Four Years

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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 her 12.45 appointment. She was having a hysteroscopy and D&C under general anaesthetic. Once she got to the point where I could not longer stay with her, I drove back up to Albany to pick up Claire and take her home. I then went back to Greenlane to collect Nicky. Everything had gone OK but she had to convalesce for the next few days so she had booked Thursday and Friday as sick leave. We had the cheesecake after dinner and it was OK but a bit disappointing. I think I over-cooked it a little, but as Nigella mentioned in her book, it does improve over the next few days and I would agree with her.


On Friday, Nicky was feeling recovered enough to join me on "The remains of the clay", a guided tour of New Lynn's brick making history. We walked down to the library, did the tour which lasted about and hour and a half, and then walked back home via the Aussie Butcher to get some bacon. The tour was very interesting and we learnt much and saw parts of New Lynn we didn't know about, and even though we got very wet at one point, we had dried out again by the time the tour finished.


At some point during the week our "little fridge" died. It was still getting power, but the motor was no longer coming on and the fridge was cold no more. So on Saturday we moved the "big fridge" (which also has a freezer) into the kitchen and re-arranged the garage a bit to give us more space. The weather was quite showery but we still got some washing done. Steve and Ros came over for Scrabble, and then Nicky and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Irish beat the Aussies in the RWC.


Today Nicky was in prison this morning so I did more laundry and made us a couple of bacon and egg pies. We went into town to the new Art Gallery, which we liked very much, to see a film as part of the Auckland Heritage Festival. Is was footage from about 1910-1945 on various aspect of life in Auckland, and was very interesting. We then walked down to the waterfront to visit the Fan Zone and watched some of the Wales - Samoa game on one of the big screens. I think they have put a lot of effort into making the fan zone a good experience, and apart from buying food and drink it is all free. We returned home for pies and goodies which we had purchased from a Taiwanese Cake shop - Wood Cake and Almond Balls - nice and not too sweet. The pies were good too.


It was interesting watching the match at the fan zone as they had the full Sky coverage. We only get the free-to-air coverage on Maori, so we see less camera angles. The big screen and closer camera angles made the game feel much more visceral, though as with other Sky Sports coverage I have seen, I was not impressed with the commentary. On Maori they have a commentator and two "assistants". These assistants are usually retired rugby players who have a connection with the teams who are playing. They spend most of their commentating time in good natured banter, which is very enjoyable. A little like Radio 4 cricket commentary but with more pith.


The weather has been a bit mixed this week, with sunshine and some heavy showers, but the sun is starting to warm up again and things have a spring feel about them.


That's all for now,

Rick

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