Food, glorious food.

I don’t remember a week when we have had so many meals out as this week, even coming up to Christmas. We started on Monday with a prison prayer group gathering to farewell John and Kim who are moving down to Waiuku. We were given a lift to Chapati on Lincoln Road in Henderson by Renee and had a good evening with excellent Indian food. The restaurant was quiet (apart from us) with it being a Monday evening. The next event was Wednesday at Bricklane in New Lynn where Nicky’s house group got together to farewell Jancis who returns to England again next week. Another good evening and as ever we enjoyed Bricklane’s food and hospitality. Nicky had Summer Chicken and I had fish and chips. Thursday evening I was out at Deep & Meaningful and had my usual pizza (Hawaiian this time) and then last night Jancis took Nicky and I out to Mt Everest Kitchen here in the Bay. Indian again but Nepalese style this time. We shared the platter for two (which was sizzling on arrival) prior to our mango chicken, chicken tikka masala and prawn masala, doggie bag required. We had a few hands of mah jongg with a glass of wine afterwards - a thoroughly enjoyable evening, and a great way to end our day (more below).

The working week has been a little quiter for both of us. I have had some work but not exactly been inundated, and the library has been quieter until late afternoon with the schools having gone back. The weather has been largely cool starts followed by lovely warm sunny afternoons.

While I was out on Thursday evening Nicky went down to New Lynn library for an author talk (Ian Austin, British ex-policeman) which she thoroughly enjoyed.

Yesterday was clear and sunny, so after our boiled eggs and toast breakfast we went off to Ponsonby. Our first stop was to our regular jewellers for Nicky to have her rings cleaned and drop in her perl necklace for re-stringing. Then onto the main objective of the outing - Milly’s Kitchen Speciality Cook Shop, to look for a birthday gift for me. I had suggested an electric pepper grinder but discovered they no longer sold them. This was because they didn’t feel they they could recommend them any more due to the problems they have had with them in the past. So, we had a look at their range of grinders and choose something with quite a different action to the usual type. I need to try it out by making some pork pies because if it doesn’t work out we may go looking for something different. We started walking down Ponsonby Road in the sunshine to get to Amaze (a card shop) but decided we needed to stop of at Dizengoff’s for tea and cinnamon brioche on the way. We did eventually make it to the card shop, and a bedding shop, and Anna Stretton, and did some World Masters Games quality ambling in the process and found it a very enjoyable experience. We were quite jaded by the time we got home (mid-afternoon) so had a light lunch on the Rattigan knowing what culinary delights lay ahead.

Today has been a much more normal sort of day with us both doing our Sunday morning religious observances, Nicky at Church of the Saviour, me at Karekare beach. After cheese on toast for lunch with Grand Designs Nicky went over to Stella’s for Scrabble, and we had a late tea of soup and spelt bread. Sunday evening TV has gone back to being unexciting so we will shortly be off to bed.

Take care, Rick