Mothers Day - Part 1

Around Home
Welcome to my new look blog, hope you like it.  Am trying to go "simple" in real life and in blogland and it's taken me a wee while to find this particular heading that I 've always liked. 

We were woken abruptly yesterday morning at 3am by a large nasty earthquake, a 5.3 magnitude centred in Rolleston .  This takes our total of aftershocks and new earthquakes to nearly 6000 in the last eight months!  That seems an incredible statistic when written down.  Even more unbelievable that we Christchurch residents have suffered through it all, day in day out.

Carpe diem  -  translated as "seize the day". Carpe literally means "to pick, pluck, pluck off, cull, crop, gather", but Ovid said the word in the sense of, "To enjoy, seize, use, make use of".

The above phrase is something a lot of people in our city have embraced, and for us despite all the hardship and suffering going on around us, the events have meant an unexpected employment opportunity in our home.  Alf has finally taken a life long dream of self-employment and has made it a reality.  Three weeks ago he resigned from the drilling company he had just started work at, and has become a contractor to the City Council.  My my, I can tell you we thrashed this move out, over and over, pros and cons, do we - don't we, we prayed with our church members for the right answer.  There really isn't a right or wrong answer to a situation like this.  We are optimistic that based on Alf's qualifications and the abundant employment opportunities in the infrastructure of the city, he can earn a "decent wage".  So for the last few weeks, my time has been taken up with office jobs, phone calls and accounting.  But that's quite OK with me.  I come from an accounting/office background in my previous life before children.  So I am quite happy to play office lady to my darling husband.  We pray each day that this new direction will be successful and lasting.

Mothers Day
I was given the most special attention for Mother Day this year.  I really didn't want too much fuss, but the family had other ideas.  They concluded I was the MOST important person in the house and that life would simply grind to a halt without me. BLUSH.

A lovely treat coffee - and a magazine

Spending time with my family

A healthy lunch for the weight and health conscious mother

Outside the cafe, the deck extends out over the Avon River allowing us wonderful views of the river.  Not too crowded which is great for 12.30, not many venturing into the city I think.  Notice the cafe cat, Max, alseep by the gas heater.  He curls up and stays there all day!

Punting and rowing on the Avon has been in this location 125 years and is quite a Christchurch institution, I have vivid memories of being little and rowing here in the school holidays.  Much of the land around it seems damaged, so it was good to enjoy something unchanged from before the earthquake.

They think of everything, especially when lunching on a cold day

Alex and Georgia on the statue of

James Edward Fitzgerald on Rolleston Avenue

Fitzgerald was the first Superintendent of Canterbury between 1853 to 1857

15th Birthday Celebrations

Around Home
Alex has just turned 15.  It hardly seems like the other day we were celebrating his 5th and 10th birthdays.

 Butter icing decorating a chocolate cake inside 

(craftily hiding amateur icing job done by me) 

with pineapple lumps and party mix.

Alex blowing out his candles.  An impromptu outing with cake in hand was made to 

my mum and dad's house one evening.

I baked a double batch of chocolate cake mixture I have used here,

making a large rectangle and a ring cake.

I cut out the "one" and part of the "five" from the rectangle, then estimated where to cut the circular part 

of the "five" making the rounded part. Then sliced and filled with butter icing.

A birthday celebration was a good excuse to eat our "American Night" cuisine as we eat our way around the world, incorporating and extending our homeschool geography lessons.  Alex had planned out a menu.

We ate chicken, our own corn and vegetables and I just varied the planned brownie for the cake

Autumn Means.... 

PJ specials at Farmers (for me, blue with pussy cats) and PostiePlus as the cold winter nights we are upon us now in the South Island.

My how times change... New PJ's picture 5 years ago, 

by the way Georgia had not been punched in the eye, she had just returned from a St John Cadets makeup evening.

To now, we almost officially have 2 teenagers in the house...hey guys, stop growing will you?

Happy Easter To You All

Lee-Anne

Weekly Roundup - Birthday Celebrations, Water Pumps And A Stroke

Around The Home
Thought I should tell you about what has been happening around here in last few days.

Birthday celebrations were held this week for Alf.  As he is a man he probably won't mind me telling you he turned 47.

Just as an aside, Alf is a very busy man at the moment.  He is putting in 12 to 14 hour days working on our battered city's water supply.  As an engineer with many talents, he has a specific history of working on the pumps for our wastewater plant for some 24 years, before sadly being made redundant.  However, in the city's hour of need, they have seconded Alf (via the new job at the drilling company) to work on the water pumps.  He has so far this week worked 9 days in a row ,and for very long hours. So, it has been an equally long week for us at home, so sorry not much blogging has been done.

