Go the Owls

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They have done it - and it is all the sweeter with their main rivals being United. For those of you who haven't been paying attention, Sheffield Wednesday have finished the season second in League One, beating Sheffield United to the the automatic promotion place by 3 points. As the season drew to a close United were in second place and Wednesday in third for a number of weeks. Then they switched places and with just a few games to go I have been checking the results with bated breath each week to see if Wednesday could maintain their second place behind Charlton, and avoid the promotion play-off's. With the last games of the season yesterday they did just that, so will be playing Championship football next season. That's still Division Two in old money, but better than Division Three.

Back here, the weather has been lovely this week. Warm sunny days tempered with a gentle southerly breeze, though by mid-morning on Saturday the wind eased and it was a still and very warm day.

Nicky has had a busy week at work as ever, and prison prayer group on Monday evening. On Wednesday evening we both joined some of Nickys house group members for a social evening at Bricklane. We both had pasta again (Wednesday night is $15 pasta night) and again thoroughly enjoyed our food. The only down-side was we had to wait a long time as they prepared the meals to serve all twelve of us at the same time.

I have popped into Whitcoulls a couple of time this week to see Claire, have done a bit of Mac work, and had an excellent day modelling on Thursday at the Freelance Animation school. I was working for a tutor who I have worked for elsewhere, and because the day was split between four classes I didn't have to do too many really long poses. It is about 4 years since I have been to Freelance and they now have a new life drawing room which is one of the best I have worked in.

Yesterday we went to have a look at an open home - a new build on Blockhouse Bay Road. We were very impressed with the design and construction of the four bedroom house. We then walked round the corner to the auction of a house on Puketea Street which we had looked at as a rental property in 2008. It is a very nice house in a good spot so we thought it might sell for $600-$700,000, but it went for $574,000 and everybody seemed to think it was a fair price. Being a 10 minute walk from the shops had more effect than I imagined.

We got laundry and chores done too, and enjoyed the sunshine, and have had a quiet day pottering around the house today. We put the winter quilt on yesterday as with all this clear weather the nights are dropping to 6-8°, but it has clouded over this afternoon so I expect it will be a little warmer tonight. Dawn and Barry came in for a cup of tea and Nicky's freshly made date scones this afternoon. We discussed the possibility of having a heat pump fitted and our expectation of a rent review this October, as that will be the fourth anniversary of moving here and they have not put the rent up at all. We really like living here - it is such a comfortable house in a great spot with great neighbours, we feel very lucky and really appreciate the relationship that we have with them, but we also appreciate that we are paying below the market rate and would rather pay a little more than have to move on.

That's all for now,
Take care, Rick

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