Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

It has been a much more normal week with Claire at Uny and Nicky at work. The only medical event has been my hospital visit at 7.30am on Tuesday morning to have my cyst removed. Nicky went with me as we suspected that it would be a good idea if I didn't drive home, which it was. All went well, though the wound and the stitches are a bit painful. Getting and staying in a comfortable sleeping position isn't easy, even though I have a dressing on at night. So the bulk of our excitement has been this weekend, which hasn't been that exciting really, though the neighbours have been having a good time. The son of the household who rent Dawn and Barry's old home (which is on the other side of us) won an special All Blacks prize draw which he didn't know he had entered. The prize included a 47" TV with surround sound, and for Saturday evening's match (All Blacks v France), a marquee with big screen and "terracing" for 20 people with food and drink includ

It has been a busier week one way and another. I have had some Mac work, Claire has been back at Uni after here study leave, and Nicky has been hard at work as ever, for the first part of the week anyway. Wednesday was our four year anniversary - yes four years to the day since we arrived in NZ. We have developed a tradition of buying a cheesecake (from The Cheesecake Shop so far) to mark our arrival anniversary. This year I thought I would make my own, so I took advantage of a day at home on Tuesday while Lilly was being serviced and getting her Warrant of Fitness to make a chocolate peanut cheesecake from one of Nigella Lawson's books. Wednesday was a busy day. It started early with Claire and I taking Lilly down to the panel beaters to fix the damage from the accident a couple of weeks ago. They loaned us a car and once we had the paperwork sorted out, I drove Claire up to Albany. I came home, did a load of washing, and then went to pick Nicky up and take her to hospital for

This week has been dominated by the final days of build up to the Rugby World Cup, and then the event actually starting. We were finally good to go on Thursday when I got my best wall chart since Euro '96 courtesy of the NZ Herald. As the week progressed the settled weather just got better and better - fine and sunny and getting warmer, during the day anyway. Nicky and I made plans to go into town for some of the opening celebrations on Friday, primarily the fireworks. As we started to see the TV coverage and realise that about four times as many people as were expected had turned up, we decided to stay home. This turned out to be a good decision. One of Nicky's nieces took 3 hours to get home, normally a 20 minute journey. So, we got fish and chips from up the road, watched the TV coverage, and then have been enjoying the TV coverage over the weekend. Our working week has been very much as usual, with Nicky being as busy as ever and Claire working on assessments during her s

August has slipped quietly into September this week, and the Rugby World Cup draws ever closer. As you may recall, last Sunday evening I collected John, my nephew, from the Britomart train station, as he is spending is last week in NZ with us. On Monday he went on a Whale and Dolphin safari with a ticket he had bought on Deal-a-Day when he was first with us. The weather wasn't bad and he saw both whales and dolphins and enjoyed the trip. On Tuesday we had planned to get the ferry over to Rangitoto and walk up to the summit but the weather was quite wet. Then fate forced our hand as while I was driving over to Mt Eden to collect Claire I had to brake suddenly to avoid driving into the ute in front of me which had also braked suddenly. Unfortunately, the chap behind me didn't brake as suddenly but came to a stop after coming into contact with Lilly's rear bumper. No one was hurt but Lilly sustained some damage which needs repairing, so I spent the rest of the morning talk