Alf's job at the moment is to treat our (previously untouched) water with chlorine because of contamination from the sewerage pipes.  Through his working with the water system staff, we are able to see council-only lab results for the city water.  These emails clearly show the pumping stations around the city that have tested positive for ecoli.  There are masses of positive results, so it's still very important to boil the water after all this time.  As I recently experienced the symptoms of food poisoning, I am extra vigilant on this front.  Alf has kindly brought home some boxes of bottled water from his work, allowing me a small break from the jug.

Busy at work in one of the pumping stations

A container of chlorine being readied for our water

A map our our city, the dark green bit is the only part of the city where sewerage is working.  That's where we live, the rest of the city are using long drops, chemical toilets and porta loos.

Amazing to think contraptions like this are stopping nearly half a million residents from getting very sick.  Alf has the ability to "think outside the square" to find solutions to unusual problems

Let Them Eat Cake

The mere mention of celebrating with food sent Georgia and I into the kitchen to create yummy decadent fare.  Over the last year I have twigged my quick chocolate recipe, adding a slight coffee edge to it.  The combination of chocolate and coffee taste, mocha I suppose you could call it, gets me really excited.  To my chocolate cake recipe I added cooled coffee where the recipe called for just water. Here is my easy chocolate cake recipe.  I will often delete the cocoa, adding extra flour turning these into amazing little quick cupcakes.  I used this recipe a while back for Alf's leaving morning tea, making chocolate cupcakes.

How To Make A Big Chocolate Cake In A Hurry 

Ingredients:
2 cups self-raising flour
pinch of baking soda (bi-carbonate of soda)
4 tablespoons cocoa
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup water
150g melted butter

Put all ingredients into a large mixing bowl 

Beat with an electric mixer for 3 minutes
Pour mixture into large greased tin (approx. 25x30cm)
Bake at 190 deg C fan bake for 35 minutes, or for 50-69 minutes normal oven

Butter Icing

100gm butter, softened
2 cups icing sugar, sifted
1/4 teaspoon vanilla essense
1-2 tablespoons hot water

Cream butter until light and fluffy.  Add vanilla.  Gradually beat in icing sugar, beating until smooth.  Add sufficient water to give a spreading consistency.

Butter icing with coffee added for extra taste

Ready for icing by Georgia

Handy Icing for when time is short, thoroughly recommend this product

With a little help from mum, Georgia got the cake decorated

Butterfly Cakes

Using the 3 minute sponge from the iconic Edmond's Cookbook, I placed small spoonfuls of sponge mixture into pretty little patty cases.  Once they had cooled, I cut out a cone in the centre, cutting that in half.

Cream was piped into the centre (at this point some lemon curd could be added) and the butterfly wings placed into the cream.  Icing sugar dusted on top. Serve.

These dainty cakes were made in less than an hour

On My Mind

Lastly, my lovely Dad, Jim, suffered an unexpected stroke early this week.  He is a  fit and healthy man, so this has totally come out of the blue for my mother and two other sisters.  They are calling it a min-stroke, luckily the symptoms lasted only about 24 hours. He blacked out while reading the morning paper at the dining table, falling from his chair and hitting the wall.  The only indication something was not quite right was the partial paralysis on one side of his face.  None this less,  it has been upsetting for us all.  Dad came out of hospital yesterday afternoon, and is resting at home.  The stroke has meant he cannot drive for quite some time, and is now taking quite a few medications to prevent any more strokes happening.  We are all cautiously hopeful that everything is behind us, but the doctors did call it a warning sign.  So I am praying that his health remains as good as it is at the moment.

Blessings

Lee-Anne

Our Christmas in Photos

A wonderful day has been had.  The most important people around us.  Our family, grandparents and cousins spending the whole day together talking and laughing.  Am getting tired now, it's 9.32pm and I have been up since 5.45am.

Here are some highlights for the day and of Christmas Eve....

Christmas Eve happenings.....

 Georgia stuffing and stitching up the chickens ready to cook

Ironing the place mats.  What a helpful daughter she is.

 View of central Christchurch from a lookout on The Port Hills.

 Fish and Chip dinner at the lookout after our church service, a beautiful night with amazing views as well.  We are showing Nando, our student from Brazil, how our city is spread out.

 The trifle is almost finished, this is how I do the inside.  Custard layer is next.

Whipped cream to go onto trifle just before serving.

Christmas Day happenings....

 About to say grace and start brunch, look how bright the sun is streaming in the lounge window.

