Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

We started the week in a spin - at the Sky Tower rotating restaurant (Orbit). We had both booked Monday off to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. The weather was quite cloudy as we sat up in bed drinking our first mugs of tea of the day and opening our presents - pearls for Nicky and a waistcoat with mother-of-pearl buttons for me (which Nicky made; it’s brilliant). People had told us that the food at the Orbit restaurant wasn’t always fantastic, but that the views compensated. It rotates a full 360° every hour (I think) so you get to see the whole view of Auckland while eating. We actually enjoyed the food very much. Nicky had the pumpkin soup entrée and the cheese board dessert. I had the venison pie main course with baby carrots and smoked mashed spuds followed by tiramisu. The only disappointment was that Nicky would have liked some nice bread with her soup as she still felt a little hungry at the end of her meal. By the time we had taken our seat in the restaurant the clou

Well, dear reader, it has been a very mixed week. On the up side, I have had a good amount of work, Nicky had a very successful BHB Quilters session, we have had a very enjoyable afternoon tea, and the upgrade of Nikcy’s iPad to iOS8 has not been as traumatic as I thought it might have been. On the down side Nicky has had a couple of days off work with a really bad cold, and Christine, one of the core members of the prison outreach group has died. She went into a hospice early this week and died on Friday. She will be missed. Most of my work has been in the CBD so I have been going into town on the bus. On Monday I encountered these polar bears in Aotea Square: I also did some major document editing for a customer in Blenheim via email. We have almost had enough sunny weather to get the washing dried outside, but not quite enough so I had to do a load today. The wind on Tuesday was icy (from the south) and the nighttime low of 6° gave us a very chilly Wednesday morning.  Ni

Work has started to pick up again a little for me this week, so it has felt a bit more normal fitting the laundry and shopping around it. Nicky has has another steady week at the library, and on Wednesday went over to Henderson with a colleague for a PSA meeting. The pay deal which the union has negotiated is not ideal, but not bad under the present circumstances. The weather has been dryer and we have had some sunny periods which have been great. Temperatures are dropping all the time so we are pleased to have the winter quilt on the bed and the heaters available. Nicky had a good prison group meeting on Monday, but Te Reo was cancelled on Tuesday, just after I had finishing icing (well, Philly-cheesing actually) the almond and marmalade cake that we had defrosted. It was enjoyed by the library staff on Wednesday and there was enough left over for Nicky and I to have a couple of pieces. Euthanasia is very much in the news here at the moment and it was the topic for my MeetUp gro

Food has been a major theme this week. We had quite a few lobs from last Saturdays Consulting Detective evening, the main ones being the chocolate cheesecake and fruit pie which Nicky made, and the party cheese ball which Kelly brought. It took us until Friday afternoon to clear everything. Nicky has taken the week off as annual leave which has worked well. We started the week with a public holiday for the Queen’s Birthday, though I spent the morning getting a Mac working which was flying back to Wellington in the afternoon. This gave Nicky the chance to do some sewing, laundry and ironing and we had a walk in the afternoon. We started watching Garrows Law on DVD in the evening, a dramatisation of the work of William Garrow in the Old Bailey who brought about the adversarial changes in the law courts. Tuesday was my birthday and we were greeted with dull skies. I opened my excellent range of cards in bed with a couple of mugs of tea. Presents were opened later with porridge, and