Zen and the Art of Laundry

Into April now, Easter and hot cross bunnies fast approaching, and I am still marvelling at the high pressure systems that are bringing us such lovely weather (on the whole). Somebody, other than the Solomon Islands and Chile must be suffering. It hasn’t been wall-to-wall sunshine - we had some fog on Tuesday morning and it rained during Thursday night.

Nicky has now finished her fourth week at BHB Library and is getting more into the routine. She was very pleased to make a Harry Potter connection unexpectedly with a couple of the staff this week, so she took all her American copies of the HP book’s in to show them. On Monday night she had prison prayer group, and house group on Wednesday night, when Jancis joined her.

I have seen quite a bit of Jancis this week in order to help her get her accounts ready for a meeting she has coming up. I have also done my end of year accounts (my most profitable year so far, but I’m only operating at about 30% of what I need to do to support us), finished re-building my website and uploaded it, and had a meeting with a rep from Yellow Pages. I have also had a couple of jobs to throw into the mix. Having a quieter week has been good because I aggravated my old back injury on Monday morning while changing the bed, and it really hurt. Fortunately it is about back to normal now.

I have discovered that I have natural zen, after reading an article in Canvas (the colour supplement with the Saturday Herald) about the zen of straight hedges. Not that I keep any hedges straight, but that I try to find some joy or pleasure in the mundane elements of everyday life, such as emptying the airing cupboard and using the washing machine and clothes line to make ironing (which is not has fun as making toast but it has its rewards).

On Thursday evening we went down to the New Lynn twilight market to meet Beccy and Dave and sample some of the culinary delights on offer. They seem to be well and it was good to catch up, and a good place to do it. We ended to working week on Friday with Nicky going for a hair cut and me going to the pub.

Nicky started the weekend with a women’s breakfast up at the church. Unfortunately the food wasn’t as good as the company, and she was a little envious of my fried bacon-tomato-egg on toast with toast and coffee to follow indulgence. Nicky cut the grass before Steve and Stella came over for Scrabble. Stella took the mower away with her to tackle her lawns and is so pleased with our battery powered machine that she is thinking of one for herself. We had a quiet afternoon pottering (N) and enjoying the sun (R), and then watched a two-part “Above Suspicion” on the tellybox in the evening. While Nicky was in the shower, I put all the clocks back an hour - not to annoy her but because Daylight Saving finished for us last night. It will be going dark early this evening.

Today Nicky went off to church early to hand out either promotional material or service sheets, not sure which. Do to my expectation that the sunny weather isn’t going to last another six months I went of to Karekare for a walk down the beach and a splash in the sea, which was lovely. The water was almost warm, certainly not cold. This afternoon Nicky took a kowhai tree over to Stella which she had dug up this morning, and I moved some creases about with the steam iron. Nicky is just starting on making us tea - macaroni cheese, and I have told her she can use as much bacon as she likes (she is a bit cautious with it some times), and I don’t believe that you can over indulge on bacon because it is natural and so must be good for you, though that argument could be undermined by the fact that it tastes nice.

An finally dear reader, while listening to the radio this week (we are trying to wean ourselves into Radio NZ National -  you wouldn’t believe the joy we had when we arrived in England last May, picked up the hire car, set off for Andover and tuned into Radio 4…bliss) I discovered a neat thing. Researchers in the UK have discovered that you can reduce by 50% the nasty hydrocarbons that form on meat when cooking it on a hot BBQ by marinating it in black beer (my favourite) for four hours before cooking. Brilliant. Drunk steak. I wonder if they might give the beer to the cowes so that they can fall over because they are drunk instead of mad? Mmm…

Take care, and marinate that beef,

Rick

PS: this was my view while eating my lunch on Thursday while out at work in Milford.