Sugar and Spice.

What are little girls made of?

Like everybody else, they are made of the sum of their life experiences.

On the 1st of January 2012, "She who is proficient at separating eggs" will turn twenty one.

I remember the day of her birth like it was yesterday.

Today I feel an funny sense of displacement because I am unable to reconcile the little girl

with the person who I now rely on as a friend and confidante,

organiser of events, and compassionate advocate and companion to those she cares about.

In many ways she was born into the shadow of her older brother, and has remained there ever since by choice.



Right from the very beginnings of a child's "knowing", she has been his most understanding advocate and supporter.



Compassionate, fearless and unrelenting in her role as protector and facilitator of many things.







I also know her as drama Queen and apprentice racing car driver, now well and truly graduated



to her own (shared with Dad) 1973 Toyota corolla - purple of course.




And agreeable participant in all my eccentricities (tea parties).

She is also the Easter Bunny and Mother Christmas on every possible occasion.

And doer of crosswords with her Granny!

Woe betide you Granny if you get caught cheating on those word puzzles!

We are so lucky to be three generation of Magpie Chics able to play such an integral part in each other's lives.

Happy 21st Birthday my Beatie.

Today you get to be the favourite!!!!

In Which I go on an Expedition with Pooh and Piglet to Martinborough - and Bring Back a Mirror.

When planning an expedition, you must first decide on your destination.

For ever such a long time I've had a hankering to visit the Wairarapa for an expedition up the main streets of Greytown and Martinborough.

Gorgeous little antique shops and boutiques and yummy little delis and French Bakeries.

I hadn't been there for about ten years.

The next thing you must do is choose your accommodation.

We chose Walnut Cottage, up one of the cute little side streets, up a long driveway,

surrounded by orange blossom, granny bonnets and self seeded poppies.

Set in the garden of a very nice man called Kevin.

As well we weren't looking for a woozle on this particular expedition, because I don't think we would have found one in Kevin's garden.

It was not the kind of garden in which to find a woozle.

But we did find a variety of funny little dogs.

And the next most important thing to have on an expedition of course, are the provisions!

Pooh and Piglet had made very sensible arrangements with table cloths to guard against Municipal bird poo, plastic knives for the blue cheese and other such practicalities.

Piglet is an ideas sort of a person and has a solution for all eventualities, which you will see further evidence of later.

My contribution to the provisions was Katie's date square and a big thermos of coffee - and the Granny's best marmalade for breakfast.

It was necessary to borrow the Granny's thermos and her latest jar of fresh marmalade for the event.

Katies's date square was a huge hit with everyone concerned and you can find the recipe here.

This particular "stopping for provisions" event was on the way back.

We had yummy french bread and left over cheeses, tiny peppers, buffalo mozzarella, avocados and strawberries left over from our dinner the night before.



Katie's date square was just as delicious after a day in the tin.
I am wanting to say here "a day in the tin in the Wairarapa sunshine", because that would sound so inviting and has such poetic ring, but alas the first day was freezing, with snow in the South Island making its presence felt. But we did have some lovely sunshine on the Sunday.

And it was in Martinborough on Sunday that I found the mirror.
Such a mirror as I had lost all hope of ever finding.
A French Country inspired mirror, the right dimensions for above my fireplace, with the right aged look.
And when I found it, it was a moment of instant recognition. This mirror was a kindred spirit and was made for my fire place, but how to fit it in the back seat of a small suzuki hatchback?




Piglet and Pooh are never without good ideas and steely determination when it comes to pieces of the heart and kindred spirits.
A girl just knows how important it is to have things come home with you, not wait for them to turn up on a courier van a week later.

And so it was arranged.
I cannot tell you how, but they did it with pieces of string to measure with and highly developed spatial skills.
Somehow they managed to alter the laws of physics and matter displacement.
I just watched and let them get on with it. As you do.

And I found this treasure along the way, which I will spend the next week with.

And here it is.

I can't wait to get it on the wall.

But I'll have to wait till the Mister comes home and can get out the chainsaw, the hacksaw, the micrometer, the spirit level, whatever it is that blokes need for these occasions.

And just enjoy it.

Mustering Cats.

Hello Blog Chics.

We've been busy round here with a lot of small people and some large people.

