Let them eat brioche (she didn’t say cake apparently)

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I have had another refreshingly busy week, and Nicky has started to feel that she is getting to grips with some of the things at BHB library. We have had a week of lovely weather, cool starts, hot afternoons, and warm evenings, with some beautiful sunrises and sunsets, and passed the autumn equinox.

I had a filling replaced at the dentists on Monday, and Nicky had such a busy day at work that she felt too tired to go to Prison Prayer group in the evening. I had my lunch by the beach on Tamiki Drive while between jobs on Tuesday. On Wednesday we both went down to the new branch of Mexicali which is by the library in New Lynn. The current and recently ex-staff had decided to get together to see how things were going. It was a great venue to meet because we were easily able to move round the tables to talk to different people, and the food was prepared in front of us at the counter, so there were no heated discussions about who pays for what, or lengthy waits for everything to come together. Nicky dropped me at home before going off to house group at Helen and Warwicks.

With only one quick Mac job to on Friday morning followed by writing a long email, I went up to Parakai in the afternoon for a wallow in the hot springs at the Rock Pool. We had a good chat with Claire on the phone at the end of the working day as she walked home. Things are going OK in Dunedin. I also bought brioche, partly for a weekend treat, but also because Nicky has given up bread for lent (along with wine and chocolate - she’s really up against it this year). I was concerned that she would have nothing to go under her scrambled eggs and bacon with Saturday morning breakfast, and toasted brioche seemed to be a suitable substitute.

We had a very late start on Saturday, as both of us had difficulty getting off to sleep until the small hours the night before. Nicky also decided to water the garden and plant out some of the Piglets before brunch. Afterwards, Nicky washed the windows while I did the ironing. We finished in time to walk round to Connaught Street for a house auction. The house itself was in need of major repair or demolishing (the more likely), but sits on 17002m of prime Blockhouse Bay land, so we were curios as to what it would go for. $1.13M turned out to be the winning bid, and the Chinese folks who bought it looked like they could have easily gone higher. We learned in the auction preamble that the council will soon be changing the minimum section size from 5002m to 6002m, so if the new owners move quickly, they will be able to put three houses up instead of two. It struck me that this change doesn’t do much to encourage developers to build more smaller properties.

In celebration of our not spending our not-yet-won Bonus Bonds $1M, we bought ice cream cones from Lick and sat in the prow of the ship by the roundabout to eat them and watch people in a competition hunt for hidden car keys. The first two guys that arrived nabbed them. We watched another disappointing Sherlock in the evening, so moved swiftly on to HP film 4 which we enjoyed much more, even without a glass of wine (I haven’t given up wine for lent but am not sure that I want to risk drinking on my own).

Today has again been lovely, so after Nicky zipped off to church (also on morning coffee duty) I drove out to Whatipu and had three glorious hours on the beach. The tide was lower than I have experienced there before, and it revealed much firmer sand which was great for walking on. I also thoroughly enjoyed a careful splash in the surf - the currents were are strong as ever, but the tide was coming in. When I got home, Stella and Katie were here and there was much Scrabbeling at the table. As I write this Nicky is making things with cooking apples that smell very inciting. Hopefully some quality testing can be done before our evening of tellyboxing/reading and after our tea of sweetcorn cobs.

BTW Dr Hanlon (not that I expect you ever read this most scintillating of web based trivia), I have committed you (should you ever be in Auckland) to a visit to the café and bakery where I bought the brioche so the staff can speak to someone (other than themselves) in French. It will be a rare occurrence for them so I suspect will cheer them greatly.

Take care,

Rick

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