Amaiterai's first month (and a bit!)

Blogging and babies don't mix!
Yesterday Amaiterai was 5 weeks old, he's thriving and has already gained 6 cm in length and over 1.6kg in weight. The month since he arrived has gone by in an eventful blur of sleep-deprivation!





We said goodbye to April a few days after the birth, having learned a thing or two about sourdough and lilikois (passion fruit). Inspired by April, I've gone off on a fermented food frenzy, making sourdough burger buns, sourdough rice crackers and sourdough potato pancakes to name a few, I've also had a go at my first batch of kim chee and a very passable ginger beer! Probiotics are us!

Naturally we celebrated St.David's day (March 1st for all you non-welshies) as well as Wales' victory in the six nations rugby, with a blistering win over England in Cardiff.

We've had a film crew visit us to film our extremely talented trilingual girls, for an educational programme about multilingualism, to be broadcast here in Tahiti.

 

 The grandparents spent the best part of Amaiterai's first month with us, babysitting their hearts out, before a return to chilly Wales a week ago, they left in the snow and two months later returned to snow!

We're enjoying hot and sunny weather, though there is a little coolness to the mornings, heralding the arrival of our autumn! In the meantime there's work to be done in the garden - Amaiterai is not the only thing growing round here, look at these fabulous irises that have just started flowering here in th garden.

The jasmine, ylang-ylang and honeysuckle are also putting on a impressive olfactory experience at the moment. The most exciting new acquisition is cacao, Viriamu's friend in Tahiti he sent him some pods, so now I have Roald Dahlish dreams of creating my own chocolate delights! Talking of chocolate we're running up to the easter hols and our first busy period at the guesthouse with our new recruit! Hold on for a bumpy ride....

Tahiti iti

It's already almost two weeks since we had our little holiday in Tahiti, and here are a few pictures. We were staying on rather a magnificent country estate on Tahiti iti (the small peninsula stuck to the side of Tahiti Nui) near Teahupoo. The Vanira Lodge,  has some very original self-catering bungalows hidden in a lush tropical garden. Not to mention a swimming pool, which was the main attraction for the girls!

 

The ceiling and roof of our bungalow was made up of a living matt of honeysuckle, grown over bamboo trellis, and the bathroom was cut into the earth at the back of the house and tiled with river rocks (outdoor living indoors, complete with the wildlife! In the evening we had huge landsnails in our shower, as well as a lot of rustling on the roof)

 

 

It's a fabulously restful spot, though unfortunately, we spent most of the time zipping to and from Papeete or the main stores to go shopping, so in retrospect Teahupoo was a bit too out of the way for us!

The girls definitely were most appreciative of a few days in the big wide world, supermarkets and all the trappings of consumer society were a big hit!

Flying high

 

Among the weird and wonderful stuff Granny and Grandbad have brought along with them for the girls are two rather smart (and remarkably easy to fly) kites. Matotea thinks they're just GREAT!

Matotea wears her arm-bands to fly the kite, always best to be a friend of safety, next stop kite-surfing!

Matotea discovers Moorea...

 

Before we got swamped in Christmas cheer, the grandparents, the girls and I all took the plane over to the big smoke (aka Tahiti), before waving granny and grandpa back off to Wales, taking the opportunity to do some Christmas shopping at the same time as discovering the many and varied slides and playgrounds of Tahiti....

...we also took a few days out to pop over to Moorea, it was a bit of a nostalgic trip for me, and Matotea was just super excited about the whole thing - some of the highlights were taking the boat over to Moorea........

........going to our old favorite beach-spot ........

.......cheesburger and chips at the 'Blue Ananas' (as well as patisseries from Caramelines and 'Allo pizza take-out)....

.......before hitting the swimming pool....

...spotting dolphins....

....and just hanging out in our bungalow.......

Whales

We're on holiday at the moment, granny and grandpa have come to visit for a few weeks, and as it's the end of the high season we've closed for a week or two. We're very lucky this year as the whales are still with us, normally they're gone by early november. Fortunately there were a couple of females who arrived late and are still hanging around the island with their calfs, and escorted by males (they always arrive to spoil the fun). 

 Granny got to fulfill her dream of a close encounter with the whales, and I went along too, it's not the first time, but it's true that it doesn't happen too often. We were in luck the whales were just outside the harbour, and though the sea was too rough to swim with the whales we got a good show.

 

The youngsters love to leap and splash and generally show off, so we had ample opportunity to catch them on film (though this is a lot harder than you might imagine on a rocking fishing boat!).......

Good News!

2010 has got off to a rather inauspicious start with the cyclone and various other bad news from our family, on both sides. So I thought I'd blog about some good news, or at least a slightly unusual event. Mum and Dad were here with us in january and on their way back home they managed to lose one of their carry on bags at Heathrow, it was a small brown rolling case containing Dad's laptop and camera, what a disaster! They weren't sure exactly where they had left it, but they were in touch with the lost baggage service, as soon as they realized. They waited, but they heard nothing and assumed the worst, the bag had probably been destroyed or stolen. The insurance claim was filed.

But, in early february, more than two weeks later, they received a call from Air New Zealand, their case had been located next to the baggage carousel and finally returned to Air New Zealand, thanks to the baggage tag Mum had insisted on attaching to the case (there's a moral to this story!). They went back up to Heathrow and collected the case, untouched. What are the chances (less than 1/100 according to the AirNZ baggage handler). The insurance company was amazed, when Dad called.

So here are a couple of salvaged photos, taken at the airport in Rurutu back in january......

What grandparents are good for.....

Matotea was overjoyed to see grandmere and grandpere on skype this morning, finally back home after their visit.....but she was a little cross that they wouldn't be able to come and chase her on the beach today! The poor little thing has been missing the oldies, who were pretty much at her beck and call over the last month or so. Over the weekend I was clearing out their room, ready for the guests arriving today.....but Matotea has been insisting that it's still grandmere and grandpere's room...she even disappeared in there to have her afternoon sleep on saturday, discovered crashed out on the unmade bed! So it's fair to say that we're missing grandmere and grandpere, they were quite good for........

....going to the beach

Babysitting Heimana....

(often multi-tasking)

.......going for a quiet stroll

(Matotea, above, sporting her Fairy outfit, a Christmas present, is being taken for a 'fly' around the garden)

Bedtime stories and a game or two of 'row,row the boat'

Exodus

Matotea's fanclub has been shrinking rapidly since Tuati and Iro left last weekend (as well as Apera, who left for Tahiti and Matai who went back to Tubuai, so Meisi and Simei also returned to their home on the south coast).
The blow was cushioned slightly by the return to school on monday, but on friday grandmere and grandpere left us....back to chilly Wales, on the avion bleu.
The Christmas/New Year holidays are finally over! Now we need to get back to our old rhythmn.....