Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

Even thought it has been another quiet week, it has had it's excitement. Claire has done a couple of extra days at Whitcoulls; I haven't had any new Mac work though I do have some booked for next week; and Nicky had a couple of good days on Wednesday and Thursday. Nicky is actually using her annual leave at the moment so that she still gets paid as she has run out of sick leave entitlement. With her having a good day on Thursday I suggested we go to St Lukes when taking Claire to work for 5, have a bite to eat, and go and see "The Kings Speech" at the cinema. She was amenable to this. We had a good selection of Chinese food in the food court, a pleasant surprise in meeting Helen and Warwick in the cinema foyer, and greatly enjoyed the film. Nicky has had a flurry of letters and phones calls this week to arrange her neurologist consultation. The initial arrangement ended up being on Feb 9th at the North Shore Hospital. We though this was pretty good (on the basis that ...

Welcome to this, the 200th post on this blog. It has been 3 years and 5 months since we left England, and the majority of what we have been up to has been documented here. The missing items are the things which I have forgotten or were so routinely mundane (like popping up to the supermarket to buy milk) that I didn't think they would be of interest. Nicky has had another up and down week. She started to notice a pattern of dizziness and nausea coming on a little while after taking her morning medication. So she had a chat with the Doctor and he said to take everything at night so that hopefully she will sleep through these issues. This change of routine started on Monday, and may be the reason why on Tuesday night before taking her medication she had a bad bought of dizziness and nausea and possibly another small TIA. However, she is now settling into the new medication routine and felt really strong on Thursday for the first time this year. Unfortunately, probably while doing her...

We have had another quiet week, with Nicky having some good days and some bad days. On Monday and Tuesday she wasn't great, but Wednesday and Thursday she was feeling a lot brighter. So, we had a wee trip out on Wednesday and went to the rose gardens in Parnell, and strolled down to Judges Bay. The weather was warm and sunny. On the way back we called into Caro's Wine shop to spend our Christmas vouchers. Even though we had only been out for a couple of hours, Nicky went straight to bed when we got back and slept soundly for some hours. On Thursday Ros came over with clothes to discuss their suitability for Naomi and Doug's wedding with Nicky, and then Scrabble. Nicky and I had a WINZ appointment on Friday morning, and then Nicky spent the remainder of the day resting. She didn't feel at all well on Saturday morning so spent the day in bed, while I did the laundry and ironing and had some time in the sun in the afternoon. She has been better today but has still been nee...

We have had a very quiet week. This was Nicky's second week of annual leave but with her having had the TIA on New Years day she has not been feeling up to going out on the razzle dazzle. With Monday and Tuesday being public holidays we didn't get to see the GP until Wednesday. He was pleased that Nicky had been prescribed aspirin and statins, and added some blood pressure regulation drugs to the cocktail. He want's Nicky to have blood tests in a few weeks to see what's happening. Nicky's boss Lachie called in on Friday afternoon to basically say that they don't want to see her back at work for awhile, so we will be back to see the GP to get her signed off for awhile. Unfortunately Nicky only has 6 hours of sick leave due to her at the moment. Once she has used this and her remaining annual leave she will have to take time off without pay. So, we will pay a visit to WINZ (Work and Income NZ) next week to see what the sickness benefit arrangements are. We have ha...

Happy New Year everybody. Well, as some of you will have already heard, we have had an eventful start to 2011. Nicky had a suspected mini stroke yesterday, while we were out at Matakana. We had gone to visit the Morris and James pottery, wonderful stuff by the way, and then went back into Matakana village for a cup of tea. Nicky had said that she was feeling odd and in need of a sit down and a drink, but it was very busy and while I was queuing for the tea, she wandered off and found a bench to lie on. By the time I got to her with the tea she was looking very pale and started vomiting. This did not improve her demeanour, nor did drinking water, so I decided it was something more serious than food poisoning or dehydration, and when Nicky felt her speak starting to slur and she thought she might be having a stroke, I called an ambulance. The St. Johns guys arrived in 10 minutes, got her settled and into the ambulance, and then we drove off to North Shore hospital with me following in th...