B is for Beautiful, B is for Bernie!

Apologies for the long absence of news from Nelson. Whilst Britain continues to thaw, we are still enjoying one of the best summers in living memory of Nelson's oldest and hardest to please residents.

The most important and exciting news is that Bernie is doing fantastically well. She and baby have been growing consistently, so much so that two weeks ago (aged 34 weeks) baby was an estimated 7 and a half pounds, which even made the radiologist wince and squirm in her chair!

Nevertheless, Bernie is her typically active and full-of-beans self and it is still a battle to get her to sit / lie down. Baby is equally active and causes Bernie to make regular "oooh's" and aaah's" as it flexes his/her muscles inside. I took this picture this very day - doesn't she look awesome?!?
Bernie recently had a Baby Shower (the name just freaks me out a bit and fortunately I didn't have to attend!), which she really enjoyed. We're fortunate enough to have a large circle of friends, mostly through school who are or have recently gone through child birth and we have managed to talk about little else for what seems like years! I celebrated in a more manly way - with a pint (or two!) of my fine home brew! My Mexican cerveca here enjoyed in an Adnams glass... very refreshing after a long bike ride!

We have managed to borrow a lot of baby gear from friends and family (mostly Paul and Shirley!) and pretty much everything bought has come from tradme (like ebay) including the change table, push chair, chest of drawers etc for a total of not very much... Also, it sounds as though our parents will be testing their baggage limit to the max when they fly here soon, whilst only bringing only one change of underwear for the entire month!

Bernie's rocking chair ($25 from a recycle centre!) is going to hide most of this part of the nursery, but I thought it best to start my artistic exploits here - hopefully my skills will improve... I last painted something almost twenty years ago... and yes, that is grey hair... thanks Dad!

The fish is a carving I can take no credit for, but the other creatures are just passable I think!

Although we've got a child on the way, we already have a beloved companion - Bobby. He has really taken to me and often pushes past Bernie to greet me when we return from work... I don't know why as its usually Bernie who feeds him! It might have something to do with the fact that we both love running around like headless chickens and play fighting... he is unbelievably affectionate for a dog though... he often falls asleep like that and then twitches his paws and barks quietly as he dreams of chasing balls!

I'm trying to toughen up his image though - a Harley Davidson bandanna has been donned, but he doesn't like looking at the camera for some reason... he smiles a lot!

Despite only having my bee hive for a few months, they have already spoilt me with 12 kilos of beautiful, golden honey. I filled 30 jars of various sizes for gifts and personal use. We've been using it in cooking from stewed apples to curry! I'm now in the pest control phase of bee ownership, with varroa and other diseases which attempt to decimate bee colonies. Everybody keeps telling me over and over again how I will not have time for anything other than work and baby related stuff once he/she is born. Nevertheless, I've joined a football team who play within 50m of our house and hope to be able to keep the bees, garden and the odd bit of biking going over the next few months... only time will tell!

Bernie has spent many an hour making some awesome curtains for the nursery. I cannot imagine the long process involved in making all the pleating and getting them looking so neat, but Bernie has done an awesome job. They look a bit garish in the picture, but they really suit the sea/sky theme of the nursery:

We're now 31 days from due date, but we're both praying for an earlier birth - not just so I get time off before the school holiday's, but it would be ace for us to have a little getting-to-know-each-other time before our beloved family arrives, and I don't want Bernie to have to squeeze out a ten pound beast!

We're still planning for a home birth and birth pool will hopefully be used as and when Bernie feels like one... we've got to get this new triathlete in training as early as possible to maximise training for... only joking, I just want something comfortable to lie in whilst Bernie gets all the attention!

Love and best wishes from Chris, Bernie, Bobby and Bump!

Another day in paradise!

Our weekly Thursday night sea swim race is always a refreshing highlight of the week. Numbers of participants have been rising steadily and we were all treated to a small pod of Orcas which used our swim course as a feeding ground before, during and after the race! There were 5 or 6 of them and some people were fortunate enough to see them eating sting ray's - their staple diet in these waters. A calf was also very visible and speaks well of the health of the group. A lot of swimmers were a bit nervous to swim with the huge dolphins, but there is no recorded event of an Orca attacking a swimmer so we all persevered - looking extra hard as an underwater 'fly-by' would have been great!

