An Aussie in Auckland: salami

Showing posts with label salami. Show all posts

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Beware the salami ...

The first week of the school holidays is almost over, and the kids have been having a ball.
So far, they’ve been swimming, dancing, and roller-skating (you should see the bruises). They also went ‘indoor camping’ at vacation care. Oh, and they’ve had a quiet day at home after C. was violently ill one night – from both ends. Poor kid. And poor me who had to clean up all the mess. I kept them both inside and quiet the next day as a precaution.
It’s been a sad week too, with all the natural disasters occurring around the world. The Samoan earthquake and Tsunami, in particular, hit home. As some readers know, we’ve booked a family holiday there in November. But it’s not just that. Many Samoans live in New Zealand, and have family there. And its proximity to NZ means its not just a popular holiday destination, but that Samoans are like family to this country. Quite a few Samoan kids attend our school, and I can’t help wondering what all this means for them and their families. It is unimaginable what they must be going through.
Friends have asked if we’ll still be taking our holiday, and I guess, we’ll have to wait and see. If, like the Thai people after the Boxing Day tsunami, the Samoans want foreigners to visit and help them rebuild after this tragedy, we’ll be happy to go. I just feel so sad for those who have lost family, homes, income and even the clothes on their backs, that it would be silly to worry about a holiday.
I feel doubly blessed because we had wanted to be in Samoa this week! We’d tried to book for the school holidays, but it was way too expensive, being peak period. So we waited for a better deal, even though it meant we'd have to take the kids out of school for a week. I don’t even want to imagine what would have happened if we had been there as we’d hoped.
On a lighter note, there have been some funny things to happen this week.
One morning, H. asked me if we were going to get salami. Yes, I told her, we’ll get one when we go shopping. “No a BIG salami,” she said. Okay, I said. We can probably get a big one. “No, a really big salami that will wash over us and take us away!” she said, all wide-eyed and concerned.
Of course, she meant tsunami, and was worried about what she’d been hearing on the news. Bless.
What was really funny, was, when the whole of New Zealand was on a tsunami alert, and some areas were being evacuated, a percentage of the Kiwi population decided to go down to the beaches and wait for it. And they say Aussies are mad! Click to see the NZ Herald's gallery of the Kiwi Tsunami-watchers ...

Sunday, September 13, 2009

To market, to market

We love a good market, and in NZ we're still discovering new ones, a year after moving here!
Most recently, it was the Oratia Farmers Market at Artisan Wines, Waitekere.
Like so many NZ markets, this one is small by comparison with Aussie markets. But hey, who said bigger was better? We were able to park onsite, for free, and although busy, it wasn't unpleasantly crowded.
The stall holders were extremely generous with tastings - which worked to their advantage, because I think we bought everything we tasted!
It was an expensive visit, but so worth it to try quality NZ products straight from the producers.
Even the kids enjoyed it.
And as a Mum, I loved that the stallholders offered the kids tastes. So often, the little ones are ignored, when let's face it, they hold the pester power in the parental purse-strings.
And if I know they will eat something, I'm much more likely to shell out for something, even if it is more expensive than the supermarket.
And so I did...