Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

We are rounding off a great weekend with our feet up in front of the tellybox this evening. Not only have we had two glorious days of spring sunshine with blue skies and fluffy clouds, but the 2015 Auckland Heritage festival has begun, and it has been very busy for us, or as the locals say, full on. Yesterday commenced with a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast, followed by the assembly of a picnic lunch. First stop was St. Heliers (named after the port in Jersey) for a heritage walk. We were there a little early to find free parking so had a good wander round “the village” before meeting up with the guide outside the library, one of the few heritage buildings left. The tour took in some of the locations of where notable buildings had been, and some of the new constructions. Unfortunately the guide was over-running so we had to leave before he finished to get to our next tour. The party gather A contemporary building The Beach - lovely We were a little lat...

…and the 2015 Rugby World Cup has started. I was up in time yesterday (just before 6am) to watch the opening ceremony and match. It was a couple of hours before Nicky surfaced so it was a good job that I had recored the ceremony. We followed England’s win with a late breakfast of tomatoes on toast. Nicky had another good BHB Quilters in the afternoon and I started putting this years photo-book together. Today Nicky went straight to Stella’s for Scrabble with her and Steve after her morning at the prison. Monday was our 8th anniversary of arriving in New Zealand. Claire rang for a chat and to celebrate I cooked NZ lamb for dinner and was very pleased to be able to serve it with some very good “proper” mint sauce - purchased from Nosh but originally produced by Waitrose! On Wednesday evening we went down to Te Pou theatre on Portage Road to see “The Great American Scream”, which was part of the Going West festival. We had been given free tickets by Amber who ran the Te Reo classes ...

Winter has been reminding us this week that it has not quite gone away yet. It has been cold and wet much of the time, but this hasn’t stopped borrowers frequenting the library and making it a very busy week for Nicky. I, on the other hand, have had a very quiet week work-wise, with just a couple of jobs. In addition to my routine house husband tasks, I spent time at the beginning of the week organising our Heritage Festival schedule which is coming up shortly. I also collected my spectacles, one pair for driving (with magnetically attached polarised lenses for the sunny days) and another “normal” pair for general distance vision, such as watching the tellybox and reading the behind-the-counter menu’s in cafés. It is going to take me awhile to get used to them, and the almost painfully crisp view of the world, but I am quite pleased to start using them. We had Shani visiting us for dinner again on Wednesday so I made beef and mozzarella pie which turned out OK, but not quite wh...

It has been one of those weeks where the weather is apparently good for the garden, but not for the laundryman. The official beginning of spring on Tuesday brought with it much rain, and all of it wet. My working week has been bookended with jobs on Monday and Friday with nothing in-between. Nikcy’s week has been very busy and difficult, but a staff meeting seems to have helped the situation. Socially it has been quiet too, with Nicky just out on Monday for prison prayer group, and me on Friday up at The Block for a drink. I started with a bit of a cold on Thursday which is still lingering but is not too bad. The paracetamol really helps. The notable events this week have been: the announcement by the flag commission of the final four designs that we will get to choose from; (for those of you not in this neck of the woods you can see them here: https://www.govt.nz/browse/engaging-with-government/the-nz-flag-your-chance-to-decide/the-four-alternatives); my organising our holiday ...