It is very hard to type one-handed with an overly-affectionate cat draped over your shoulder (the three of them have decided to shadow my every move in case I decide to leave them again). It's 4am and the Jet-lag has poked me awake. I need to do something quiet so that I don't waken the rest of the household.

It is a wierd feeling being back here. I'm not exactly over-joyed to be 'home' but the animals are here and the other 4 members of the 'Not' family seem very much at home here. I have never felt homesick per se but the void that my separation from Hingerland has left in my life is tangible and I never wake up as relaxed and happy here as I do when I am back in the Mother Country.

Imagine my surprise when trawling through my quick fix of The Guardian and Independent one Sunday during our visit home to find that someone had written a book actually saying something negative about Kiwiland Hadn't he heard of Kiri Te Kanawa, the All Blacks and those lovely big flat-footed kiwi? Hadn't he seen all those handsome young men with the polished faces in Earls Court? Well undoubtedly this author HAD seen the polished-faces, and some other bits as well as, although predatory may be a slightly harsh word for him, he certainly appears to enjoy his Gaydom

Anyway. I quickly tore out the review of the book and made a note to keep an eye out at Heathrow, where of course I couldn't find the review, forgot the author's name and generally failed at my task!

Imagine my surprise when I got into our local supermarket to re-stock on bread, milk etc in my groggy jet-lagged state to find his notoriety had reached these shores. Usually negativity about Kiwiland is shrouded in denial with a quick sweeping under the carpet but this time it was in magazines and had been covered by National Radio. What had he said? I bought the magazine and then ... my own step to far ... I tried to buy his book.

Not in the first shop, nor the second so I resorted to the best bookshop in the area. Couldn't see it there either and when I asked at the till they glowered at me and eventually swiped a copy from a tiny, cleverly obscured shelf behind the counter "a charming man" spat the assistant. ".. determined to say negative things before he even came here".
"Aww yis" I replied trying to disguise my vaguely Estuary accent
(I am getting quite good at hiding my birthright in situations where being a pom wouldnt be a good thing.)

So here I am with my little time bomb in my hand "Going as Far as I Can" by Duncan Fallowell. So far (with the possible exceptions of the expressions of gay lust) it could be me writing it. Where is the architecture? Why did they flatten it and build mini-US cities? Why does a yearly screening of Dancing With the Stars serve as "Culcha" for the masses?

This could go one of two ways for Mr Fallowell. It could make him shed-loads of filthy lucre, or he could sell not a jot here due to their fierce National Pride. Let's hope it is the former as I rather like his writing. .... Come on guys at least he liked Christchurch

Blimey what a roller coaster the past 10 days have been. The mixed emotions. The excitement going 'home' and of seeing mates and remaining family for the first time in nearly 3 years, together with the heartbreak of Grandma Not's death and the obvious strains that this puts upon a family of 4 siblings who have lost both parents to lung cancer in 11 months.

The first thing I did was to zoom up to see 'my lot' in Leyland for the weekend with the children. We did all the things I used to do as a child when with my cousins. We walked, ate, climbed a climbing wall, walked some more and then toddled back down South for the beginning of the sad part of the trip.

Not being a Catholic the Vigil when Grandma Not comes to stay at the church overnight was quite a nice personal bit of the funeral process. My sister in laws were both very upset which worried my kids who have never seen a sobbing adult before. The priest was fantastic. Young(ish) and totally human which for me was a first. He had made friends with Grandma Not since her husband's death last year and really knew how she ticked and what made her laugh. As a result the service was great. He even read a Joyce Grenfell passage at the beginning which would have pleased even my Mum!

The wake was just great. A proper party in a 16th Century hotel with loads of booze and grub, all the cousins, etc and everyone having a lovely time. She (who loved a good party) would have really enjoyed herself.

Then the trouble started. The sisters couldn't understand that Mr Not wasn't throwing himself on the grave weeping. The boys had done the sadness behind closed doors with their respective wives and as a result when 'older brother Not' told Mr Not to take the Grandfather clock or it would be given away to a scrap merchant he ordered a crate to take all the bookshelves and a few personal items to NZ.

Mr Not and I have seen what a House Clearance man can do to one's parents 'stuff'. I stood in a High Wycombe street 5 years' ago watching someone smash up my mothers' life with a sledge hammer outside a storage unit. I paid £350 for this honour and it broke my heart.

