Busy and eventful - ish

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Well, we didn't make it to the All Blacks parade up Queen Street last Monday, but around 250,000 others did! Instead we spent the bulk of Labour Day on the beach at Muriwai. It is one of two remaining west coast black beaches which we had not yet visited. It is very long and flat with firm sand and dunes which are eroding. It is the most commercial, or upmarket, depending on your view point, of the west coast beaches that we have been to. The car parking is very organised and landscaped, the toilet and changing facilities are quite modern, and there is a a good café and take away. We strolled for awhile and then just lazed in the sun after eating our picnic lunch.



As you can see from this photo, by early afternoon is was getting really busy:



The rest of the week as been quite eventful. Claire has been both revising and working on an assignment which replaces the exam for one of her modules. This had to be in on Thursday. Nicky had had a very busy week at work. Tuesday she was on first aid training in Glen Eden, and Wednesday on Reference training again in Glen Eden. This was a one day course condensed into half a day so very intense, but very good. On Thursday she was co-opted into an afterwork meeting at the RSA with New Lynn businesses, but missed quite a bit of it because of helping the Police trying to track down a banned borrower who had been in the library. On Friday she was supposed to be working a late night but when she arrived at work at 11.00 discovered that the roster had been changed and she was finishing at 5.30 as usual. That was OK, it just changed my dinner plans a bit as I don't often eat on my own these days so had bought some scallops - Nicky and Claire don't like them.


On Wednesday evening Nicky and I went to her church group social, where we saw photos of trips abroad to Australia, Argentina and Chile. We walked there and back and saw a shooting star on the way home - my fist in NZ since we got here just over 4 years ago.


I have also had some Mac work, some of which was on Saturday. So while I was out Nicky was busy doing laundry and cleaning. Nicky went off to get her hair done later in the afternoon, and did some other errands while she was out. We had some onion and veg soup for tea with a French stick which we enjoyed. I am taking it easy as I pulled a muscle in my back on Friday morning and it is making some movements very painful.


The weather has been reasonable for most of the week and today has been gorgeous. Lots of sun but not too hot. We decided not to go to Parakai for a wallow last night as we had a BOGOF voucher for the hot pools in Wiawera. While Nicky was at church I made us a packed lunch (with dip and bagel crisp goodies) and we had the afternoon enjoying the sun and the hot pools. I was having difficulty getting comfortable because lying on the grass did nothing for my back and the hot water quite quickly started to irritate the wound site on my back. Even though it is three weeks since I had the stitches out, the new skin is still very tender. We left a bit after 6 and drove to St. Heliers to deliver a cake, card, gift and flowers to Ruth who was 95 today. She has had a very busy couple of days celebrating so we didn't stay long as she was tired. We drove back down into St.Heliers and found Rock Fire, a burger and kebab take away. Nicky had a Kiwi burger (beef, avocado, bacon and salad) and I had a Venison burger (with beetroot relish), and because we couldn't decide on wedges or kumra fries the server said he would do us a mixed portion of both. The food was hot and very enjoyable, and we ate sitting by the edge of the beach listening to the sea as the sky turned a spectacular midnight blue. To our right was the outline of Rangitoto and to our left the lights of the CBD. We drove back home and had tea and date scones. It's been a good weekend.


Bye for now,

Take care

Rick

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