18 June 08 to 23 June

It’s so hard to believe that we have been ‘out country’ for nearly five months. However in just under 3 weeks we will be packing up once more and jet starring our way over to Australia’s Gold Coast. Paul’s parents who have been living there for the last few years decided they’d like to trip around the US for 3 months but before they could go ahead and book they needed to organize a house-sitter/cat-sitter/water-dragon-sitter. The latter being an overgrown lizard that took up residence in the garden but apparently is partial to popping inside now and again. According to my mum-in-law Pam its head resembles a snake when it peeps out from under the couch – yippee can’t wait to meet it! Anyway who better to nominate for this job than their nomadic son and family. Of course I can think of far worse places to reside over our winter than a stylish and comfortable town house on the Gold Coast even if it does come with a lizard and it was perfect timing what with Mum and Dad arriving home from their big O.E. at the start of July. We get to have a catch up with them and then get out from under their feet. Speaking of which…
The relationship between a mother and daughter is special and one that is best maintained under, separate house titles because within a couple of days of moving back home Mum and I’s catchphrase quickly became, “You haven’t changed have you?” Having said that though, there is a lot to be said for having your every meal prepared for you and I think we all bumbled our way through those initial 10 weeks commendably. That’s despite some pretty fractious moments like say when Joshua threw a cushion at the table while we were having dinner and smashed his Granddad’s wine glass. Or, when Daniel woke repeatedly in the night, demanding a sandwich at the top of his lungs. Then there was Joshua’s sudden penchant for doing his number two’s in the garden. Oh and it was just the teensiest bit embarrassing when Daniel would point at his Nana and Granddad and shriek, “You not coming!” Every time we left the house. Of course in hindsight, when the children stopped behaving like they were in the starring roles of Little Angels or the Super Nanny, we realized just how unsettling the move had been for them. They did however settle in and were very excited the day two lop eared bunnies came to stay.
Percy a big grey bunny and James a little brown bunny moved into the newly purchased Bunny Mansion shortly after Easter. Yip my boys are Thomas the Tank Engine fans – in fact Daniel is border-line obsessed demanding I push play on his Thomas video whenever we step foot inside the house. Why bunnies though? Well, and I know this will sound silly but they were to make up for my sons lack of chocolate over the holiday period. The reason for their chocolate rationing was because my sister, Rachel and her husband Matt, aka ‘The Sugar Police’, came down to stay over Easter with their daughter Brooklyn. It wouldn’t have been fair to overload our two boys with giant chocolate eggs while Brooklyn received an egg no bigger than a real hen’s output. So we compromised and they got a medium sized chocolate rabbit each. Luckily Brooklyn at nearly two years of age was less perturbed by the size difference in sweet treats than I was but I am digressing. Initially I was hoping to organize for a pair of bunnies to magically appear on Easter Sunday but my organizational skills are not what they were since having children and it was in fact a week or so later that I came to hear of two lop eared bunnies living nearby that we could have.
Percy and James thrived initially. Their happy frolicking interspersed with daily visits from Joshua and Daniel. Unfortunately with the bunnies being fully grown and of an unknown age they weren’t the friendliest of rabbits and it was a somewhat one-sided love affair but my boys seemed to accept this. We spent many a happy afternoon gathering dandelions for our bunnies in a nearby field and I have to admit to feeling a little like ‘Mother of the Year’ as the tele went off and the wellies went on.
Then, one morning Josh ventured out to the hutch to say hello only to coming running back inside a moment later. Clearly distressed, he frantically relayed the information that James was bleeding. Upon investigating it became apparent that Percy had been telling James who was boss and gathering up the injured Percy I raced him off to the vet for emergency ear surgery.
Percy came through his operation and the surgeon informed me that as it was mating season and as we had two bucks we would either need to separate our rabbits or get them seen to (my words not his). At $90.00 a rabbit it was a tough call but we opted for the latter as we felt it would be cruel to separate them- something my girlfriend who lives on a dairy farm found hilarious. Now, being a busy rural clinic I doubt seeing to a couple of frustrated rabbits was the vet’s number one priority and so it was that we couldn’t get an appointment for a few weeks.
Upon James’s arrival home Percy would not give him a minute’s peace. Overhearing me call him a bully Joshua announced in a matter of fact manner that we’d just have to sell him on Trade-Me. This seems to be his current answer to most problems (he told me he was going to sell me online for $20.00 the other day after I’d told him off for something or other) and I told him it wasn’t an option. Instead we arranged for Percy to be fostered back at his original home until the date of surgery.
Two days later poor wee James was dead.
I had dropped the boys off at pre-school and was enjoying the sunshine as I hung out my washing. Glancing over at the hutch I saw something that made my blood run cold… it was James and he wasn’t moving. Mustering up the courage to go and check for signs of life I’d already decided that mouth to mouth resuscitation was out of the question but there were none
My hubby arrived home early bearing a shovel and a box of chocolate ice-creams to soften the blow. With no concept of death Joshua’s first words upon seeing James were, “Oh well Mum at least I will be able to pick him up whenever I want now and he won’t runaway.”
“Er I don’t think so son.” I replied wrapping James in a cloth and carrying him over to the freshly dug out hole. Holding hands with my boys I said a little prayer explaining to them that while James’s body was in the ground his soul had gone up to heaven. As they frowned up at the heavens in puzzlement and the inevitable barrage of questions followed I found myself wishing they attended Sunday school.
