Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

Well Dear Reader, I hope your Christmas was as good as ours. The weather didn’t entirely play ball, but we had a grand time all the same. Monday was lovely and sunny, but as the week has progressed the weather has become more unsettled and wet. However, even though Christmas Day started with some rain, by lunchtime when everybody was arriving at our place it had dried up and the sun was just about to come out. Shopping on Monday was as manic as you would expect. The problem was made worse by husbands who appeared to have been dragged out for their annual food shop and were at a loss as to what to do, so just got themselves and their trolly’s in the way of the more seasoned customer. I also had a trip up to Murray’s Bay to discuss a modelling assignment with a photographer (which went OK) and did some wine shopping, ready for Wednesday. The laundry, once through the magic machine, largely looked after itself. A bit more shopping was done Tuesday morning, to be followed by the prep

It has largely been a week of hot sunny weather. Some cloud and lower temperatures arrived towards the end of the week, but it has generally been very nice. This has of course made getting the washing dry a cinch, but not helped with the ironing at all. I have had a bit of Mac work each day, making December a reasonable month. Food shopping and Christmas preparations have also featured heavily with the production of two Christmas puddings and eight pork pies. Sausage rolls and mice pies are scheduled to be made on Christmas Eve. Nicky had her works do up at The Block on Tuesday evening, and it went very well. Everyone enjoyed it, some of them being surprised to do so. It’s the first time they have had an evening Christmas celebration. Nicky had her interview and visit to Blockhouse Bay library on Friday morning. They are really looking forward to her starting with them in March, and I think Nicky feels a bit happier about things now too. We are hoping to go and visit Claire and R

Nicky has been on holiday this week, which I think has been good timing because she still has a lingering cough from her chest infection, and was not 100% when she was back at work. Gill and Dave spent the last two days of their NZ visit in Auckland. On Monday we got the ferry over to Rangitoto so that they could walk up a volcano for the first time since their honeymoon. Gill and Dave went to the summit via the shortest route, which also has the greatest incline. Nicky didn’t think her knee would cope with the slope so she and I headed out on one of the gentler but longer ascents. We didn’t make it to the summit before having to rerun for the last ferry back of the day, but we do expect to go again in the New Year with Jancis, so will catch an earlier ferry to give us more time. The weather was very good for visiting Rangitoto - dry and sunny but not too warm. After we got back to town we drove down Tamaki Drive to enjoy the view and have a cup of tea. After dinner Gill came rou

The death of Nelson Mandela has been a momentous event for the world this week. There are many South African’s living here in NZ, most of them white, so the emotions generated by his death have resonated here. In our own little way, we too have had a memorable week. Nicky has finally been told which library she is to be moved to next year, and Claire has accepted a job in Dunedin. Both these pieces of news came on Monday.  When Nicky was asked which libraries she would be willing to move to, Blockhouse Bay was not on the list because it is inundated with children after school and is not to a pleasant place to be. Keeping the children under control as they wait for their parents to collect them is a major headache. So, Blockhouse Bay is where she is to be moved to! Probably around the end of March next year. The one upside is that it’s close to home so we won’t incur increased transport costs. Claire has been offered a post at a legal firm In Dunedin which is not quite the one

…but the egg cups are not. Now here is a mystery more taxing than The Case of The Missing Chocolate Fingers, which happened at Park Road many years ago (in the space of a minute, between the kitchen and the front door a whole box of Cadbury’s Chocolate Fingers went missing, packaging and all). While cooking boiled eggs for our Saturday morning breakfast I went into the cupboard to extract the necessary crockery, and the egg cups were just not there. Well, that is not quite true, Nicky’s “eggs-on-legs” was there, but we also have six stainless steel ones which Paul And Jenny gave Nicky sometime in the last millennium. One is in my bathroom for holding my deodorant (when inverted), but the other five are kept on the top shelf of the cupboard in the kitchen main unit. For one or two to have gone missing would be understandable as they get put to non-eggistensial use quite regularly, but for all five to be missing is most perplexing. We have searched everywhere we can think of (including t