This blog on New Caledonia is for those of you who ever wondered what life on a tiny island in the South Pacific might be like. Tired of bracing winter winds, the stress of an inner city or simply dreaming of a life change? This is a blog about what happens when, in the words of Yogi Berra, "you come to a fork in the road, [and] take it".

29 March 2006

7 Things

My cool blogger friend, JD Riso, tagged me recently. I'm finally getting around to doing my bit (i.e. post my "7 Things" or "7 Answers to 7 Questions").

7 Things I Plan to Do Before I Die

  1. Try scuba diving.
  2. Learn to speak Chinese.
  3. Go to Kathmandu.
  4. Get published in "The New Yorker".
  5. Pay for two college educations.
  6. Live happily ever after.
  7. Look back when all is said and done and say, "WOWSER!"

7 Things I Can Do

  1. Sightread, sing on tune and play my favourite piano pieces over and over and over again.
  2. Consistently find the silver lining.
  3. Read, speak and write French; fake Spanish and Italian (and I mean fake) and make people laugh when I try German.
  4. Think outside the box; colour outside the lines.
  5. Figure out how to do most things technological.
  6. Birth a baby naturally.
  7. Surprise myself and others.

7 Things I Can't Do

  1. Cut or draw a straight line.
  2. Ski.
  3. Hold a snake, a spider or an alligator.
  4. Do what everyone else is doing because everyone else is doing it.
  5. Use violence to solve a problem.
  6. Play basketball.
  7. Go a day without reading.

7 Things that Attract Me to the Opposite Sex

  1. Carriage, build, line.
  2. How often he makes me and others laugh.
  3. Kindness, compassion.
  4. How often he smiles.
  5. Body language.
  6. Generosity, humility.
  7. How he treats waiters and waitresses, animals and small children.

7 Things I Say Most Often

  1. Honey!, Honey ... and Honey?
  2. Little one.
  3. Tjiba choo.
  4. What are you doing?
  5. Love you.
  6. Sois positif ! (Be positive!)
  7. Et voilà ! (And there you have it.)

7 Celebrity Crushes

  1. Zinedine Zidane
  2. Brad Melhdau
  3. Einstein (no one said they had to be alive - or "celebrity" celebrity)
  4. Malcolm Gladwell
  5. James Blunt (for the moment - a couple of years back it was David Gray: these things change)
  6. Cary Grant
  7. James Stewart

7 People I Want to Do This:

  1. Sophie
  2. Stevie
  3. Sheila
  4. Tiffany
  5. Alex
  6. Laurent (I know you won't - but it's worth a try!)
  7. You!

Tag! You're it!

24 March 2006

Domestic Bliss

Photo by Julie Harris, 2006.
Life has been as stimulating and unpredictable as ever lately. Sophie has been helping out with various domestic tasks (see above with good friend, Cathy) as well as fielding and sailing through exam after exam at school (way to go, Soph!). It's been wonderful to be able to count on Soph at home and we are really proud of her work (plus she has started babysitting in the neighbourhood for whole packs of children) - she is really an angel on the earth!

Laurent and I have been attending to final details at home in preparation for baby, getting in the last bits and anticipating some fun life changes. We will also be following one of the Kanak traditions here and will be burying our little one's placenta at the base of a tree (yes, Laurent and Sophie both think I am crazy). As we will be moving house in June to have more space, I've decided that we need to plant a tree in a temporary pot so that we can replant the whole kittinkiboodle at our new home. Off we go this weekend to find said pot and tree. (I have to say that both Laurent and Sophie should receive huge medals for being so patient with me. Okay, so they roll their eyes a lot lately - that is to be expected!)

19 March 2006

Pareo-Tying in New Caledonia

Two weeks ago , we returned to the paradisical Phare Amédée. Loyal readers will recall that Phare Amédée is one of the popular sites to marvel at sea snakes and reef sharks here in New Caledonia. This time, we took Sophie and her best friend ("Mag"), and our wonderful friend Mary who was visiting from Australia, to the little ilôt 45 minutes outside Nouméa.

Highlights of this particular visit included front-row seats for the folklore dancing show (more of our fire dancer!), a session on how to climb coconut trees and a session on how to tie pareos (sarongs) - see Sophie, above, modelling one such pareo during the pareo-tying demonstration.

We generally wear pareos at the beach here in New Caledonia, but I've been told that you see far fewer of them here than in Tahiti. Here, it is unacceptable to walk the streets or go into town, shops or restaurants wearing a pareo or just shorts (for our male friends). The local population (the Kanaks) frowns on bearing one's skin in public - though one does see many a topless (and sometimes practically bottom-less) sunbather at the Baie des Citrons (Bay of Lemons).

Photo by Laurent Guiader, 2006.

15 March 2006

Connection Reestablished with the Outside World

Photo (of Ilôt Canard and kite surfing) by Laurent Guiader, 2005.
After a brief absence - entertaining a fabulous friend from Australia, coping with a hard drive dying and all our communications going down, attending school meetings and busy being eight months' pregnant (this is very time-consuming, napping and things!) - I am happy to report that I am back up and running. So, please do keep tuning in. More gorgeous photos (thanks to Laurent and Sophie) and telling tales to come!