Mrs Not is a whole different ball game. She was a hoarder with a love of books and sewing material which she continued to buy right until the end As a result the job in hand is immense. So when Mr Not with 5 days to go before we caught a plane home, got down to moving all the books out of the house into the garage for a dealer and discussed putting unwanted things aside for shipping to NZ, he was labelled heartless with obvious consequences. It all culminated with a massive screaming match between Big Sister and Mr Not in front of all our children and with me telling Big Sister Not a few home truths (she's a bit of a tyrant)

We were glad to be out of it but I wasn't glad to come home.
I had forgotton how much I love my real home and spent many a tearful moment outside Terminal 3 of Heathrow on Monday morning just people watching. People from every walk of life march past on their travels to work or on their holidays. London in the frost has a very distinctive smell. Viva cosmolitanism.

Well it's back to reality now. Uniform to name and sandwiches to make. 2 months of having the children around me is at an end. I always find this time of year very sad, wherever I reside. Giving my children away to teachers for 8 months or so of the year is not good.

Well I'm back ... and thank you England and Grandma Not for a great trip. I will miss them. Until the next time. I've already started saving

Today I found three books belonging to Grandma Not (only 3 I hear you splutter) and introduced the next generation to ‘Romany’. ‘Out With Romany’, ‘Out with Romany Again’ and ‘Out with Romany by Moor and Dale’, were part of Grandma Not’s branch arm of the British Library!

It all came flooding back to me. I remember my Mum used to read to me from ‘Romany and Raq’ when I was little.

Romany’s real name was The Rev George Bramwell Evens. He was the son of a true Romany mother and he became Children’s Hour sort of wildlife correspondent in the 30s and 40s. My Mum had loved listening to him and probably gleaned a smattering of her endless knowledge of wildlife and the hedgerows from sitting listening to him on their crackly old radio in Hinksay Road.

When I was a little girl on trips to visit my family in Cheshire, Mum and my Auntie used to take me to see his Vado (a lovely old green gypsy caravan parked in the middle of Wilmslow). I can vividly recall peering through the window imagining all the adventures I could have, if only it was mine. Secretly all I really wanted was his spaniel Raq, who by then must have been long gone!

Apparently you don’t have to peer through the window any more as the Vado is open every now and then for viewing. That probably takes away some of the mystique!

A little bit of ingenuity - those Kiwis are not the only ones with ingenuity you know - and I found a way of creating another password!
You don't get rid that easily you know

Arrived in lovely old, smelly old, dirty old Heathrow on Friday morning and within two hours were passing the junction for our old home. The kids all wanted to drive past our house to check out any alterations/demolition that may have occurred since. Oh and then there was the obligitory visit to the pub for a warm flat ale Well it was lunchtime!

I popped up to see all 'my lot' (not that there are many of us any more) for the weekend with the children and we climbed and walked to our hearts content. Edmund Hilary's family need worry no more. New Zealand now has another avid climber. Our JT has discovered he's a monkey and has spent the remainder of our trip searching for climbing shooes
... and for the record dearest Cuz, fused vertebrae and climbing 'the purple ones' on a climbing wall DO NOT mix!

The funeral was on Tuesday and I hope Grandma Not would have been proud. It was a lovely do and the first funeral I have ever been to when the faith seemed to make sense. Grandma Not was a staunch Catholic and not just someone who donned a hat weekly and notched up loyalty points with the great Service Provider in the Sky. She really did believe that whatever happened 'He' was keeping an eye on her. Do you know what, I really think he did too.

Now the long haul has started. Anyone want a book or six thousand

I like a good book in fact I tend to adopt books just so that I am sure that they will go to a loving home but I do try to exercise discretion! Grandma Not, however, owns every diet book (and ironically cookery book!), gardening book, sewing book, travel guide (etc, etc!) ever written. Yesterday we formed a human chain of all the children and started the migration of the books from the attic room down to the garage. Ok, so a few found themselves into a little pink plastic box for me but not very many. Honest

Off to see 'Nana and Ditz Herneschase' today. They probably won't know a thing about it as they (my parents) have been pushing up daisies for many a moon now. The children are going armed with pot plants and trowels, intent on giving them a Spring-clean. Our now rare visits to my parents' grave usually ends up as a bit of a 'jolly' as they have a wonderful view of the Buckinghamshire countryside and the kids love it there.

Home on Monday morning and LC and I will be big and brave about it. When asked by one of my rellies this week where home was for her, LC said this and I think it just about sums up the situation.
"This is home but New Zealand is where I live"

I may not blog again until I reach Kiwiland but thank you for being lovely and making my trip home so painless, all you inhabitants of the Motherland

When leaping out to get some cash to pay the farrier this morning I switched on National Radio. A Lovely plummy Hingerlish lady - a (quote) "filmaker from London" was pleading for a Gordon Brown Looky-Likeys to e-mail her.

