Coming home

I want to preface this post by saying how grateful I am for our time in England. I would not trade those experiences, memories and relationships for anything. It was absolutely where we needed to be at the time.

But now I want to talk about what it means for us to be here in New Zealand, and why it's a better fit for us. Some of you might have thought my reaction to being on Sunset Beach was a bit melodramatic. It's just a beach, right? Why all the emotion?

Remember that I was born and raised in South Africa. I spent so much time outdoors and in nature. I loved the mountains, the beaches, the rivers and the forests, the animals, plants and birds.

Going to England was like taking me from being outdoors and bringing me inside for a decade, with a low ceiling of perpetual cloud, walls of people and buildings, the air conditioner turned up too high and the gloom of half-drawn drapes. If that's what you're used to there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, but for this girl from Africa it was oppressive. I know Grant felt the same way.

Being here in New Zealand feels like coming home. As I gulp in huge lungfuls of fresh, fragrant air, raise my eyes to the soaring dome of sky - impossibly blue, bruised with rainclouds or black and scattered with stars - turn in a circle on an open beach with space all around me, something inside me comes to life again.

I knew I missed wide open spaces, bright sunshine and nature. But you know that feeling when you've been apart from someone you love and it's only in the homecoming that you feel the ache of how much you've missed them? That's what I'm feeling now.

So much here reminds us of our life in Cape Town. The laid-back cheerfulness of the people, the ways of the school, certain products on shop shelves all prompt a nostalgia and bring forgotten memories to the surface.

In England there was no real connection between our past and our present. The school system was different, the surroundings were different, nothing was the same. I used to say that it felt not like a different chapter in our book but a completely different book. Here, there is the continuity of past and present and it feels like a different chapter in the same book. We can share memories with the kids and it's relevant to them.

I didn't know how much that would matter to me.

England was the right place for us at the right time. But moving on became necessary. As hard as it was to get here, every time I thought of spending the rest of my life in the UK I felt a hard panic. Now we feel like we've come home. Not to a replica of South Africa, don't get me wrong; that's not what we were looking for. But to a beautiful, relaxed, generous country that fills our empty places and makes us glad to be alive.

And spending the rest of my life here feels like the richest blessing.

Trip to the beach part 2

It is 9am and I just got back from the walk to school. Oh, did I say walk? My mistake, I meant swim. When the NZ weatherman says "showers" he doesn't mean what the UK weatherman means by "showers". In the UK showers means some light rain on and off through the day. In NZ it apparently means deluge, turning the driveways to streams to wade through and the air to water!

It was kind of fun but I made the boys run almost the whole way to school because I didn't want them sitting in wet clothes all day. They had raincoats and Noah used our only umbrella but we all got soaked anyway. My walk swim home was more leisurely because there is literally a saturation point where you just can't get any wetter so why rush? It's not like it's cold out, just wet.

I came home to an empty, quiet house and had to change everything, even my underwear (you're welcome!) because of how sodden I was.

This leads to a number of questions:

Why did I bother having a shower this morning?

Why did I do my hair and makeup?

Why did I ship my waterproof mascara instead of bringing it in our suitcases?

Why did we walk instead of taking the car?

Okay, the last question is one I can answer: Grant left before us to go and do his swim test. He has to complete all of his physical testing again before starting at the college and yesterday he passed his fitness / running / grip testing. After today's test he can relax a little and enjoy his time off before college on 8 August. And hopefully be around with the car for rainy days so we don't have to swim to school again :)

But you didn't come here for a weather report, so here are the promised Sunset Beach photos.

The drive, as I said, was about 35 minutes and we passed literally, no lie, about 4 cars on the way there. It was much longed-for bliss to be driving on empty roads with no other people around! When we got there, parked and stepped up on the dune to view the beach I gasped.





The beach stretches out with glistening black sand. You'd think it's dirty or would leave muck on your hands but it's clean, fine sand caused by the iron content from the ancient volcanoes in the area. It sparkles lightly in the sun, like Edward Cullen.





(Why yes, I do wear sparkly, velcro-strapped trainers, because apparently I am 6.)

There were some people playing on their quadbike and mini motorbike on the beach and a few walkers, but otherwise the beach was empty.



The funny thing is that Daniel was in a bit of a mood and had wanted to stay in the car. We made him come with us and he ended up having the best time ever. He just hadn't even imagined what a proper beach could be like - climbing on the rocks, playing in the water, drawing on the sand and messing about in the little stream that led onto the beach.

Noah also had a blast!











It's our nearest surf beach and Grant is quite keen to get back into surfing. The waves weren't right for surfing when we went though - but at least there were waves! I've missed proper waves. I also miss my SLR cameras!!



















Being on this beach I was overcome by a rush of pure heart-swelling, can't-catch-my-breath, tears-in-my-eyes JOY and gratitude that we get to be here. Completely overwhelming.











Every minute of stress, every penny it's cost us, every sacrifice we've made has been worth it already. This beautiful country is everything we want for our family and it's a privilege to be here. I only wish we could have brought friends and family with us.

















These are thousands of teeny-tiny shellfish, they look like little black mussels:











We have to keep reminding ourselves this is winter!!





Happy, happy, happy!







At one point Daniel ran up to me, hugged me fiercely and emotionally and fervently said, "Thank you!" They get it now, why we put them through what we did. They see the worth.

Trip to the beach part 1

Warning: picture heavy. And if you're wondering about the quality of the pics, they were all taken with our point-and-shoot camera as I've shipped my SLR cameras.

This country is so beautiful! And we're still enjoying the weather (about 16 degrees):



We got into Grant's pride and joy (a Mazda 6) ...



... and went for a drive to the beach. We are in a lovely town with everything we need nearby and then we drive literally a few streets over and we're driving through this:

















Waikato River:





We are surrounded by farmland:





We stopped at Coburne Reserve but didn't stay long as the ground was very wet and muddy. Plus we wanted to get to the beach.









This is supposed to be winter?! Check out what we were wearing:









We soon continued on to the beach, which I'll put in a separate post - it was AMAZING. But I have a million pics to share and this post is picture heavy enough, so stay tuned.