A Little Parched

Change and serendipity have been the themes for this week. Summer may finally be loosing its grip. Monday to Thursday were glorious sunny and almost cloud free days. Cloud started to increase on Friday and Saturday, when there was even a little rain, and today we have had about 20mm of not too heavy rain. This is just what the farmers need as the whole of the North island has been declared a drought area, the first time in 50 years I think. Parts of the South island are suffering too.

I have started to do some more planning for our trip to the UK, notably organising our US Visa waivers now that we have got our new passports, and figuring out what to do and more specifically, how to get around, in Vancouver.

I had an unexpected treat on Tuesday. After doing some maintenance on a Mac in Whangaparaoa, I took my picnic lunch to Long Bay reserve and walked along the cliff path to Pohutukawa Bay. This is a naturist beach which I have only been to once before. I was much more taken with it this time as the tide was out, the sea was warm, and it was just gorgeous. I walked back along the beach and round the rocks which are covered at high tide feeling I had enjoyed a very good lunch break. The swim in the sea was particularly welcome.

The rest of the week has been taken up with my usual household responsibilities, and continuing to collect 

census forms. This has got less and less through the week, and I am just left with a few which I have not been able to make contact with the occupants. I do my "handover" next week. Lilly, our lovely little green VW Polo also had her bi-annual warrant and service, and I am hoping that her passing the warrant without needing any work means that the bill we be a small one.

Claire came over on Friday for a free massage, and also stayed for a free lunch. Still, we got to have a good chat.

Nicky has had a busy week at work, but the highlights of the week for her have been this weekend. Yesterday we went to have a look at an "open home" (a house which is for sale) which is a new build and had caught my interest because of the design of the windows. They were deeper and squarer than we usually see in new houses, and I was interested to see them. We then popped round to one of her work colleagues who has had a shoulder operation to deliver a birthday card. We came home for lunch and watched "My Left Foot" on DVD which was moving and very good.

In the evening we went to the Pah Homestead which the Wallace Art Trust use to display their collection. There current prime exhibition is exclusively of male nudes. The Deputy Director of the Trust was giving a talk on the exhibition as part of the Auckland White Night event - where lots of the galleries stay open until midnight, and other special events take place. They were also doing tours of the tower, part of the Homestead normally closed to the public. We enjoyed both, but decided to linger as there was to be another talk (which we hadn't known about) on portraiture by an up and coming self taught artist. Our reward for waiting for this was to enjoy an impromptu performance by The Singing Complaints Choir. They did a set of three songs, the best of which (in my view) was "Cheese is so expensive".

Nicky also discovered an exhibition called Islanders, so after the second excellent talk and a cup of tea and sticky bun (as Paddington would call them), we drove off to Ponsonby via the crowds coming out of Eden Park. The exhibition was by a textile and clothes designer who has created 18th and 19th century style garments, with modern Kiwi patterns, such as ferns. Nicky thought it was brilliant and even I was quite interested. By the time we got home (approaching midnight) we were ready for our beds, but Nicky still had her sermon to prepare for todays prison visit, and I was asleep before she came to bed.

Nicky and Co were back early from prison, which was helpful as they had got drenched in the rain, and decided to best way to dry out was to demolish our stock of scones which Nicky had made yesterday. These were washed down with pots of tea and coffee and lively conversation.

This afternoon Nicky has been to a quilting exhibition with Stella and then we have had a quiet evening. It is still quite warm (it is 25°C in the hall as I write this at 21.48) and feels muggy. Autumn is on its way, which I think is unfortunate as I thought summer was just getting started. Not sure that we will get to eat on The Ratigan again for awhile but we shall see.

Take care,

Rick

PS: Have just remembered the other event of the week - we had a couple of small earthquakes this afternoon. I was sitting on the sofa and thought I felt something. It was only a 3 point something out at Motutapu Island. What is interesting is that Auckland doesn't usually get earthquakes, it has volcanoes instead.