Food, glorious food.

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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 Nicky did a whites wash. Nicky gave me a lovely ceramic tile (to use as a coaster) from Morris and James, Claire and Ryan sent Badger beer which I have not had since leaving England. David Milne introduced me to it and it is very palatable. Stella gave me a bag of coffee beans and a grinder to prepare them ready for brewing! It was pressed into action very quickly.

The weather started to clear a little as we headed down to Farmers in the mall to buy shirts - my requested gift from Nicky. We found three in shades of blue which suit me and I am very pleased with them. We then headed off to Elevations for lunch, and were rewarded with clearing skies and sunshine. The views from the café on Scenic Drive were great, and though the smoked fish pies we each ordered were good, they were nothing special. After lunch we had a drive down Log Race road to enjoy the view, then home for cheesecake (I had a lit candle in mine momentarily) the sunshine, and back to Garrows Law in the evening.

Wednesday also started grey, but turned to rain after I returned from picking up a Mac to work on. While Nicky sewed in the afternoon the rain got heavier, especially in Dunedin, but C&R survived OK (they live up a hill). It didn’t stop us going out to Deco in Titirangi for dinner with Nicky’s house group, where we had a very good evening and enjoyed the food. Nicky had Greek meatballs followed by fresh fig mouse and I had 24 hour cooked beef cheek followed by affogato (espresso and vanilla ice cream).

The heavy rain continued overnight but though Thursday started grey again, the rain eased off and the temperature was a little milder. Nicky spent the day sewing while I pottered in the office before going into town for the evening to my MeetUp group.

We actually had some patches of clear sky on Friday morning. Nicky wanted to to go over to see Paul and Jenny to show them Lucy’s birthday gift that they have contributed to, so we rang them and they invited us for morning tea. On the way we called into Nosh to spend a gift card which Nicky had been given at Christmas (Italian cold meat, Whitestone cheese and fresh bread). We had a very pleasant chat with P&J while drinking tea and coffee and eating Jenny’s muffins. On the way home we called in Caro’s to spend another Christmas gift voucher. We only bought two bottles of wine this year because one was very expensive - Hungarian Tokaji. I had not seen it before but have been wanting to try some since reading about it in Philip Pullaman’s Northern Lights. It’s currently chilling.

Saturday was the first day of the week where we felt we could put washing out to dry, so we did after the mist cleared, but it wasn’t a good drying day. Nicky made a cheese ball as she had rung Clem and Pat (other contributors to Lucy’s gift) and we had been invited for soup and rolls. Steve and Stella came over for Scrabble in the afternoon, then we drove up to C&P’s and had a very good evening. Pat gave Nicky loads of clothes and shoes.

Today has been better than we expected. While Nicky was at church I did the ironing, and this afternoon we have started on Garrows Law series three (courtesy of DVD’s loaned by Ros). We had a walk down to the beach before running out of daylight, and as I write this Nicky is preparing pancakes for tea.

Finally, thanks to all of you for all my birthday greetings using all the technologies that we have available to us these days.

Take care,

Rick

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