Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

It's Sunday evening again, Nicky and I are sitting down to watch a little telly, Claire and Ryan are out at the movies, so I thought I would put fingers to keyboard. We got back from Stanmore Bay a little while ago. Clem and Pat had invited us up for a family Sunday lunch, another welcome for Becky. We had a very pleasant afternoon and before returning home Nicky and I had a stroll along Red Beach. Yesterday Nicky and I went up north to Uretiti. Well that was the pan, but we never actually made it. We had decided to visit Waipu Cove before going to the beach and spent a little while there. The weather wasn't as sunny as we had expected as clouds scudded across the sky, but we did have some gorgeous fresh fruit ice cream. We then decided to follow the road down to Langs Beach and had a walk on the sand. Following the road further south, we ended up taking a wrong turn somewhere (we didn't have a map of the area with us) and had a pleasant adventure down some unmetaled roads...

I think most exciting bit of the week has been the weekend. We hosted a "welcome to NZ" party for Becky Kendall who arrived on Thursday. Nicky and I went to meet her at the airport along with Naomi who has been providing the initial accommodation. So, we had a goodly selection of the family and an excellent range of edible goodies and "grape juice". We spent Saturday getting ready for the evening, and then today have been relaxation and pottering round the house. Claire has gone out with Ryan to the museum and to try a pizza place. Nicky has been suffering with a bit of a tummy bug, and ended up taking Thursday off. Lack of sleep has not helped, and she is not right yet but better than she was. She has been very busy at work, and had some fun with the trains, which started running again this week but took a couple of days to get organised. I have had some Mac work and done my first massage of the year, and Claire has had another heavy week of sofa testing. She spent...

Yet another exciting(!) week in the Land of the Long White Cloud comes to an end, and we sit down to watch The Queen (the film with Helen Mirren) so I thought I would do a little blogging. Work has been pretty busy for Nicky as usual. Claire was asked to start early at Whitcoulls on Thursday so ended up working a nine and a half hour day. I have had some Mac work too which has been good. On Tuesday evening I met a few of my fellow ex-massage students for a drink. We went to a pub called Galbraiths in Mt Eden which brews its own English style beer. I had a pint each of Grafton Porter and Bellringers Bitter, both of which I enjoyed. On Wednesday evening we went round to the vicarage for dinner (produced by Sarah's mum who is visiting from England) and games. We thoroughly enjoyed the meal, and playing Speechless and Cranium. Thursday, Friday and Saturday have been wonderful summer weather; the roof temperature got to 44°C on Saturday. We have had a quiet weekend doing things round th...

It has been a quiet week as NZ is now firmly into summer holiday mode. All the schools are closed until February, lots of business are closed, and trains won't be running again for another week. Monday was a public holiday due to it being New Year, so Nicky and Claire were not working but I was. Claire did an extra day at Whitcoulls but other than that is now back to her usual routine. The library has been busy so Nicky has been fully occupied, and I have been getting on with the household duties. Nicky and I wanted to see "The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo" at the cinema as Claire had got a free ticket from work. We have both read the book, Claire hasn't. The film has been on very limited release, just one showing a day at two of the chain of Sky City cinemas. We couldn't understand why until the film started - with sub-titles. It was a very good film but the violence, though handled well, is quite disturbing. It helped having read the book. So, that was Saturday n...

Happy New Year to you all. Sunday evening again, so time to write the blog, the first of 2010, though you probably realised that. We have not had wall-to-wall holiday this week as Nicky was working Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and Claire worked Monday and was due in on Friday and Saturday but wasn't well enough. However, it has been a fairly quiet week. Claire and I (along with a number of Claire's friends) went to the cinema to see "Sherlock Holmes" on Wednesday which we enjoyed, and Nicky and I have been to see "The Lovely Bones" today, which was OK. On Thursday Claire went to Crystal Mountain with Ryan, which is not really a theme park and is only small. I went to Devonport to return a book to Letty, had a good chat, picked over 10lbs of plumbs from her tree, and spent the Hanlon's wine vouchers on the way back (BTW Hanlons if you are reading this: Caro's have won Metro magazine's best wine shop again this year, for the sixth year in a row...