Well folks, I don’t know if there’s too many of you reading this here blog these days, but instead of simply disappearing off the internet in a cloud of electrical smoke, never to be read of again, I thought I’d let you know that I’m taking an extended break from the world wide web.

I’m not sure at this point if Kiwifruit will ever return but I do know that I’ll be back, somewhere, somehow.

E noho ra my friends! I luf you all!

*sniff*

It is slightly bewildering to me that it’s the first week in August already, when only yesterday it was the 26th of February…wasn’t it? It’s as though those little grains of sand in the hourglass of life are trickling down from the upper to the lower part so much quicker these days. Slippery little buggers.

Speaking of time passing far too quickly, it’s also bewildering that Miss 7.11 is going to be Miss 8 next month, no longer a big-little girl but a little-big girl. Jeez, how did that happen!

Miss almost-8 is starring in her school’s annual “carnival” concert tonight, part of a hand-picked quartet playing that all-time classic The Lion Sleeps Tonight on recorder. The wim-a-way a wim-a-yay bit is pretty bloody tricky, but according to Lil’Sis and Bruvinlaw, who attended the concert last night (the nieces were in a group sing-along for Years 3 and 4) she didn’t miss one note, bless ‘er cottons. The Other Harf and myself are attending the concert tonight, and I am sure she will do us proud, as lord knows neither of us have a musically creative atom in our bodies  – I don’t think a high score of 7.8 on Singstar ’80′s really counts.

In other musically related news, the Other Harf and I have been invited by workmate Ethel and her partner to attend the Paihia Jazz and Blues Festival this weekend, an invitation which we took up eagerly. Ethel managed to book us waterfront accommodation in one of Paihia’s newest hotels at a bloody reasonable rate, so the Other Harf and I are very much looking forward to spending some time with a really cool, down-to-earth couple in a rather nice part of Northland, but most importantly?

Away from the revolving chaos that is our household at the moment.

This morning it was gloriously sunny, just to be entirely contrary, so after my traditional Sunday morning reading in bed session (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – I held out for the paperback version), a breakfast of poached eggs on toast and a beauty and styling session for Miss 7.11, who was off to a friend’s birthday party later on, I decided it was time to get the macro lens out and investigate what our garden’s been up to.

Yep…it amazes me that in the midst of all this grey, dull, murky midwinter, Mother Nature can still turn her hand to some pretty spectacular colours.

In other news, the nation is exultant over the All Blacks trouncing of arch-rivals Australia 39-10 last night at Eden Park. All hail Captain Richie McCaw!  *Wayne Campbell voice* “We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!” 

Now, if you’ll excuse me, a large, shifty black cloud is lurking on the horizon like Dishonest John, and I have to go and rescue four fully-laden clotheshorses (a veritable herd) off the verandah before the clothes get washed all over again.

Have a flippin’ awesome Sunday!

I think I’ve come down with a mild case of the winter blues. It hasn’t stopped raining for more than a day for weeks and quite frankly I am seriously considering emigrating to Weelabarraback, or Kickatingalong or Coolmebeerdown or some-such Australian outback town, where rain is a novelty. Waaaah!

And don’t talk to me about the wind. This morning I took NephewT (whom I was babysitting for a couple of hours) for a walk down the driveway to check the mailbox, and he was practically blown down the valley. Missing: one nineteen month old toddler wearing crocodile gumboots and a striped hoody, last seen being buffeted across a local dairy farm paddock.

Yep, great babysitting skills, Aunty Fi…

At this point, before melancholy overtakes and I start knocking back the vodka and playing Transylvanian chamber music in B minor,  I should really remind myself that there are things I really like about winter. Roaring fires, homemade steak ‘n cheese pies (two are in the oven as I type this, smelling goooood), jonquils and snowdrops and cinerarias, fluffy slippers, merino jerseys, stripey scarves, electric blankets, rain on the roof when you’re cuddled up all safe in bed, apple crumble, hot cups of tea when you’re fingers are frozen, whiskers on kittens. No, scrap the last one. It’s not strictly a wintery thing.

Anyway. I feel better after that little reminder. And the townsfolk of Wheelabarrowback can be safe in the knowledge that no odd Kiwi bird is going to turn up on the doorstep anytime soon.

She’s only bleat on at how bloody hot it was, and how she really, really missed the rain.