boxes. honestly, it worked on so many levels.School Hol­i­days means a very quiet time around Wel­ling­tonista Towers, as all but one of the reg­u­lars are fully-fledged card-car­ry­ing par­ents. And Jo won’t come in if there’s no-one to regale her stor­ies of hor­ri­fy­ing med­ic­al treat­ments and bowel-move­ments to.

As well as look­ing after the kids, the home­bound Wel­ling­tonista have been tak­ing some time to get those long-planned-for, often-post­poned garden and land­scap­ing plans into action. And there’s been a Film Fest­iv­al on (some reviews of that to come, per­haps).

Any­way, this par­tic­u­lar Wel­ling­tonista had a fant­ast­ic time look­ing after his two wee lads for a few days this week. The boys were amazed at Zappo the Magi­cian’s tricks (while the par­ents were astoun­ded that he could man­age to pad out a one hour show with only half a dozen bits of actu­al magic). Te Papa proved its usu­al haven for kids need­ing a run­around some­where warm and dry on a cold and wet day. And Boxes – the big pup­pets play put on at Cap­it­al E – was great fun – much (much) bet­ter than some of the big budget Amer­ic­an kids’ movie fod­der that’s been thrown at us for the break. Throw in some beach action, some park action, a TV-free week, vis­it­ing friends and a couple of not-too-dis­astrous ginger­bread mak­ing after­noons, and it was a top week all round.

And now, all we can think is: “roll on the next hol­i­days.”