Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

There are a number of events upon which I can report this week, but I suspect the headliner is the one from which we have just returned - Puchin and Claire’s wedding. No, not our Claire, another Claire (there is more than one Dear Reader, though there is only one that’s dear to me (it’s getting near Christmas again!!)). Puchin is the son of Amy and Victor, a lovely Chinese couple who Nicky worked with at New Lynn library. They invited a number of members of current and past New Lynn library staff, and also asked me to take informal photographs both at the wedding today, and prior to the wedding yesterday. Yesterday’s photographs involved going out and about to the Arataki Visitor Centre and Blockhouse Bay beach, along with some in Amy and Victors front garden. Today’s event was at the Markovina Vineyard in Kumeu. The invitation stated 3pm, so we assumed that was when the ceremony was scheduled to commence. We duly arrived around 2.30pm, and discovered we were some of the first...

November marches on. The weather is still a bit on the changeable side, with some lovely sunshine from time to time, and some heavy rain at other times. We have both had busy weeks, even though I haven’t earned a great deal, and we have each had a night out with prison prayer group (N) and Deep & Meaningful (R). We have had a couple of technology upgrades this week. The 2-yearly service of there HRV ventilation system revealed that a new motor was required, and as part of the package we got a new control unit with niffty new graphics, and a dedicated Burnt Toast button (this now puts the system on full blast for two hours to remove the smell). In order to try and improve Nicky’s internet performance on her iPad, I have installed a PowerLine network system and moved one of our wifi access points into the lounge. So far things look promising. Yesterday started dull, and didn’t get much brighter, along with drizzle on and off for most of the day. Nicky was quilting in the aft...

I think week can be best summed up by an item in The Listener’s Quips & Quotes column by Jeff Rubenstein, who I assume is an American: “Let this be a lesson to England: nice try, but you can’t beat us at crazy”. As I am sure you can imagine, joyous rapture was not most Kiwi’s response to the US Presidential election result, though I think even if Mrs. C had won it would at best have been a sigh of relief. Apparently we are destined to live in interesting times. Back in the world of mortals without strange hairpieces, things have been a little more routine. The weather has had an interesting take on my laundry routine, but most of the heavy rain has been at night and then sun has been warm when the clouds have acquiesced. We had both lunch and dinner on The Rattigan on Thursday, though it was a little cool for dinner. We have both had busy weeks work-wise. I rang the library on Tuesday afternoon at 5.32 (Nicky is supposed to finish at 5.30 but never makes it out of the lib...

It feels like it has been a busy week, and certainly with work for me I have done as much this week as I did in the whole of November last year. Following Ruth’s afternoon tea we had quite a few lobs, so both Nicky and Claire took these into work for their respective munchkins. Nicky was out on Monday evening so Claire and I re-lived past habits and watched some West Wing on DVD. I collected Claire from town on Tuesday afternoon to take her to the airport. We already knew that Doug would be piloting her flight back to Dunedin and was trying to arrange a cockpit visit for her. What Claire discovered when she got to the gate, and we discovered later, was that she would spend the whole flight on the flight deck, and get to listen in to conversations with control towers on the headphones. This was a brilliant experience for her and she feels it’s the best flight she as ever had (she likes being in the front of the car too!). Along with my usual domestic routines, this week has...