A friend of ours was paddling in a canoe and was treated to a broadside little more than a metre from her boat! We have heard of many sightings of this pod - resident to the area, but this was the first time we've been fortunate enough to see them. Click here for the newspaper story.

Talking of newspapers, I had a letter to the editor printed in the Nelson Mail! I am dabbling with local politics(!) by putting pressure on our mayor who is trying to push through permission to build a new road through our local community. We live in the most multicultural part of Nelson (a far cry from the diversity in the UK though!) and a lot of work has been done to improve what used to be a run-down area with few public facilities and no sense of community. Many of us locals are upset that the mayor wants a fast road through the middle of our park, shops and community centre, which regularly hosts festivals, a market and community events. This road has been argued over for decades apparently, but this mayor is fighting hard.

We had swim sports day at school yesterday. This involved competition races as well as fun races such a the dry teacher carry, which is pretty self-explanatory! I got involved a bit more and had a good rivalry with a senior student who competes at national level in the pool... I let him win honest!

Bernie and I bottled up 25 litres of lager last night and put a new brew of dark ale in the barrel. We are having a heatwave at the moment with temperatures in the 30's over the past few days, which means that the brew ferments in 4 days instead of 7-10 days like it did in the UK!

Bernie is in town having coffee (decaf!) with a friend and we're going to head up a local river for a swim soon to cool off! Bernie is finding this heat quite uncomfortable, but is handling it really well. Only 75 days to due date!

Love and best wishes from sunny Nelson! x x

Old School Style!

Not only is school back in full swing, but Bernie and I are getting back to some old-school techniques. We regularly go to a recycle centre in Nelson, where people take junk and things they don't need anymore. We have bought things like juicers, balls for Bobby, wood for DIY, plant pots, pans etc, etc. We recently found a soda stream machine - in 80's beige and couldn't resist! We enjoyed our first concoction this afternoon - to celebrate another old-school past-time revisited, brewing! We've got a barrel of beer bubbling away and will be ready for bottling in just 3/4 days due to our warm climate. I used to brew at home in Oxford and at Uni but beer got so cheap in the supermarkets, like most people, I stopped. Over here, beer is not as cheap, plus friends have been brewing for a while and produce dark ales and stouts far superior to the very bland beer which predominates the market here. Here's our celebratory drink - notice the authentic glass soda stream bottles!

The great weather keeps on coming and we have enjoyed some beautiful sunsets out on our veranda.

Bernie is still keeping busy and we enjoyed a lovely walk up into the hills above Nelson again today with Bobby. She is still baking her own bread and inspired me to make some fresh pesto today with the glut of basil grown in the garden. Cakes, deserts and hummus are regular products of Bernie's kitchen experimentation - all delicious and nutritious!

We have ploughed through a long list of little jobs this holiday, but there is still much more to do before our house is ship-shape... things like yesterday's 4km sea swim are enjoyable distractions and we cant wait to take our child exploring with us soon!

Love and best wishes,
C&B

White Water Whitaker!

What better way to handle the hot summer days than to go river kayaking?! My good friend at school happens to be the head of Outdoor Education and has kindly decided to teach me how to white water kayak. We spent a couple of days practising in quite calm rapids near school, before heading deeper inland for some more gnarly (get with the lingo!) grade 2 rapids today.

The following pictures weren't taken by us, but show the same places we passed through - the day was clear and hot, the water was clear and warm. We began by 'dropping in' just upstream from the waterfall below - it might not be Victoria Falls, but was still quite a buzz flying over the middle of it!

We paddled through unspoilt bush and rock formations with birds around us and fish beneath us - its an awesome way to sight-see in NZ's finest native bush:

The water was amazingly clear:

And we ended up here for a swim... in fact I ended up turning over twice en route - but the swim was very refreshing!
We finished off with a nice swim, cliff jump and a walk around the native forest with some of the largest trees I've seen in NZ. Roast chicken is in the oven and my kayaking mate is about to come around with a selection of 7 different brews he brewed himself - not a bad way to start the long weekend!

Bernie is growing really well and baby is moving almost constantly! Just 80 days to due date and a little over 5 weeks to the final scan... Our chicken eggs are 9 days from due date too - how do they grow so fast?!

Love to all,
C&B! x x

Sea Swim-tastic!

We have just got home from our weekly Thursday night sea swim race and scoffed a steak with new potatoes and corn-on-the-cob to replenish our reserves after another ace swim.

