Visiting American Dude

I had a surreal experience on Thursday. I caught a bus just after 9am to go to a job on Queen Street. As we were coming into town on Symonds Street, the traffic came to a stand still on the bridge over the motorways. I noticed that the other side of the road was completely empty. Then I spotted a Police motorcyclist. Then another. Ah-ha I thought! After waiting a couple of minutes the motorcade started to appear, Police cars and bikes followed by four or five very old fashioned FBI type black Chrysler SUV’s, then a long black limo with flags, more Police cars and SUV’s, another small limo with flags, then a couple more cars and some buses, probably carrying the “press gaggle”. It must be that American dude I thought. I was tempted to ask the bus driver to let me off for a couple of minutes so that I could stand in the road and berate the Vice President for holding up OUR traffic and check for uranium on his breath, but I thought the Treasury men might give me a prolonged pat-down and I would be late for work. So Mr B went on his way, and our bus tootled passed the Langham Hotel where they had closed the bus stops (in case the VP fancied a bus for a change???) terming at St James on Queen Street. I disembarked and started walking up the road. Approaching me wearing a scarf to protect him from the chilly wind, carrying a file of papers under one arm and a paper cup of take-out coffee in the other was our very own Mr Mayor, Len Brown. On his own. No entourage. No henchmen. Just the Mayor. We exchanged the time of day and carried on our respective journey’s to work. Surreal.

The other much more significant excitement in our week was yesterday. Nicky went up to church for a women’s retreat, which included manicures, foot and hand massage, lunch and study. It wasn’t quite what she was expecting but enjoyable none the less. In the evening we went over to Orakei to have dinner at Cheryl’s, one of my friends from Deep and Meaningful. As there were 10 of us she had asked for specific contributions (preferably with a Christmas theme) to go with the ham that she produced. We took pre-dinner nibbles of peanuts, stuffed dates, smoked salmon and cream cheese on lavosh and sun-dried tomato, prosciutto and smoked cheese sticks. To accompany the ham, other people provided bread rolls with garlic butter, jacket spuds, home grown spinach and beetroot salad (with flowers which turned out to be edible), and a parsnip and carrot salad with slivered toasted almonds and a mustard seed dressing. For dessert, we had pumpkin pie with an egg white based filling with spices and dried fruit, and no cane sugar. Then, with post-dinner drinks a platter of six award winning cheeses. It was all wonderful in taste and texture, and of course the company (being primarily D&M members) was excellent. We had a really good evening but were very tired by the time we left.

The rest of the week has, on the whole, been pretty good. The library has been busy but not manic. I have had a good amount of work which has gone well, and we both had an evening out with life group for Nicky and a Small Business MeetUp for me. Getting the washing dry has been a bit of a pain with the weather, but it’s that time of year.

We had heavy rain overnight last night but by the time we were getting up the sky had cleared. Nicky went off to church and I went to Karekare, where it was like Skegness on steroids - very bracing. Steve and Stella came over for late morning Scrabble and stayed until the afternoon as Paul called to say he and Jenny would be calling in. In between the showers of rain we have had nice long sunny spells so the lounge has got quite warm.

This evening will be tellyboxing, after finishing off lobs sandwiches that Nicky made for lunch, and the excess ingredients (primarily prosciutto and smoked salmon) from our pre-dinner contribution for last night. It’s the MasterMind final!

Take care, Rick