Pancakes are political Would you like to know your neighbours better? Do you like delicious food? Do you want to change the world, one small action of kindness at a time? Well, do I have the festival for you: Shrove Tuesday! When I was a little girl, our elderly neighbours had spare keys to our […]
As I said in the first post in this series, we’ve been letting our house out whenever we’re not in it for four years now, with home-sharing website AirBnB.com. It’s made an enormous difference to our finances, and I find myself regularly encouraging friends to consider it – even just for a couple of weeks […]
An earlier version of this article appeared in my column at Kiwi Families. What are mealtimes like at your place? Do you have family ways of serving, eating or talking together? Would you like some fresh ideas to make the most of the gift of family meals? Here are some ideas for giving thanks at […]
‘If they’re not being assessed and tested, how will you know if they’re learning?’ ‘What do they do all day?’ Today I’m not meaning to go into why ‘testing’ can be counter-productive to learning (but if that catches your eye, please do read Jolisa Gracewood’s bleak report of US testing terror and read or listen to […]
‘Ten minutes’ as in that’s how long these bliss balls will last before you’ve scoffed the whole batch. Oh, and also they take about that long to make. Very occasionally I write up a recipe on this blog, mostly because I’m feeling so flipping proud of myself for having developed something. I don’t loooooove […]
With friends and family scattered all over the globe, I’d love to have a huge map of the world in our house. When we move to Thailand later this year, it’ll be a priority purchase. The only reason we don’t have one already is my West Wing addiction. What a marvellous show. I rewatched all […]
I grew up with Father Christmas visiting each December. We had a particularly awesome system, in fact, that involved pillowcases instead of stockings (primarily so a board game could fit, I think). As I got older, I became aware that Father Christmas from the adult point of view was part of our family history, too. My […]
Yay! Advent is my favourite season in the church calendar, and it’s almost here! Actually, Lent was pretty cool this year, too, with our superduper Lent with Kids series, but the inspiration for that came from all the fun and surprisingly helpful things we did at home during Advent. So here we are! I […]
Even if youâre little you can do a lot, you Mustnât let a little thing like âlittleâ stop you – Matilda the Musical, ‘Naughty’, Tim Minchin Changing the world is a hard job. Best to start early, donât you think? Here are a bunch of ways you can help your kids live a life […]
Jess Berentson-Shaw lives in on the side of a windswept Wellington hill. Jess has two kids, is a part time researcher and scientist, and runs (and blogs about) her social enterprise called muka kids (mukakids.com). Muka kids is her plan to bring about a sustainability revolution in the world of kids’ clothing production. She has […]