 

Nando, pleased with his "kiwi" gifts.

My new letter box, carefully crafted by my father.  It even has copper flashing on the roof.

 

Nando and Georgia celebrating.

Lee-Anne

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It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Hello everyone, Merry Christmas!

It is finally beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here now.  The presents are sitting under the tree ready for unwrapping tomorrow.  Christmas food is being prepared in the kitchen, and the countdown has begun. There is a heightened sense of excitement emanating from the children and us adults as well.  Even at nearly 15 and 12, Christmas is still a big thing to them.

We did a marathon last shop around the city, starting off very early to avoid the crowds.  I wanted to spend the day at home today, so it all had to be yesterday.  The shopping was successful, but tiring for us especially me as the driver.  However, we decided to park a wee way away from one of our major malls to avoid that whole carpark thing this time of year.  Alex, we think, has managed to break a toe while pushing our trolley back to the car.  He is having a very low key day today, nursing a very sore foot.

Here is a list of what I need to do today in preparation....

1.   Make sponge for trifle

2.   Make custard and assemble trifle

3.   Make stuffing and cook 2 chickens to have cold tomorrow

4.   Decorate and set table for champagne breakfast, which is actually just sparkling grape juice.  Brunch is something we have done now for 3 years, so is a special time.  Everyone insists that we have brunch and it seems to have become a tradition.  This year is extra special as we have a student from Brazil living with us over the Christmas period and he is experiencing a "Kiwi" Christmas for the 1st time.

5.   Church at 5pm for a special family service.

6.   Fish and chip tea at the beach afterwards.  After extremely hot and windy temperatures this week I am worried it may being raining this evening.

So there we are.  The only things left to do for tomorrow are make a pavlova in the morning and cook the waffles for brunch.  We are spending the day at my Mum and Dad's house.  Everyone is taking something for the meal.  I will be taking cold chicken, trifle and pavlova.  The soft drink and juices for a punch have already gone around.

In the garden...
What a week it has been weather wise.  Some days have been too windy to even venture out the door, let alone garden.  So the poor garden is a bit worse for wear as a result.  The gale force winds have blown over plants and the extreme heat has dried out the ground.

 The yard is a mess with leaves blown off trees

The vegetables have been blown over

Mum and Dad have called in for a cuppa, Dad is checking whether the garlic is ready.  And it is, Dad digs it all out, Thanks Dad

Georgia carries the bundle of garlic to be strung up, smells divine.

We help ourselves to the peas that are ready.  The children were amazed that you could do that.  A wonderful "moment" to share, the children nibbling fresh peas that they had helped plant.

Merry Christmas from  everyone here at Tales from the Garden Gate

Celebrations and More Shaking Earth Part 2

Tuesday 16th November 2010

It seems we have not escaped the dreaded aftershocks as we suspected.  After a quiet period of maybe two weeks the earth has reminded us there still is a wee way to go until things settle down. While listening to Radio New Zealand the other morning, a Canterbury University Geologist was speaking about the nasty shocks Christchurch experienced on Sunday. He said those quakes were regarded as significant, and although the  occurrence of aftershocks has slowed the magnitude has not reduced at all.

Our household like many in Christchurch was awakened at 1.33am to a 4.7 magnitude aftershock.  We all quickly deduced that everyone was safe and proceeded back to sleep as best we could, hey, we are old hands at this quake business now! At this point I need to explain that all these quakes Christchurch has experienced are aftershocks, not new earthquakes.  An aftershock is any earthquake lower in magnitude to the initial quake.  Also according to that Geologist, we have many months like this ahead of us.  

So, onto Sunday night, where we gathered watching PrimeTV's new series of Get Growing, which I might add is great,  as there aren't any gardening programmes on free TV.  During the shake, a 4.9 magnitude, we watched as the TV almost shook off its cabinet and the watched as books were almost shaken off the bookcase, check out the link here..... Canterbury aftershock-shakes-Christchurch 

Happenings around the house and garden....

Fruit mix soaking in sherry ready for Christmas cake

 

Trying to perfect my homemade hamburger buns

 

 

Something to get really excited about! the framing for the new greenhouse has gone up. Painstakingly crafted by engineering husband.  Will devote a future blog about our plans.  But we are halfway there now with the framing.

Animals & Birdlife

 

 

Part of Georgia's Zoology1 school work was to make a bird feeder.  Wonderful to see birdlife coming into garden and using it.

Tried to get good photos of fast moving hedgehog at 10:25pm, but was hard

Bye for now, Lee-Anne