Another Birthday begins a busy week

It has been one of those weeks where thinking back to Monday seems like the dim and distant past...

While Claire was over last Sunday celebrating her birthday, Nicky started talking about having pancakes for breakfast, partially because that is what Ryan had cooked for Claire for her birthday breakfast, and partially because it is one of the options available for her work Christmas breakfast do. She wasn't sure about pancakes for breakfast because of them being sweet. With Monday being Nicky's birthday we had planned to go up to the macadamia farm on South Head to see the lilies on their pond. She gets a day's birthday leave from work, though I think this perk is finishing at the end of this year. The weather wasn't brilliant - very cloudy, some rain, temperature mid-teens, but we decided to go anyway.

The beginning of our journey was punctuated with shopping, mainly in St Lukes, returning the green jeans which I had bought for her but didn't fit, banking cheques which she had been sent, and trying to find new gumboots for the lily viewing to come and other odd uses (her current ones leak). We had no joy with the gumboot hunting, so headed north up SH16 towards South Head. When we got to the macadamia farm, just after 12, even though the signs said it was open it was closed. This turned out to be due to the ill health of the proprietors. We decided to continue going north and turned off east to Shelly Beach. We were greeted with a large beach side car park, toilets, a café, and excellent views across the Kaipara harbour as the clouds and the rain tracked north. Nicky decided that she wanted a cup of tea, so we headed to the café. Tea was indeed consumed, after pancakes, and a stroll down the jetty! We both ordered the pancake stack which consisted of one large pancake, four small ones, and two tiny ones. In between were bananas, bacon, blueberries and maple syrup, and the stack was topped off with a squirt of whipped cream and a cherry. They were fantastic. The pot of tea was virtually bottomless so we just sat in the warm café, drinking tea, reading the paper, enjoying the view, and watching the rain.

Eventually we dragged ourselves away and head back south the Parakai, and went for a wallow in the hot pools - not at Palm Springs where we go for the naturist night - but at the Parakai Springs Aquatic Park, which is just across the road. This turned out to be a much bigger complex (though probably smaller than Wiawera) and much better maintained than Palm Springs. They have a warm 50m swimming pool, and an indoor relaxation pool which was at 39.5°C. They also have private spa for hire and a rock pool for group hire but we just used to two main pools for about two and a half hours and thoroughly enjoyed relaxing.

We got home about 6 and had our picnic lunch for tea, followed by birthday Butterscotch Cheesecake which I was very pleased with. The cheesecake recipe came from a magazine and I am always a little dubious about magazine recipes, but this turned out to be one of the best cheesecakes I think I have made. The butterscotch topping came from our Pudding Book which always gives us good recipes, I just substituted some of the water with brandy. It had soaked through the cheesecake very nicely overnight. So, overall we had a very good day, inspite of the weather.

Tuesday was back to work at the Library for Nicky, and I had a Mac customer from out of town bringing me his laptop to upgrade. Claire came over for lunch and stayed for the afternoon while I went out to do another Mac job which turned out to be a tortuous router and wireless printer configuration. In the evening, after being fed cannelloni and courgette provencale, Nicky and Claire went off to the cinema to see the latest in the Twilight series.

On Wednesday the customer with the laptop collected and I went off to have a look at a machine in Sandringham. On the way back I stopped at the bank to deposit a cheque, which took all of a couple of minutes, and when I got back into the car it wouldn't start - completely dead. I assumed it was something electrical, probably a fuse, so called the roadside rescue. A helpful man in a van arrived about 30 minutes later and quickly diagnosed it was the battery causing the problem - no longer holding enough charge to turn the engine over. He connected another batter to get me going, and I drove up to an Auto Electric place that we have used once before, and got a new battery fitted straight away. This was very helpful as I had agreed earlier in the morning to go over to Henderson to the Electoral Commission to help with a judicial recount - which I did after grabbing a quick lunch. I didn't get home until 9ish by which time Nicky was already on the way to bed.

After the sunshine a strong winds of Wednesday, Thursday was wet, and I was in Henderson counting again. I was home for dinner, but on my own as Nicky had gone with some fellow librarians to an AUckland Libraries works do in town. This turned out to be quite enjoyable, small amounts of excellent food and some good speeches, and quite a bit of alcohol consumption!

I declined more vote counting on Friday as I had some more Mac work to do and quite a few work and domestic errands to attend to. Claire popped in for lunch again before going off for her evening shift at Whitcoulls. She is doing a lot of extra hours at the moment with the run up to Christmas.

Saturday was another day of playing tag with the weather to get the washing dry, but we managed most of it which was good as today has been very wet again. We are forecast to get some sunshine next week. We got the usual domestic tasks done, and I made Christmas Puddings for the family lunch next week and Nicky delivered calendars for church. Today she has been to prison, and I have delivered an old Mac to a local customer. This afternoon has been Scrabble with Steve and Ros and making shortbread.

I think that's enough for this week. Bye for now, and enjoy getting ready for Christmas.

Rick