All us expats live with two homes. Lucky us. Unlucky us.
We can meet and eat and laugh and drink with some of the most important people in our entire lives at the great New Zealand barbie, set in an urban vegetable garden with wine and laughter and still worry about the ones we love and have left in the frozen gardens on the other side of the world.
We eat the family scalloped potatoes, grill sausages and steak and lamb. We can eat the gluten free salads, and vegan dishes and vegetarian bakes and omnivorious feeds, eating all from the same table like we have for years but still wonder how the cows are at home, and is Tima warm, and is Boo OK at Nannys and are the kittens doing well and wonder why we have not heard Queenie’s results.
Caramalising onions on one side of the world while someone else feeds my pigs on the other.
The glory of all your family gathering like a gentle storm.
As the water freezes at home.
We are all a collection of divided and dividing cells. Wanting to be here but still there. Wishing and missing. Succeeding and failing. Wanting to both hide from the new people and greet them as wonderful additions to our ever-burgeoning families.
Big breath miss c., says Sheila our Big Fat Pig, from all the way over there.
Good morning.
I hope you all have a lovely day!
Your friend in travel,
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
59 responses to “The Great New Zealand Barbeque”
Celi, you evoke the two worlds so beautifully. They are such contrasting worlds too, especially at this time of year when the polarity os so apparent. May you breathe into the best of each, and carry that best with you always.
No one is having a more varied and intensive life than you are, Cecilia. You have experienced many lives already and you’re still young. Amazing, really. And you have given your whole self to each and every moment. I feel I have the right to say this, not because Ive known you all your life. No. But Because of the experiences on the farmy you have shared. I am thinking of course, of Kupa, and I think of Daisy, and Mama, and Marmalaide, just to mention a few
I think we all live many lives and i am so grateful that mine is so full.. and I need to say that having you along for the ride makes my life even fuller.. hope it is not too cold this week?
To even see people in your lovely photos is unusual and seem to portray your mood to me. I feel like I am listening in, over hearing bits of conversation and laughter but only from a distance. I think the winter we are having in the midwest is very mild so far, nothing like last year, and I am sure you will find things well taken care of when you return. Enjoy your time and the photos are lovely.
But what a blessing to love and be loved by so many in various places.