At last we wandered in from the cold and that’s when it suddenly seemed to hit Joshua. He sat cuddled up on my knee sobbing solidly for half an hour. Eventually the lure of a chocolate ice-cream became too much and in that wonderful way of children he decided he was all cried out and hungry.
So we were down to one rabbit. Were being the operative word because last Monday morning Josh ventured out to feed the by now forgiven Percy only to scream out. “Mum a dog’s got Percy!” I raced outside to see a big mongrel sitting in the hutch with a disemboweled Percy lying nearby. Not knowing whether the dog was dangerous or not and not being able to see how it had gotten into the hutch in the first place as the lid was still firmly shut, I hustled Josh back inside. The dog control man appeared half an hour after my frantic phone call and closing the van doors on the apparently friendly dog informed me that rabbits are to dogs what chocolate is to me.
That’s not the point though is it? The dog should not have been on our property. My two hates in this life are people in four wheel drives who, for some reason, are unable to drive at the speed limit and feel an innate need to drive up fellow motorists (in normal sized cars) backsides - I can’t help but hope the hike in petrol hurts. The other is people who do not keep their dogs properly fenced. I told the dog control man, who very kindly helped me to pop Percy into a bag to await burial, that if the dog’s owners were located they could bloody well come round and apologize to my children. We are still waiting.
Josh however has coped admirably with Percy’s demise. It helped that he had a much anticipated trip to the local Fire Station with his pre-school class later that same afternoon and he now tells me he wants something really scary next time - like a lion or something. Hmm I am known to be a soft touch but we will have to see about that one. As for Daniel well, to be honest so long as he gets to watch the aforementioned Thomas the Tank Engine video at least four times a day not much phases our Doodlebug.
As for life in a small country town, despite the bunny debacle, for a girl that grew up in Auckland and has lived in Christchurch for the last 15 years, it has been a revelation.
Mum and Dad’s house sits prettily on its half an acre as though it has always been there and as I am typing this I have a vista of pure Cantabrian splendor. Rolling green hills, snow covered Alps and bright blue sky. Okay so it is actually pissing down today but on a good day it truly is special and I feel as though we have discovered a place where our boys can be children for longer. Where they have taken back a little bit of that freedom they’d lost living in the city. They are not quite free range however as they attend the Oxford Early Learning Centre twice a week. This offers all of us a respite from each other and the lovely staff there have made the boys very welcome despite Daniel’s initial determination to hate pre-school. The sense of community spirit in Oxford is wonderful and I am slowly getting used to walking down the street and being greeted, not by friends, but by strangers without feeling that they must have an ulterior motive. I have not got used to glancing in my car’s mirror as I head down the Oxford Road and catching a glimpse of the spectacular Southern Alps though.
How very Little House on the Prairie I sound but I bet you Laura Ingles never had a bad perm. Perhaps like Laura I should have tried plaits instead of a perm. Being Mrs. Impatient I couldn’t hold off for an appointment in town at my regular salon and if I had, Melissa my hairdresser would have tried to talk me out of getting it done. But oh no not I; I had to hot-foot it into the nearby town of Rangiora where getting an appointment was no problem at all. I wanted the Drew Barrymore in the movie ‘Music and Lyrics’ look – I got ‘Sean the Sheep’ Channel 2, TVNZ. Despite the perm having mostly dropped out it has unfortunately been immortalized on my recently updated Passport. I made the mistake of showing the photo to Paul on the understanding that he would say no more about it. A stupid move because he just can’t help himself and has been calling me Mountain Woman ever since (in reference to hill-billy, inbred people). He only shut up when I told him I would get another photo done and reapply for my Passport.
I know this all sounds rather ‘all about me’ but I don’t know if Paul warrants a mention after the Mountain Woman remarks. I will say though that he too has come round to the benefits of living in a country town (or more likely the benefit of not having a mortgage to pay). He thoroughly enjoys his Sunday morning Farmers Market breakfast and even dragged us down there in the rain the other week. He was really gutted when it snowed and the market wasn’t on. To be fair he is working away after hours in the kitchen getting it all painted for Mum and Dad’s imminent return and he hasn’t moaned about the commuting in and out of Christchurch. Like me, I think he can picture us on the veranda of a low maintenance, bargain priced, four, bed-roomed brick house on a quarter acre section sipping a glass of merlot as we look at the stars. Of course the kids feature in the fantasy because they get the benefit of being able to walk everywhere and of living near their idol, Colin Bush the Builder. Colin has done some work around Mum and Dad’s house and the boys enjoy getting their little seats and eyeballing him as he works. The deck extension he put on is referred to as ‘Colin’s deck”. I think it is probably a good thing that the boys own Granddad will be home soon. I am hoping he won’t be offended when he takes them out for a walk though and they both squeal in delight as they pass by the real estate board depicting a man who God wasn’t overly kind to when doling out looks. The boys point at the poster and shriek, “There’s Granddad!” The man looks nothing like their Granddad but they think they are absolutely hilarious. The driveway where this sign sits leads down to a house with a subdivided section for sale. I happened to have a brief nosy around this section when I was driving Paul demented looking at Oxford properties a month or so ago. Anyway and I shouldn’t be so surprised because Oxford is small it turns out that this is the house the bunny slayer escaped from. A very apologetic lady called around on Saturday and we both realized we had already met. She asked what she could do to make it up to us and I said she could sell us her section for $10,000.00 but she wasn’t too keen on that idea. However she did apologize profusely to Josh and drop us around a wild meat hamper thus restoring my faith in the rural life.

