Time Slows Down In Middle Earth (Part 3): Pastoral Living

Our homestead!

We spent 4 days holed up in a little cottage in a pastoral, secluded area of New Zealand. And experienced the most beautiful days of our trip there. The days were luxuriously long and languid, and the weather was capriciously flirtatious - with brilliant sunshine giving way to brooding thunderstorms in 5 minutes. There were plenty of wildlife all around us, as well as highly domesticated sheep, dogs, goats, alpacas and lorikeets! We learned to tune our senses and intuition to the rhythms of nature, and felt truly at one with the world.

Some of the highlights of this short-lived sojourn include:

1) Being ensconced in incredibly enchanting surroundings. Our cottage was just beside an alluring waterfall, whose cascades vary in strength according to the weather patterns, which made us more aware of the repercussions of different natural phenomenon. These cascades were gushing with vigour when we arrived in tempestuous weather, which were reduced to gentle trickles when we left the cottage under brilliant sunshine.

Alfresco dining beside the waterfall

These cascades led to a bubbling brook just outside our cottage, framed by majestic poplar trees which made magical music with their rustling leaves. Together with the waterfall cascades and the brook, we were treated to perpetual symphonic music all day and night!

A beautiful outdoor bath!

2) Sharing life experiences with Devon, our amazing host on the farm. She lives alone on the farm, and used to have a corporate job in London. It was fascinating to listen to tales of how she started getting her hands, feet and legs dirtied (in both the figurative and literal sense!), all alone on the farm!

We befriended all of Devon's pets - Demi the super-friendly labrador, Mri the super-tame lorikeet who loves playing with the girls, and our absolute favourite, Aga the South African sheep who had been raised by Demi, so she is completely friendly like a dog! She loved our company and would always looked for us in the cottage, refusing to go home sometimes!

The Bees with Aga, the sheep-dog!

Once, she even led the entire flock of sheep into our backyard, and then joined us to play and frolic around - almost as if to show off to her flock that she has this bunch of human friends! If sheep could roll their eyes, I am sure the entire flock - which was completely nonchalant to our presence - would do that!

3) Eradicating all technology and social media from our lives for a few days. There were no wifi nor TV, so we played card games, read loads, chatted and bonded with one another incessantly. The magnificent scenes of nature unfolding all around us were our entertainment.

We observed the flirtatious courtship dance of the 2 huge mandarin ducks beside the waterfall, listened to the wild, machine-gun calls of sturdy magpies and watched how aggressive they can be. We had the immense privilege of hobnobbing with the flock of sheep that Aga brought into our backyard, and spent an entire evening chatting and milling with them, sometimes playing catch with some of them! Sheep are certainly delightful creatures.

Simple fun in the absence of modern technology - the girls throwing pebbles into the waterfall pond

Gumboots are the order of the day for us to trek through sludgy mud and thick grasses!

4) Our cottage is akin to a studio apartment, with the kitchen adjoining the bedroom. So, it was always a pleasant surprise to wake up to the smell of eggs and the clanging sounds of kitchen utensils - with hubby (and Big Bee once!) cooking up a breakfast! Most of our meals in the cottage were cooked by him, from eggs and baked beans for breakfast to hearty soups and pastas in the evenings.

He decided to make use of the outdoor firewood pizza oven one evening, and we had an elaborate alfresco dinner which comprised of lots of billowing smoke from the oven and delicious wood-fired pizzas! He started a fire from small logs, twigs and pieces of newspapers and we all cheered when a hearty fire was created.

The girls making the pizzas!

All done! Yummy...

5) Taking long, luxurious walks around the farm and its wild lands. We had picnics for lunch, perching on a hill top with stupendous views of the rolling countryside around us, with not a single human soul, except for lots of sheep and horses! Such inexplicable beauty indeed. We walked for hours, laughed, rolled in the grass, and just immersed ourselves in meandering meadows and fluffy white clouds.

Finding a perfect spot for a picnic lunch

The scenery that greeted us from all around...

6) We drove daily to a little village where we could do our grocery shopping and cafe hopping. It was just a 15-minute drive away from our cottage, and that was where we bought all our Christmas gifts for Devon and our animal friends. We felt like locals, blending into the diverse Kiwi culture and stocking up on fresh, healthy food.

