Talka talka talka

Little brother has discovered his vocal chords. Specifically that they can make lots of different words that he can use to communicate. He hasnt learned to put them to together yet, but they come out firing out, determined single words sentences. All ending with an -a.

He might say:
'Mumma. Willa. A-saur. Turn. (Shaking his head).'
Transl. :
'Mum, Will is not letting me have a turn with the dinosaur.'

Or:
'Mumma. Juica. Wada (Shaking his head).'
'Mum, I want a juice, NOT a water.

During the summer holidays he renamed his visiting cousin hordes, christening them with the-a. Hannah, Ella, Fletcha, Charl-a, Georgia and Julia came off alright, but Wog (Robbie) and Apgar (Alex) didn't do so well. They just might stick.

He is so enjoying being able to communicate, and he even cracked his first joke the other day. His big brother has been watching a bit of The Muppet Show and had been singing that classic skit -'Mana mana, Do do do do do'. Little brother and I were sitting at the breakfast table and he pointed at the melon I was eating. 'Its melon' I told him. 'Mana' he said, 'Mana.' Then he got a little curious thinking expression on his face and started singing 'Do do do do'.
It may have been a 'you had to be there' joke, and not great over the ethernet, but we both cracked up.

He also loves to sing in the car. Another milestone of language development was reached coming into Piopio last weekend when after 150 kms of E-I-E-I-E-I-E-I, he finally hit the -O.

Amongst the prickles

Two weeks after leaving our home of four years, I find we are on an emotional see-saw.

At one extreme, and mostly, we are missing home, finding it unbelievable that we go to the park and know NO ONE . Unbelievable that our old life and playcenter is carrying on WITHOUT US back in the bay of beauty. Feeling a little guilty I am still for all intents and purposes 'on holiday' and get to live in this other beautiful place.

And at the other extreme I am learning how to fly fish. Living at the river mouth where a world class trout fishing river feeds into a world class trout fishing lake, it only seems appropriate. Added to that my sons can spend hours throwing stones into that river. If we need to survive on trout and blackberries we could.

And then there are the blackberries. As I was wandering down the pumice littered beach this evening for my pre dinner dip in the luke warm lake, with my gin in hand, I just couldn't resist a few black beauties. Seems we have found ourselves in the prickles frequently lately. We have been scratched. We have had tummy aches from eating too many red ones. We've picked a few half ripe ones and been sorely disappointed with the after taste.

But we still can't resist risking finding the sweetest one possible, we can't resist risking reaching so far out of our comfort zone that sometimes we will fall headfirst into the prickles.

Wiping the juice from off our faces we can't blame it on the plants. With the most luscious blackberry come the prickliest prick.