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Bribed with flowers

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 I think it was last week, not this week, that Fiona called in to give us a couple of Bird of Paradise flowers, as she knows that I like them. On Thursday Mrs. Egg called in and gave us some lovely orange Lillies which Nicky has arranged with aplomb in the same vase: There were strings attached however: moggie feeding over the weekend. Unusually Frances didn’t stay for a coffee, as she had washing out and suspected rain was on the way. For the same reason I had brought ours in just a few minutes earlier, so because of the weather we missed out on a good chat. We will catch up another time I expect. It has been a different sort of week for Nicky. She was summoned for jury service this week, so headed off to the Court House on Monday morning. She was back home by lunchtime having not been drawn from the ballot and with instructions to check the website in the evening to see if she should attend again on Tuesday. The information on the website was ambiguous, and differed from the Jury...
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Is this a lake I see before me?

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 Monday was wet. Very wet. The rain started on Sunday evening, continued through the night and into the day, and didn’t let up until sometime Monday evening. It was never torrential, but steady and determined. We have been seeing the effects in the river all week - higher levels and brown with silt. The rowers and canoeists are usually only heard (instructors tutoring them via megaphones), but this week the river level has been high enough for us to see them from our bedroom window.   Nicky was the only one to ventured out to do the church cleaning. We had a lovely video chat with Maria in the afternoon, and I started on our map jigsaw of Loughborough, where we used to live in England. In the evening we watched the first two episodes of Vigil season 3. As good as expected, as were the following two episodes which we watched on Tuesday evening. The weather for the rest of the week has been mainly dry and sunny with a cool breeze. I went for an amble round Virgina Lake on Wednes...
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Springy

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 Spring officially began on Tuesday, and it was another sunny September the 1st: I mention this because I noticed earlier in the week when browsing through my photos that a previous couple of September the 1st’s have also been sunny days. The long term forecast for our spring is “windier than usual”. I am inclined to believe this as the long term forecast for winter was “drier than usual”, and for us I think it has been. When they say windier, they don’t mean a nice gentle breeze. More like blow your hat off even with chin straps in use, or as it as known in this household, Piglet Ears weather. Hopefully the wind will hold off for a while as the damson tree is just starting to blossom. We finished watching the latest series of Ridley on Monday evening, a gentle crime drama without being cosy. I have cut the grass again this week, done some weeding in the CBD, and trimmed some of the flaxes. I don’t think it will be long before the grass will need cutting more frequently. On Wednesd...
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Rain? Sun? Who knows?

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 You may recall Dear Reader, because I think that I have mentioned it before, that during the week I make notes about our activities. Looking through my notes for this past week it reads like a series of Blursdays. We have had a lovely peaceful week. This doesn’t mean that we haven’t done anything. Laundry, cleaning, ironing, shopping, cooking, reading and telly watching have all been completed with aplomb, style and cunning, which is required on the days when washing needs drying and the weather can’t decide what it’s going to do. We have also finally, finally, finished the Nursery Rhymes jigsaw: It was a challenge, but we completed the tree at the top left of the puzzle on Saturday morning, and a few minutes later packed it away ready to return to the Jigsaw Exchange. Nicky hosted Home Group on Tuesday afternoon for the last time until it is her turn again. Lee picks up the mantle next month. It was my sister’s 70th birthday on Monday and we had a very good FaceTime chat with her...
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Sadness and celebrations

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 Our friend Eleanor, who lives down the road, celebrated her 80th birthday at Caroline’s Boatshed yesterday. We had accepted her invitation to join her and many friends for lunch followed by birthday cake. It transpired that we were destined to be late arrivals. On Thursday morning I did my usual amble to the dairy to get four copies of the River City Press for Nicky. She had time to have a look at it before going off to staff the Aramoho Library and spotted a familiar name in the death notices. We needed to check that we were thinking of the correct person, the 39 year old son of friends of ours. Nicky found the funeral notice on a local undertakers website and discovered that he had been taken by cancer. His twin brother died around 10 years ago in a car accident. We were shocked an upset and let Eleanor know that we would be late for her lunch as the funeral was at 11am Saturday morning. It was a somber occasion, and the first time that I had attended a funeral of someone younge...
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Once more to the garden

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 We have both managed a bit of time in the garden this week, other than hanging out the laundry. Nicky weeded and planted some vegetables and I did some weeding, just enough to feel I could get back into the swing of things. With the weather having been so mild this week there are signs of spring, and I suspect the weeds have noticed this too. The oxalis certainly has. For my Monday amble I went up to Virginia Lake. The waka sculpture was looking impressive… …and the jonquils were flowering: I took a different route home and walked past a factory which intrigued me. When I got home and Googled it I discovered it was a solid wood furniture manufacturer, owned and run by a kiwi family of Danish extraction. They produce some lovely pieces using both imported and native NZ timber, but I suspect they are out of our price range. The beginning of the week was quite busy with Nicky hosting Home Group on Tuesday afternoon, and Decibelles (book club) on Wednesday morning. Both went well and ...
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Phew! Not a scorcher.

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 For those of you reading this who don’t live in Aotearoa, we have had sufficiently cold weather this week for it to be the lead story on the evening news three days in a row. It has been colder than it has for some years, but interestingly for us in Whanganui, not as frosty as it was last week. The folks in Dunedin who pay their rates were gifted some snow and ice, but not really snowman quantities. Winter has been relatively dry I feel, which doesn’t bode well for spring. We have been keeping warm inside most of the time so have done another jigsaw. The picture was whimsically interesting, but we didn’t bother tackling the almost monochrome sky: Nicky hosted her Home Group on Tuesday and it went well. I had invited Mark and his dad Brian over for dinner as Krystyna was away at a conference. Brian is convalescing with them after his second knee operation and I don’t think either Mark or Brian enjoy cooking. Mark isn’t home from his new job until early evening, so we planned dinner...
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