It's officially Autumn

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Our first day of autumn has been hot and sunny with very few clouds in the sky. A few minutes ago in the lounge it was 28°, and 41° in the roof space. Yesterday was warm and sunny too but not quite as hot as today. We have the table and chairs out on the Ratigan at the moment but it is still too hot to sit out there comfortably (at 10 to 5 in the afternoon). Maybe it will be OK for cocktails later!

With the days starting to shorten we are now getting to see the sunrise with our first cups of tea of the day, and with the angle of the sun changing we are starting to get direct sunlight in the lounge in the late afternoon. The weather has been pretty good all week, though not as hot as the weekend, except for Friday when we had some major downpours.

Nicky has been as busy as ever at work, and has been having her lunch at work again this week. The staff want her to teach them mah jongg but seem to think they can do it in 10 minutes at the end of the lunch break. Nicky is find this a little frustrating (to say the least) and is missing the mid-day walk to and from home.

I have had Mac work at the beginning of the week, and a modelling job in Ponsonby on Thursday which was very tiring and quite hot in a room with little air movement. I had a nice swim at Herne Bay on Wednesday and have worked my way through the shopping and the laundry, but not got to the ironing yet.

The weekday social activities have been quiet this week; Nicky to house group with Jancis; me to my Deep & Meaningful MeetUp.

Yesterday morning Nicky was down at the beach for 9am to join the tidy-up work party. I did a bit of local shopping and got ready to go off to do some Mac work. During the week I have been upgrading the RAM and OS on a laptop so I returned that to a customer in Hillcrest before going on to Takapuna to have a look at an email problem. Steve picked Nicky up in the afternoon and they went over to Stella’s to play Scrabble. I was much longer in Takapuna than I was expecting and so picked Nicky up from Stella’s on my way home. We had a quick bite to eat and got ready to go to a party being hosted by one of my fellow MeetUp members at her home in Orakei. She is also a member of Art Explore and had invited most of the regular participants of the two groups. We had a great evening talking to lots of interesting people, watching the sun go down behind Sky Tower, and eating a mouthwatering selection of Chinese food, all with a wonderful view of the harbour and Hobson Bay from the deck.

Nicky was on morning tea duty at church this morning, and as we had Clem and Pat coming round for lunch I made a smoked fish and watercress tart, which Nicky accompanied with a salad when she returned (with Jancis). Pat brought us loads of produce from their garden, a rhubarb and frangipani tart and made a tom & mozzarella salad. Stella also join us for lunch after unexpectedly seeing Clem and Pat on the motorway. It was very good to have a gentle chat and catch up.

This evening will follow our current Sunday trend infront of the tellybox, if we can drag ourselves away from the cocktails on the Ratigan.


Take care, Rick

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