a summer in the shadow of el nino

i've not stepped foot in my garden for a week.

it's not been any old week either.

for example, this week, the week of the full moon, we had a month's worth of rain in 24 hours.

and then it kept raining.

so i kinda figured, if it can do a month's worth of rain in 24 hours, then maybe i can do a month's worth of blogging.

or, if you like, i could so 6 months worth of blogging in a week.

i'd forgive you for losing faith, for giving up, for buggering off all together even.

i have been a bit slack.

but it's not without cause.

it's like this...

it was one of those summers. we went camping, we had our beautiful traditional kiwi beach fest where we decorated a tree in the camping ground for P. Noel to drop off the goodies. that bit was alright.

sun coming out our ears.

but then we went to marlborough for a bit, the sunshine capital of aotearoa. but would you credit it? it rained. lots.

we came back to the republic to full rain barrels and news of el nino.

el nino, the child, the very naughty, petulant child, who stomps around and cries a lot and generally makes a mess of the summer. not terribly many sunshiny days. the soil doesn't heat up and those veges that require a longhotsummer just become disinterested and don't do what their told.

it's a good thing we didn't choose this summer to invest in solar whatsits cos we'd be disappointed on that front as well.

but, if you're looking for good news all is not lost:

the family in the rara republic is expanding.

i'm not talking about the fertilised eggs we left under our chickens (strange things happened there! but maybe i'll let you in on that story another day)

i'm talking about us.

la famille may-bouffandeau has been blessed.

so, coinciding with the petulant summer was a rather large dose of morning sickness. or rather, mid-afternoon poorliness. i tell you, i wouldn't mind if i was feeling crap first thing. i'm not a morning person, so i could just stay in bed. nothing really lost. the problem with this mid-afternoon nausea is that the morning was the best part of the day!

what a waste!

so while the sun wasn't shining there was a couple of months devoted to lying on the couch feeling very sorry for myself (while secretly having to still feel grateful that i had been blessed in the first place).

the garden wasn't the only place where there wasn't a hell of a lot going on...

horizontal in my couchdom i had uninterrupted views of the floor beneath the dining table and there were times when i thought it would be more simple to plant something than to sweep up after my family.

years and years of being vegetarian, of eating healthily, of prattling on and on about good diet and all of a sudden, here i am, only able to eat white heavily processed bread, pasta, noodles... in fact, i only fancied white things: tofu, almonds (luckily), cheese, yoghurt. nothing acidic. everything gave me indigestion. even water.

but you'll be pleased to know i persevered.

someone had to eat the chocolate!

and now, into my third trimester, we await the arrival of la nina in the spring

but this time we're not talking about a weather pattern.

xx

mama b

ps, seriously, i'm thinking of a week worth of blogging. a month per day, with photos and all sorts. what do you reckon?