Steaming Fences

Mist, rain and warm sunny periods have been the controlling factors in the smooth running of my laundry system this week. But, due to my sneaky approach of running out with a basket of wet washing as soon the sun comes out I have kept the contents of the laundry basket down to a minimum. The ironing, being an indoor activity (though now I come to think of it there are other options…) has just been down to motivation, but we got it all finished yesterday, ready for a new batch this week. Joy!

Work has not been so busy for me this week, though I have had some. Lots of errands appear to have been done however, including: collecting consumables for Nicky's hearing aids; buying a FreeView box so that when the analogue signal is turned off at the end of November we can still legitimately complain that there is little or nothing worth watching. We will know. We will have watched and confirmed that it wasn't worth it.

I popped up to the Doctor's on Tuesday so that he could take a look at my eczema as I have just started my last tube of stuff. While I was there he did my blood pressure (which was excellent, unlike the pressure on my wallet) and sent me off for annual bloods, and an x-ray. Two ares of "interest" came up when going through a body scanner in Orlando in May. One was my wallet, and the other, the security man was interested to note, was not hiding under my T-shirt but inside me. It is in an area of my chest where I do sometimes have pain and/or discomfort, so Dr. V. thought it should be checked out. He hasn't called so I assume the x-ray revealed nothing or has got lost.

Nicky has been busy again at the library, and out two evening this week with prayer groups (or biscuit deliveries as I am starting to think of them).

On Wednesday night we had some major rain (and similar again last night). I wouldn't have been surprised to feel the house slowly rise and start to float away, concrete plinth and all. What did surprise me was while out for my constitutional on Thursday morning, the sun was already warm enough to get some of the wooden fences steaming, and not just a little either. 

On Monday Claire had an interview for a fixed term contract records management job (I'll be corrected if I'm wrong) which she got - yippie! She needed to have a medical at a centre in Manukau on Friday morning, so I provided her with a taxi service. On the way, the coolant level low light came on in Lilly (this hasn't happened before) so after parking and a quick conversation with Paul I topped up the system with some cheap (!) spring water to get her through to her service in a couple of weeks. Claire passed the medical, without having to have a top up.

Stella moved most of her office (just left the fax machine here) over to her new home on Friday, so my shelving is girding its loins for a major tidy and re-organisation. More joy.

We have had a quiet weekend pottering around at home. I got the FreeView box set up yesterday, which went OK once I had figured out which aerial socket to use. Nicky was taking a break from doing some sewing in the afternoon when the sewing machine decided it would sew all on its own, and make a horrible smell at the same time (no, it wasn't flatulence, but a burnt out motor). In the evening she went to the Civic with Doris to see Swan Lake. Doris had been given two tickets by her daughter and asked Nicky to go with her, because apparently she (Nicky) doesn't go out very often (I let her go to work five days a week!).

Today after Nicky came back from church Valda dropped in for tea and gave us a lovely account of her recent trip to Europe and the UK with Tom. We have got a couple of house group members coming over for dinner tomorrow night, so I nipped up to the supermarket to get the ingredients for an experimental cheesecake - lemon curd - based on Nigella Lawson's Chocolate cheesecake recipe that I made a few weeks ago and was gorgeous.  I made that this afternoon while Nicky did the hoovering (we don't vacuum in this household). This evening will be tellybox viewing, digital, not analogue.

The more things change etc….

Take care,
Rick