An afternoon sea breeze whipped in to make the sea choppy and the current made it hard to navigate between the buoys which mark the courses, but we both loved it!

I am so proud of Bernie, she completes the shorter swim course each week, but still at a healthy rate - she beat another school teacher who did an Ironman not long ago and he was wearing a wetsuit (makes you faster) and was without child (surprisingly!).

The picture below doesn't do the choppy waves justice - it is always magnified when you're in it, but the sea is still warm and a good night was had by all as always. I beat a few of my adversaries, which was good after a poor show last race. This weekend is another endurance race - a comparatively short 2km swim from a boat house to a gold sandy beach... there's the 3.8km Ironman swim coming up towards the end of Feb... not sure if Bernie will lead that one out or not!!

Below is a snapshot from the Nelson web cam - it's very hard to see us dots (moving from right to left) amongst the kayakers who provide safety assistance if required. We long race swimmers swam right out to the platform in the water top left below the trees... and back:


Bernie is coping well with work and I'm still getting her to do a bit of digging every now and again. She is starting to complain at carrying me home from the pub on a Friday night though... (I might be fibbing a bit there so please don't send offensive emails... she's more than happy to carry me home!)

Ante natal classes are still fun, with a fair bit of role play last night, and there was a lot of wincing at the plastic pelvis and doll birth simulation - I think the doll lost both ears and its nose which made a few mothers-to-be wince somewhat! The guys seemed excited to hear that labour lasted upwards of 8 hours rather than the expected 2-3 hours we thought we'd have to spend in the pub - that will be a long drinking session!!

Sadly school starts tomorrow (without kids - yey!), we have a public holiday on Monday though thank God... its hard being a teacher!

Love to all,
C&B! x x

Youtube Stars!

I thought I'd try to communicate with snippets of our life here in NZ via video to the rest of the world... everybody else is doing it!

Try clicking here it is my first (and very poor) attempt!

And here is Bobby being Bobby Dazzler!

And here is the beautiful Bernadette in da kitchen!

The Holidays Are Nearly Over!

Poor us! After 6 long weeks of sun, sea, Sydney, swimming, sgardening, sdecorating and meeting up with friends, we are reaching the end of the summer holidays. Bernie starts back on Monday, still on 30 hours at the moment - her boss is fine with her reducing the number when necessary. I don't have to go in until Friday, but will go in before hand to move into a more centrally located laboratory (woop-woop!) and prepare for the whopping 5 subjects I'll be teaching this year - Science, Maths, Horticulture, PE and Conservation... variety is the spice of life as they say... I guess I'm quite like a curry...

Bad jokes aside, we decided to do one of our favourite walks this morning - up into the hills (Grampians) above sunny Nelson and tried to tire out our tireless dog... which is by definition, impossible! We took it nice and slow and made the steep ascent at a comfortable pace for Bernie - allowing me heaps of time to stop and throw sticks to Bobby.

Once at the top we spent a good while taking in the beautiful landscape of Nelson and surrounding wineries, mountains, beaches and islands. Our house is approximately where Bernie's left shoulder is and the place where I've swum with dolphins and we've both kayaked with a Southern Right Whale, is next to Bernie's left eye:

We practiced our cheesy grins - I didn't realise my face creased up this much!

We managed to wrestle Bobby's stick away from him for a quick moment to get him in on the cheesy grin effort - he smiles more than the pair of us combined!!


Looking inland towards the wineries and Monaco - where we used to live (the dog-legged finger of land projecting into the estuary)

It was bang on high tide and a large boat set-off for some distant land... the picture doesn't reflect the very rugged topography of Nelson:

Our first ante natal session went well t'other day - an interesting bunch of couples and plenty of humorous conversation about wind, back-ache and tiredness - and that was just from us men!! We got a little overwhelmed by the presentation on car seats, but if anybody wants to give us $1,200 for an all singing, all dancing child booster seat then I'll send you our bank details! We have another 5 weeks of these sessions and alongside the multitude of books we've acquired over the years, we're getting better prepared for meconium ('google images' it if you dont know!), sleepless nights and temper tantrums.... yeah right!

In reality, we're trying to enjoy our last slice of 'easy life' and have a couple more BBQ's, sea swims and beautiful walks before school begins on Monday... 87 days to due date!

C&B! x x