An Introduction

Before I tell you what we were up to though I think it’s time to meet the Vernals. We lived in Christchurch, New Zealand where I was a stay at home Mum. A stay at home Mum who found it extremely hard to actually stay at home. Hence Monday to Friday was a whir of music groups, play group, kindy and coffee dates. Any spare moment I got was usually spent writing, watching Coronation Street or attempting Pilates. The latter being a desperate bid to reduce my mid thirties spread. A spread I feel would be reduced a lot faster if I stopped putting the king size bar of chocolate in the trolley each week but hey enough about me! My husband Paul looks a little like Paul Hogan in his Crocodile Dundee days and although Ronan Keating has also been bandied about I personally think he’s got a look of Sting about him. Despite his good looks however, Paul can’t act or sing and he is actually a painter and decorator by trade, landlord / property developer on the side and hands on Dad to our two sons.

Paul and I met 10 years ago across a crowded Christchurch bar when he was on crutches due to a nasty moped accident in Thailand. My parents maintain that the only reason I snared such a good-un is because he couldn’t physically get away. By the time he’d handed the crutches back into the hospital however I had convinced him it was love and we set off on our big OE. Tripping hand in hand around such romantic hot-spots as Venice, Prague and Rome etc I held my breath waiting for his magical proposal. By the time I actually received it, on his 30th birthday in Bad Bob’s Bar in Dublin, I‘d very nearly combusted. I managed to say yes though and 26 countries later we came home got married and started our family.

Joshua arrived in 2004 with Daniel following closely behind in 2005. Suffice to say that having our two boys has been our biggest adventure yet. However there is one bug that we have never gotten over since the boys arrived and that is the travel bug. With Josh turning four in January and Daniel a robust toddler we decided to make 2008 our gap year.

As of the 1st of February 2008 our home was permanently tenanted by university students. Students we hope are members of the Chess Club and not the Frat pack. We upped sticks and moved into my parents relocated, work in progress, two bedroom plus sunroom, bungalow in Oxford. For those of you who haven’t popped out for a coffee at Jo Seagar’s café lately, the Experience Oxford website describes Oxford as ‘a small country town known for its tranquil rural setting’. It states that the town boasts a residential population of approximately 2000 – well they can now make that 2004. Oh and they also might want to re-think their choice of wording. I have a feeling tranquil may no longer apply now that my two boys are in town.

Now you might think that landing ones family on ones, never see 60 again, parents is a bit on the nose well you can rest easy. My Mum and Dad assured me that what goes around comes around. This comment was usually followed up by a smirk in the direction of my sons. Of course we didn’t just moving into their home to strengthen the bond between grandchildren and grandparents - we actually needed a base camp. Our gap year is about having the freedom to come and go. From Oxford to Aussie to Chile to Argentina to Uruguay – you’re welcome to join us. Oh and by the way, my ears are closed to sniggers from anyone who has attempted long distance, time difference travel with preschoolers!