What better way to spend the lead up to Christmas than by the river just up the road from our little wooden cottage.

: walking by the river : (that’s Pa Tread Softly to the right of the photo)

:paddling in the river :

: reading by the river : (Mr TS always has his head in a book)

: cloud watching by the river :

: finding driftwood treasures by the river :

: crafting by the river :

I love the simplicity of our life since moving here.

Whatever you  might have planned for Christmas time, I wish you all a peaceful one.

Thank you for taking the time to read my nonsense, to comment, to connect or to email over the past year. You’re always appreciated here.

To all our friends and family in the UK and scattered across the world – we send you love and bear hugs from our house to yours.

Until next time…

Posts will be few and far between for the time being due to Ma and Pa Tread Softly’s continued stay with us. They spent the first week getting over their jet lag and then Mr TS and I whizzed them off to Nelson on the South Island for a holiday within a holiday! A cold beer is calling to me on the deck so how about my week in pictures? Yeah? Ok then.

we sailed from Wellington to Picton

through the Malborough Sounds

we rented a homestay for the duration in historic South Street

time was spent walking along beaches

photographing detail

eating fish and chips at the Smoke House

whilst this little chap looked on

a highlight for me was meeting up with the fabulous Melissa – I could have chatted to her for hours – I had so much fun – look at the beautiful fabric she gave me and the super stylish Charlotte cards – hey Melissa, lets do it again sometime, we could trawl the op shops, have a bite to eat and drink lots more wine!

so now we’re back home and the Christmas decorations are up

wire trees

real trees

and a mountain of fresh organic from our garden

So there you have our week in pictures. I’ll keep snapping away and will post again when I can. In the meantime, those of you who have emailed me over the past week, I’ll be replying to you over the next couple of days once I’ve got my breath back!

Until next time…

‘ I walked home to my apartment and soft-boiled a pair of fresh brown eggs for my lunch. I peeled the eggs and arranged them on a plate beside the seven stalks of asparagus. I put some olives on the plate, too, and the four knobs of goat’s cheese I’d picked up from the formaggeria down the street, and two slices of pink, oily salmon…For the longest time I couldn’t even touch this food because it was such a masterpiece of lunch, a true expression of the art of making something out of nothing.’

extract taken from ‘Eat Pray Love’ by Elizabeth Gilbert

I took ten minutes to sit on the porch yesterday with my book and a cuppa having spent the morning cleaning like a mad cleaning thing in preparation for the arrival of Mum and Dad Tread Softly (only 1 more sleep!). I just needed to catch my breath before the second cleaning phase. I read the above passage and knew immediately that that was exactly what I wanted for lunch. We didn’t have salmon so replaced it with salami. Lunch was perfect. We sat on the porch, bathed in sunshine, watching the hills and eating our simple feast.

Have I told you that I belong to a book club? I was chatting to a friend sometime ago and I said that I’d like to join one. It just so happened that she’d often had the same thought so we set up our own. There are seven of us: me, the doctor, the councilor, the artist, the midwife, the handbag designer and the storyteller. ‘Eat Pray Love’ is one of our book club reads for December/January.

I have to say a HUGE thank you to those of you who left warm messages and emails regarding the launch of the Agnes Coy website. You’re all smashing and I hope to get back to you all once Mum and Dad Tread Softly have their feet planted firmly on New Zealand land.

Until next time…

Update: They’ve arrived safe and sound – hoorah!