Bye summer, see you next time.

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Nicky has had quite an interesting week. Blockhouse Bay library is closed for refurbishment, so she had been on loan to Avondale and New Lynn libraries. This has meant a greater variety of tasks, a good walk to work in the morning, and much food-sharing as is the way of things at New Lynn. She was also out at prison prayer group on Monday.

I have a quiet week with work, the first for a while. The week started busy but then quietened down, but along with my household responsibilities I also had a good book on the go (Journey Under the Midnight Sun by Keigo Higashino), and was out at Deep & Meaningful on Thursday.

We had a good evening out on Tuesday with James & Wendy from my D&M group. We had dinner at Pok Pok on K’ Road (a fairly recently opened Thai restaurant). We shared two starters, three mains and three desserts, so had a really good range of tastes and textures, and all for a reasonable price. We had a very enjoyable evening and Nicky didn’t have any nasty side-effects.

Our 31 year old Ekorness Stressless chairs are now showing their age. In the last couple of years the leather has started to come apart badly. I finally got a local upholsterer to take a look at them this week. He thought they might cost around $3000 each to recover, but eventually decided that he didn’t want to take on the work. I went to have a look at new chairs at the local suppliers, and they would cost about the same, so we are now saving hard for replacements.

Many months ago an Englishman who raises Large Black and Berkshire pigs was featured on the Jancis Barlow Show (Country Calendar), and this week I have finally got some of his produce. It is in very high demand as he sells most of his meat at local markets down in the Waikato, so buying over the internet means getting your order in a few minutes after the email arrives that announces he has restocked. I got a pack of Manuka smoked bacon, gammon and ham. We had some of the gammon with pineapple for dinner on Friday, and some of the bacon with breakfast on Saturday, and we really enjoyed it, but it is a premium product.

Yesterday was largely cold and wet. We had a late breakfast, Nicky was at quilting in the afternoon, then Steve came over for Scrabble. Today has been a bit drier, so I went out to Karekare for a walk while Nicky was at church. It was a very high tide, which this photograph does not do justice.


The weather is generally getting more autumnal, with more rain and lower temperatures. Ah well, the very long summer was appreciated while it lasted.


Take care, Rick

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