Little Bee had a chance encounter with Santa in a supermarket!

7) The greatest part about living in a rural area is that there is absolute no light after darkness descends. Not a prick of light! Complete, opaque darkness that is so dense that it can get unnerving for city dwellers like us. Yet, when we looked up in the sky at night, magic unfolded. Magic in the form of thousands of twinkling stars and shining planets. Magic in the form of faraway galaxies and shooting stars. An entire blanket of luminescent fairy lights that re-defined beauty for me. Being typical Singaporeans, we had not quite seen stars like that, and the nightly spectacle was indelible in my memories.

Most importantly, that few days on the farm - with no distractions - allowed us to laugh a little louder, love a little more and immerse a little longer in the cleanest of air and most bewitching of natural beauty. What a stay! 

Why I Avoid Parent-Teacher Talks

Since the Bees entered primary school, I had only attended 2 parent-teacher talks (at the start of each of their primary 1 journey). I then deemed these talks highly invaluable, and stopped attending. I do not need to learn of my children’s personalities from teachers because I know them well. I do not need to listen to how inattentive or engaged they are in class because I believe all teachers should make their lessons interesting in order to capture the attention of their students. I do not need to know if they had or had not completed their homework, because truly, it is the onus of my children to do their own homework, and I believe that teachers should reinforce this message in school. I do not need to know how my child fared vis a vis her classmates, so long as I am personally happy with her performance. Finally, I do not believe in parent teacher talks probably because I grew up in an era when my own parents were too busy trying to earn a living for us and we also learned to take charge of our own destinies independently. And that is how I want my children to grow up.

Alas, I was “summoned” by Little Bee’s teacher for the parent-teacher meeting this year. Other than braving the long wait, I also have to jostle with irresponsible parents who were late or who took up extra time in their consultations irresponsibly. I also saw parents with teary eyes, red noses and anxious, depressed faces. And I lamented about the sad state of our primary education here in Singapore. My children are already in a holistic school where school co-curricular activities and huge fun events are regarded as important as academics. And even then, I saw such anxious faces amongst parents. It’s sad indeed.

To put everything into context, Little Bee is a year-end baby who is still very idealistic, naïve and filled with wide-eyed wonder and effervescence at everything around her. I love this personality trait about her – her bubbly optimism, her indefatigable enthusiasm and her zest in enjoying life to the fullest. Sure, I have to grapple with academic carelessness and untidiness (because she just wants to hurry and complete her work so she can play with her little ponies or read the next Harry Potter book). However, I had seen her grown this year – she is much more responsible in completing her own homework without me needing to ask her, and I think she had made an immense effort in making her writing and presentation of written work tidier. And I am a happy mum in this aspect.

Which was why I was so disappointed and baffled when Little Bee’s teacher started criticising how active and chatty she is in class (I know about her gregarious trait since she started to walk and talk!), how untidy she is in her work (I told the teacher that this year I already saw a marked improvement in her written work) and finally, to my shock, how childish she still is. Goodness, this little girl just turned 8 four months ago! So, in all politeness, I asked for examples of childishness, and she could not provide any, beyond the simple and thoughtless statement of “Hmmm, just very childish in her thinking, compared to many other classmates who were much more mature.” I was somewhat enraged because this is a little girl’s childhood that you are talking about. Why do you want children to grow up so quickly in this harsh world?

Truth be told, Little Bee was unwittingly streamed into what was known as a high-ability class in school, and from the beginning of this year, she already tried her best to keep up with her very capable and driven classmates. I really miss the good old years in primary 1 and 2, with totally loving and nurturing teachers and classmates who embrace holistic enjoyment in life. 

I bet I sound like a totally defensive parent, and my teacher friends would be telling me that education is a tripartite collaboration – with the school, parent and child. But what happens when our concept of education is just so different from what the teacher or the school system perceives? What happens when I am proud of what Little Bee had achieved already, that I know she had already put in effort this year, and it is precisely this effort that I chose to applaud. Not to compare her end results with some high achiever in her class?

It was a sad day indeed, and I pray very hard not to be summoned for another parent-teacher chat!