They have apparently scoured England and Scotland for someone with "brooding looks" and a "Heathcliffe quality" but can't quite match him. They have searched "butcher's shops, dairy farms, and lots of places where people who eat well might be" WHAT? The Motherland is being run by an over-indulgent Heathcliffe character who hangs about in Butcher shops and Dairy Farms?

They apparently went to Glasgow but due to a "bad case of rickets" the inhabitants were all too small. Is this a recent epidemic of rickets? Or are we referring to a particularly virulent episode in the 1800's which has affected the entire population for generations? I am surprised Celtic or Rangers ever manage to win a game with such a heritage

Well, our plummy friend went on to say that she has even extended their search as far as Fife (so that's the whole of Scotland covered then ) but to no avail and they are wondering whether he has Russian blood. Presumably all other Celtic communities have been excluded - We're just sticking to Scotland and Russia then eh?

Anybody from Kiwiland who feels that they resemble our esteemed leader (for we are renowned for our vast Russian ghettos) is asked to contact said film-maker immediately.

Damn! I wish I had known. There was a massive Scottish Heritage stand at the Agricultural Show yesterday I could have recruited for her and, just to save time, I would have weeded out the ricket-ridden Glaswegians for no extra charge

These are very obviously desperate times

"RIP Grandma Not"

Wot a day yesterday was.

We were just leaving for Mog’s big day with her calves and Mr Not decided to ring Grandma Not. Poor love rang just as his Mum died. Luckily, peacefully and at home and this was how she, and the rest of us wanted it.

Isn’t it strange the way things like that happen? Both LC and I woke up 5 minutes before the phone rang me to tell me my Mum had died. I am sure we are all tuned in to those we love.

Mr Not astounded me. He had a quiet few minutes and then just upped and loaded the horsebox with the two calves and got on with the day for Mog. It probably helped that the last thing Grandma said to Mog on Friday was “go and enjoy yourself and take loads of photos for me”. So that is what we did ... for her!

Mog and her calf won First in her Class and First in her Section and LC (thank goodness or we would never have heard the last of it) won Second in Class and Second in Section! LC then went on to get 4th place in Youth Handler out of about 25 children. They did it for Grandma Not!

So back to reality. Usky has decided to have a break from his recouperation and is coming over to bloh-farm-sit. Daisy-cow is off to meet her new boyfriend today (I am taking a step-ladder as Daisy being half-Angus isn’t exactly petite and her little Dexter boyfriend is tiny!). We will all need earplugs as her baby, Alfie (Garnet) will be distraught with no milk to comfort him!

Then funeral to organise on (your) Monday, flights to book and we will be in the Motherland by next week. The problem seems to be the return flight as everyone seems to be coming home from their travels to start the new University and School term.

I am feeling quite nervous. I have looked forward to coming home for so long. I think I am now worried that the reality won’t live up to the memory. Mr Not is so disparaging about 'Hingerland'; the crime, the dirt etc, etc and always says how much he hates the hustle and bustle when he goes home. It has made me think that absinthe has made the heart grow fonder. The kids are just looking foward to the family reunion. I think that is a healthy way to look at a funeral. A celebration of life and of family.

Be on your best behaviour will you? No nasty murders, no major political upheavals ... just for me

The wretched satellite is working to rule today and has been for 24 hours. It has taken me half an hour to download the BCUK site and it is reluctant even to let me write my blog (perhaps the satellite is bored with my inane waffling ) As a result I am probably not going to be able to read anyone else’s blog tonight unless I stay up until at least 4am but I will try and catch up at some stage tomorrow.

So, today? Well, things took a turn for the worse for ‘Grandma Not’ back in the Motherland. We had just put the telephone down this morning from one of our regular phone calls when I received an email from Brother-in-Law Not, asking us to phone him. It transpires that Grandma has been told by her Doctor that she has days, rather than weeks left to live. A horrible thing to hear when you are completely compos-mentis and it is just your body that is giving up on you.

It has become a game of Chinese whispers. In the same In-box, we also received an email from Sister-in-Law Not to say that the two sisters are arranging a care rota and asking whether Mr Not can be involved. She is then obviously of the opinion that Grandma has a great deal more stamina (or is hoping that she does).

It is at times like this that I thank my lucky stars I was an only-child! No bickering or in-fighting disguised under the wide-brimmed hat and dark glasses of “concern”. It was just me, my Mum and a couple of knackered Junior Doctors!

So looks like I may be blogging from the Motherland in the very near future. My cousin has offered to kidnap me so that I don’t have to come back. I actually quite like the idea of spending the rest of my life holed-up in Lancashire with my Cousin and the advantage is that she would be quite happy to kidnap the children too as part of the deal!

