
MM Friend: Carter Were
How do you begin and end your days —
We begin the day with a stovetop coffee at about 6am. But really, I begin and end my days with my babies, Patience and Dorothy. One of them sleeps in my bed and the other one wakes up throughout the night. We all shower together before bed (to save water because we rely on rain to fill the tanks). I am looking forward to the day I can wake up in my own bed with only my partner, Jack, read a book and have a long shower by myself.
Our room looks out onto a lot of really high eucalyptus trees, a big cactus and some tropical plants I don't know the names of. It is quite noisy where we live, there's a lot of birds, possums and insects.
We eat omelettes for breakfast most mornings because we get about 15 eggs a day from our chooks. I have a three egg omelette because I'm always hungry while breastfeeding and it keeps me going for a few hours.
What advice do you have for living a more considered, simple, sustainable life —
How is colour important to you, and how does it influence your life —
I haven't had much time to consume much of anything lately apart from a bowl of pasta at dinner because the babies are taking up all my time! I go to bed at 8pm with Patience and fall asleep before her.
But who comes to mind is Enzo Mari, because Jack has been building lots of his furniture for the Banana Shed.
I have also recently bought myself some nice skin care from a New Zealand brand called Emma Lewisham that was recommended to me and also some of Harry's earrings and a dress.
How do you manage living in two places, having your heart in Aotearoa and Australia —
I enjoyed going between the two before the year of Covid. But right now I am missing home terribly. I hope that it all goes back to normal soon and I can travel between the two with my family soon. New Zealand winters are a bit long and cold for me, but I like that there's no spiders and snakes there too.
Australia is home for now since both the girls were born here, but maybe one day we will live there again. It would be my dream to live between the two.
Before the pandemic and having a second baby it was pretty easy for me to go back between the two every few months. I would book the cheap fares and stay at Harry's place in her spare room. We used to work on the cookbook whenever we were together, over the course of a few years. Since having a second baby and now that Patience is two and Harry no longer has a spare room, travelling home will be a whole lot harder. Hopefully we can go back each year and take the girls camping.
All images by Carter Were.
For more Carter you can follow her on Instagram, buy her cookbook or best of all, go and stay at the Banana Shed.