Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

It has been a pretty quiet week - Nicky has been home every evening! Work has been busy for Nicky, and I have had my spirits bolstered by some Mac work, mainly on Friday. The weather has also been lovely most of the week, with lots of sunshine. We had some rain on Thursday evening, showers at the beginning and the end of the day on Friday, and then a few more Saturday morning. This didn't stop us getting all the washing dry yesterday, and Nicky ironed it during the evening while watching the telly box. Claire popped over on Monday morning to copy the Graduation photos which I had taken. She stayed quite awhile (drinking my coffee) and we spent so much time talking about food that she got quite hungry and decided to cook vegetable fried rice for us for lunch, which I greatly enjoyed, even though she hadn't brought any of the ingredients with her! Wednesday was ANZAC day and for the fist time (we think), Nicky got the whole day off. Nicky drove to the Museum for the daw

The highlight of this week for us was, without doubt, Claire's Graduation. This was on Thursday at the Bruce Mason Centre in Takapuna.  Claire and Ryan went to Takapuna before Nicky and I so that she could pick up her gown and get ready for the procession through town. We had an early lunch before driving up and having fun finding parking. We didn't spot Claire in the procession until the very end, but we had no problem seeing her on stage to be "capped" and receive her degree. As you can imagine, both proud parents shed a tear. A bit over 23 years ago we didn't know if we we even get her out of hospital. There was was a babe in the Special Care Unit where Claire spent her first three months who had her first birthday while Claire was there. To see her walk across the stage and receive the public recognition of all her hard work, and not only for the last three years, was quite emotional. After the ceremony we all drove back to Mt Eden and have a lovely Indian m

Just incase you can't remember, last Monday was Easter Monday and therefore a public holiday. It was a lovely sunny day so we decided to go to Shakespear Regional Park on the Whangaparaoa peninsula, and while we were there, return some serving tongs to Clem and Pat which had got left behind at our house after our last family do. I wanted to go to Pink Beach, but when we got to the park I missed getting into the car park I was planning to park in because I was just following the guy in front. We stopped in the middle of the park to look at the view, and decided to leave the car there. We started walking towards Pink Beach via a lookout point which gave us some spectacular views. However, Nicky needed to loo so we changed direction and headed downhill to the main beach at Te Haruhi Bay. This is a really nice beach and we ended up staying quite awhile and eating our picnic lunch. Rested and refreshed we started walking round the park to Pink Beach. Once we got there is realised

There has been a tropical storm passing by the north of us this week. Parts of the far north have been flooded again, but down here in Auckland we have been trapped between two weather systems resulting in a wonderful week of mainly warm, sunny weather. This has coincided with Nicky taking a week off work. A little while ago the staff were strongly encouraged to take their annual allocation of leave during their "leave year" as it has been noted that those who don't take their leave take more sickness time than those who do take their leave. So Nicky booked four days this week, and with the long Easter weekend it has given her a 10-day break. Nicky got some gardening done on Monday and I did a little Mac work. We watched a film called "Paperclips" about a school in the USA expanding the horizons of the students by studying the holocaust. In order to get some idea of what "6 million" equates to, they starting collecting paperclips. The film was mo

On the whole it has been a quiet week, but we have had some good weather. Most of the time it has been sunny, with either clear skies or some cloud. This has meant cool starts to the day, but warming up by mid-morning, and by the afternoon it has been nice and warm. This encouraged me to wash the out side of the windows on Wednesday, and I got the inside of the lounge ones done too before Claire called in. The library has been busy for Nicky, though I have had a quieter week with just one Mac job. I have been doing some more work on my theoretical pie shop - talking to banks and starting to look at possible premises. On Thursday after watching Graham Norton on "Who do you think you are?" I was motivated to look up the location of Greasborough, because I knew that the name was familiar but I couldn't exactly place it. So I grabbed the British Road atlas that we keep handy and found it. What was interesting about doing this was looking at the map I had the experi