujah she actually liked the first pair she tried on AND the store had them in her size, two things that never happen at the same time) I slotted in a brisk and extremely sweaty 4km dogwalk and a glorious swim to cool off from the dogwalk (me only; Pippa and Max are banned from the pool as they insist on doing bombs off the ladder) and now I am in the middle of my first assignment for my photography course.

This assignment is all about the theory and I've got ten scenarios in which to choose "lenses, attachments and filters" for. So far so good, but I'm a little bit stumped on what to use for "high power shots of business-suited women in a slick city environment with a lot of action round them" and went and shot this photo of unslick country with no high powered women in business suits in it at all and used Elements' nifty Photomerge Panoroma tool to stitch it all together instead, because the practical is *so* much more fun than the theory.

However, this diversion is going to get me diddly squat on my assignment, so back to swotting up on the zoom, the telephoto, the macro, the tilt, the prime and the wide angle I go...

I've been thinking today how funny (as in odd-funny) it is how sometimes parents can produce children so utterly different. The reason for this, and case in point: my cousins Sherry and Karl (who are visiting us tonight with their partners) - Sherry left school at 15, worked in Pizza Hut ever since and has never lived anywhere else except Whangarei. She's quiet, meek and shy to the point of being mousy.

Where as Karl went travelling four years ago fresh out of university (fully qualified as an accountant) and has lived in Canada, the US, Japan and the UK. He and his partner Fran have just returned from an epic backpacking trip round Africa (not to mention their travels through Asia, the US and Europe) and they're only home for a month or so before heading back to London to save up for their next round of adventures. Karl? He's outgoing, confident and can talk a leg off a chair.

It's like Sherry and Karl were bought up in two totally different households.

Lil'Sis and I are quite different too, but those differences are fading slowly but surely away now. We have more in common than ever as mothers, homeowners, gardeners, neighbours and a mutual fondness of 70's soft rock music. Our tolerance of each other's personality quirks has increased tenfold - her and I spent the first twenty years of our lives disliking to the point of despising each other (particularly in our teens: many a time I could have easily ripped her carefully coiffured Alison Moyet quiff out follicle by follicle and I'm sure she would have loved to have taken a sharp knife to my Siouxsie and the Banshees cassettes on several occasions) and the next ten tolerating each other, only just at first, but more and more as our twenties wore on.

And now, finally, we actually like each other and most importantly respect each other for who we are, not what we think each other should be.

Are you and your siblings alike? Have you grown more alike as you've gotten older?

Or will that just never happen?