The large people have come very intermittently to build the shed.

Intermittently because the weather has been so bad.

Spring has really been wet, wet, wet, and very windy so far.

But that is far from unexpected, and thoroughly unremarkable, unless you are trying to build something with scaffolding!

The small people have been and gone now.

We had one sunny afternoon the whole two weeks they have been here.

The youngest two did manage to spend a lot of time doing outside things though.

All the games involve cattle, stock whips, yards, gates and fences.

Mustering cats on tricycles is a new string to their bows.

The shed provided quite a lot of entertainment as well.
Especially the machinery involved.




We did the customary trip up Mt Taranaki and the walk to Dawson Falls.
It wasn't actually raining, but it was very muddy on the track,
so a thoroughly good time was ha by all the small people in gumboots.






I showed off my photos of mountain fauna and boys climbing the bushline track to the Wozzle.
He said he would like to have the ones of the shed under construction please!!!!
Should have known!
His little brother interpreted one of the Woozles's drawings for me.
It went something like this...
"these are the cattle yards and these spots are the cattle waiting to be mustered into the yards."
And here was me thinking it was a butterfly!!

A Spot of Granny Shifting and Some Cows in my Meadow.

Sometimes there are cows that graze the meadow behind the house.

They are supposed to stay in the meadow,

and not venture past the electric fence into

the hundred acre wood.

But cows being cows become curious and they worked out that the electric fence wasn't switched on.

Well three of them did anyhow, and escaped past my washing line into the hundred acre wood; trampling and eating everything underfoot.

I know never to hang out your washing with cows in the vicinity, from childhood experience of same!

But at least we got the day off school that day.

Taranaki rain being what it is, everything we owned was hung on the line by Sunday

(when a herd of cows happened along and attempted to eat it and tread it under foot as above!)

And we have discovered why the Tail cat sometimes comes racing in the cat door looking like she's seen Ned Kelly's ghost out there in the dark.

It's the cows. Silly Tail's afraid of cows.

So all the extra cow chasing delayed the Granny moving for about half an hour while Richard and the owner of the cows chased them back into the paddock and we turned the electric fence on.
Yes Blog Chics, we have said goodbye to the Magpie House.
It has been sold to a young family who love it.
So I am very happy that our home has gone to a good home!

Now we have a dilemma when converting our current garage into the Granny Annexe.
And that is, how do you disguise the electric fence control panel in what will become the Granny Kitchen?
Any interior whizzes out there with a solution?
Not your usual interior decorating challenge is it?

Buttered Paws Not Required:an evidence based conclusion.

We have finally moved in! Six blokes, several trailers, trucks with lifty things on the back and vans, utes and a honda accord was all it took.

My hubby was brought up in the"sitting on the concrete will give you piles" tradition, and he is firmly of the belief that you must butter the cat's paws when you move them.

I have to concede there is some logic to this, in that it might induce them to groom.

However, the chics make the cat rules in this household, so no paws have ever actually been buttered, and now I can present my evidence based conclusion that it is just not necessary!

I rest my case.

The tail cat moved in and made herself right at home.

The kitchen is still huge because my new table hasn't arrived yet.

The Magpie Cat decided that she needed to be carried up the stairs.

She achieved this by yowling very loudly at the bottom till we came and carried her up.

I guess if you haven't had stairs before, you might expect that your people would carry you up,

or install a small chair lift or something.

What actually happened is that everyone got busy and ignored her and she had climbed the stairs by herself by the second day.

View of the garden from the upstairs window.

Forgot to fix the exposure on this one.

Not a scerrick of butter on the Tail Cat's paws.

I can't decide.

An impulse purchase. A moment of indecision combined with limited time and vintage covetousness. I bought it. Now where oh where do I put it? Where will it fit amongst my other more purposeful acquisitions?


I spent some time moving it around the house in the usual manner. Back and forth, ending up where I started. Still of the opinion that I really don't have a place for it, but still loving it soooo much.

Probably the most useful place to put it, but it should be bigger to look right.

Too crowded?

Too utilitarian beside the rubbish tine and the cat's dinner!

Swamped and superfluous, but I like the photo.

Maybe...

This is a definite possibility.

I don't know. What do you think?