The headache now is how to get everything sorted out here. Animals who need Zinc capsules so that they don’t develop facial eczema whilst we are away, a Farrier to shoe the horses before we go, a horse sitter for the pony who gets laminitis at the drop of a hat, a farm-sitter, a rabbit sitter, a chicken sitter. In fact lots of people with very flat bottoms.

I have just discovered, quite by accident, the website
http://www.lapdauthors.com

Why, oh why? What do they write about? Perhaps I should investigate. Unfortunately I can’t tell you any more cos I never got past the “Police Gifts” pages!!!

So this is what a US Police Office does on his day off! Obviously, they're not content with a day of donut-eating and chasing bad guys (or did I watch too much Strapsky and Crutch as a child?). They come home after a hard day's crime-fighting to play with their miniature police officer models, toy police cars (my favourite being the "Erector" remote-controlled police car) and their wives dressed in the Officer Naughty WPC outfit!!!

My personal favourite was listed amongst the Police Clothing Gifts – the black T shirt printed on both sides with the words “Psyche Ward” Nuff said!

PS: who was policing the Police demo' in London today? Good luck boys you'll need if you are trying to squeeze money out of old Gordon!

So tell me. What posessed the Scots to choose a thistle as their National emblem? Yes, it is quite a pretty colour, yes it is relatively regal looking but I tend to think this is because I was conditioned to think of a thistle as Regal... until today.

You have heard me rattle on about my ragwort and the continued battle therewith. It is certainly a smaller crop this year than it was last but the thistle

Our predecessor was obviously either blind or an enthusiastic collector of weeds

... Oops sorry I am not supposed to call them weeds anymore. We in Kiwiland call them 'Plant Pests' I know that cos I did a course and they told me! By calling them plant pests they can eradicate lovely edible pretty old nasturtiums, those pretty feathery pampas grass that people in Surrey grow in their front gardens and the scary, nasty threatening blackberry bush, amongst others!

Any road up, back to my thistle Today I pulled out an entire trailer of the stuff. Not just your common or garden Thistle! I have every variety! George Bush's favourite; the Californian Thistle, the Nodding variety, Scots thistle (which they often irritatingly called "Scotch Thistle" over here and Plumeless ones too. I have arms like a pin-cushion and a lovely builder's bottom type red burnt stripe between my shorts and my T-shirt. My Goblin I'm attractive!

Now I was told confidently that goats would eat the thistle! Yeah right! I have the most spoiled goats in the World. Billy Muggins finally decided today that if I was 'eating' it then it might be worth a try but the silly object nibbled the flowers and then spat them out on the field to re-seed and went back to chewing Honey-horse's tail (they are in the throws of a tempestuous love affair. Anyone want a Hoat?)

... and still it comes. Rain, rain, rainity-rain! But at least the grass is the right colour again and it is visibly growing so who am I to moan. Oh yeah I am hingerlish and genetically programmed to moan about the weather

Today is an intense one. We have to continue the training of the poor beleaguered calves for Sunday's Agricultural Show. During the first three days we had progressed from mule-like to not quite so mule-like so the children were becoming quite dis-heartened. Yesterday morning one of them - Gracey - had gone on complete work to rule. Time for a change of tactics

Yesterday afternoon I spent 2 hours sitting on the floor of a stable looking at my feet. It worked. They came up to me and had a lick of my wellies. Then I brought the 'Not Girls' in and they sat quietly too which was quite an effort for my girls (another half an hour) The next stage was to put lead reins on them and sit quietly (another half an hour) and then the big move outside into the yard for 'walking up and down' training!

By 5pm we had them both able to walk independently without 'Gracey calf' performing her big Rodeo leaps and pulling Mog or I across the yard.

We did, of course, adopt an quite controversial training method into our regime. "The Labrador Cow" technique©! Never heard of it Lindow? Well it's like this:

Step One: Cuddle your black Labrador who apparently does a passable impression of a baby Dexter!

Step Two: Put him on a lead and walk him up and down.

Step Three: Lead the Dexters up and down behind him (calling the Labrador a 'good cow' throughout the process is an optional extra!).

Step Four: Tie one of the calves to the fence and just perform the exercise with the Labrador and one heifer.

Step Five: Alternate heifers

Step Six: Send Labrador home for his tea and work with the heifers on their own. Works like a dream.

So today, I am under no illusion that we will have to start all over again from the beginning. I hope Gus is up to another day as a Labrador-Cow

But first to pursuade three children to eat yet MORE scrambled eggs!