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”
Oh tell me about conflicting feelings – they never go away but we learn to appreciate the happy ones and deal with the sad ones. It’s all a bit surreal isn’t it?!
Oh my dear dear Celi, you have said it all! You really have. How I understand you-split-in-two…do you think there could be a book for expats too?
What stories we would tell.. so many books! c
Celi, do you find that you are slightly shaken by being among so many people? On the farmy, it’s often only you and the animals. Quiet is the main sound and the animals seldom talk much.
Just as you begin to settle in there among family and friends, you’ll be headed home to animals and your dear hubby. Not long now.
That is a very good point. How well you know me. I do find it the intenseness of these kinds of occassions very affecting. I often have to take a turn in the front yard to regather my wits. c
I very often feel conflicted when I travel!
Such a heart-rending piece, poetic and lovely and say, all in one.
Love the shots, though, of family and all that greenery. And the mostly flat-roofed houses are especially interesting to me packed onto that hillside.
That should be “sad,” not say. Just warming up the typing fingers.
Robert’s gone back to E yesterday evening and I feel broken in two as well. Big, huge hugs from half of me over here and the other half over there in E.
Hard when you have a foot in each world as well as pieces of your heart and soul. Imagine a world where all you loved lived in a perfect spot for all, I can just imagine the squabbles lol Some families live for generations beside one another and never go anywhere. that is good when raising young and growing old but the in between time must be ours 🙂 Enjoy your time over there you will soon be back to reality.
It is an agony to be separated from home when conditions aren’t the best at home and your helpless to do a thing about it. You cannot control the weather, you’ve put the best folks in charge of the critters, and it won’t be long and you’ll be on those giant flying vessels back to your home. Sheila is a wise girl… she knows a thing or two ya know, especially about you. Big breath is right. She has probably taken a few big breaths of her own in your absence.
Our John has it all under control, I am sure!
The lush green of your homeland is to die for. To have that rampant growth year-round is wonderful. Big Hugs, Miss C…it will go so fast; but it will feel slow, then suddenly you will be on the plane back to winter and Our John and the wondrous world of farm animals! HUGS
Linda
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Celi .. Love these photos. But you must relax and enjoy your NZ adventure. You will be home with your wonderful farm life before you know it! Take care and smell those roses x
I’m not the ex-pat but my daughter is, and all my grandchildren, oh and my great-grandchild, keep forgetting I have one of them ….living in your frozen land, so I understand the divided heart. It must be strange and a little disconcerting to suddenly be living in amongst that medium-density suburbia after the quiet and expanse of your prairie. Wonderful “running down the hill” gardens.
Homesickness and feeling torn between one place and another is not a nice feeling. As a British expat living in Australia, I get those feelings from time to time but I know I made the right decision. You have pointed out to us in the past, to live for the moment you are in. Time with your family in the place of your birth is precious and doesn’t come too often, let yourself go and enjoy being with family. The farmy is in good hands and they will all be there to welcome you back home (your other home) when the time comes. In the meantime, live for the moment…..
As I read through, I was taking deep breaths for you Celi. In the midst of it all, wonderful as it is – evidenced by your evocative words & pics – try to find that quiet time & space that you take with you regardless of which home or where you are at, and simply be in it 🙂
Celi: hope those blue skies are still holding: beautiful hillside home photos!! Honestly, reading all the comments [and I DO!] an ‘expats’ book would be wonderful – methinks over half of us would qualify!!!!! In my case how an Estonian/Swedish/Baltic German kid had to assimilate into a then very Anglo-Saxon environment . . . think of all the stories we could tell!!!!! Enjoy! Enjoy! Enjoy meanwhile!!!!!!!