Home feels flooded with memories of newly weds and dinners with friends and shopkeepers I know and much treaded paths and first baby bumps that I can barely believe and art I've made and hung around here and my own old tea towels and a cup of tea in my old mug and dropping in and the warmth of Summer reminding me to put up the same tree with the old decorations that too are part of many years with the man I love and now the children who bind our family and run around inside our home. It is just that, it is the history of our life that swims around us here that makes it so nice to be back........

BEGINNING THE JOURNEY HOME....

BOSTON..........

HOMEWARD BOUND.....

Well, maybe New York with five kids wasn't the best laid plan and now I am obsessing over the flight home. It's like going to be two days or something of commuting! Is that child abuse? Anyway, I'm in New York, I love love love New York. I even love the grimy basement of our apartment block where I've just been doing the laundry, little bit crime scene potential (Mum insisted on coming down there with me), it just so New York! But I do admit the last three days have had their ups and downs. It was a pretty busy and emotional week of goodbyes in Santa Barbara. I was dreading those last few days of school and was avoiding eye contact with everyone but still managed to weep all over the place. That school is so wonderful, I can't imagine I have done my last drop off there. Maybe not. 

So we arrive in New York, fairly late, bit hungry and tired, only to discover that the apartment is booked for six not eight (Beryl is with us), and so Daryl, Lucinda and Phemie have to stay somewhere else because it is illegal to have so many people in an apartment this teeny. Anyway, blah blah, all got sorted and somehow we are all back here together and it's legal (weird), and we have gotten used to the faint smell of gas and I would actually go as far as to say that is a cosy and I love the noise (really), and lying in bed looking out at all the other thousands of apartments around us. I really really love New York. Then of course there is the ice skating at Bryant Park. When I glide onto that ice my tired whining children are a distant sound, drowned out by the whoosh of blade on ice. And after a few hours they too managed to stand and then to skate so we went back again today because we all agree (finally), that it is the best thing to do here. 

But I'm starting to feel homeward bound and yes I'm quoting Simon and Garfunkel  but then I am in New York! There really is someone playing the sax under a stone bridge in Central Park so the music drifts up and through the trees that are those absolutely perfect autumn shades. It really is just like in the movies. But home is just a week a week away and I can feel the shift and I think the girls need to be there. But in the meantime, Mum and I look forward to our glass of red around the little kitchen table at the end of the day and tomorrow we will meet Greg and Sam up and FAO Swartz (toy store), and then we head off to Boston to visit our dear friends and I can't wait to see them. So there is still adventure and travel but soon there will be our home and familiarity. 

Photos to come....

Ailee ended up with a stitch in her head, it was bound to happen sooner or later, probably worth it considering the hours of fun the girls have had on that rope!

No, I still believe that letting the girls decorate their own birthday cakes is less stressful than me trying to make something beyond my ability...and it isn't my house. Happy third birthday Hazey!

WELCOME TO HALLOWEEN!

Halloween just got busier and busier with costume making and pumpkin carving. I was seeing black and orange in my sleep, even my morning Starbucks had Halloween potential but quite frankly a pumpkin spiced latte just sounds disgusting. The needle felting finally got finished, probably not quite to the standard I had in mind but really, whose is going to see any of this in the dark anyway? Poor old Hazel ended up in a nasty acrylic koala suit that was a couple of sizes too small, next year I will start on hers first. And as with every family event that has "build up", the moment we were all ready to get in the car had the usual melt down possibilities (me), but tears dried and a few deep breathes, off we went......

The Halloween Journey at the Waldorf School is really something special. The teachers set up these amazing vignettes at the school and you are lead around to one and then the other. The woman on top of the black structure is the moon and as it got darker you are less aware of the structure below her. To us she looked like she truly was hovering in the sky as she sang a song about the moon. The girls were mesmerized as were the parents. There are about eight vignettes and after each one the children are offered a small gift such as a crystal or a little bell or some fabric. The final vignette was a puppet of a young Chinese girl in a boat. She was so life like I could have watched her for hours. I think Chinese puppetry might be my next obsession!

Sadly however, after all the lovely needle felting, pumpkin carving and the gorgeous magical Halloween journey, this is in fact my final memory of the day.....