Over the cusp

What an eventful week it has been. As you will all of course be well aware Friday was our 33rd wedding anniversary. Nicky booked Friday and Saturday as annual leave so that we could have a long weekend. The day dawned clear and developed into a lovely crisp winter's day, with little wind. After a leisurely pot of tea, Nicky presenting me with a jigsaw, and putting a load of washing on the line, we headed off to Deco in Titirangi for breakfast. Nicky chose a lamb dish and I had smoked fish with avocado and poached eggs and both choices proved to be excellent. We made a start on the Listener crossword over tea and coffee and had a chat with some fellow patrons about the other major event of the week (see below). We were just leaving the café to visit a local gift shop when a sign for an exhibition caught our eye. While trying to find said exhibition we discovered the Lopdell House roof terrace, which we had seen signs to before but never visited. The views were fantastic, helped by the weather of course; a very enjoyable find and a must for visitors.

We did make it to the gift shop, which we had been in some months earlier and spotted some very interesting clocks. They are faux wood with an illuminated LED display which is very clear. I had suggested we purchase one as our joint anniversary gift if we didn’t find anything which we preferred, so here we were. We picked out a medium sized rectangular black one to replace the LCD digital clock which we have by the TV. This has done long service but is not easy to read in either bright or dim light conditions (and we don’t get a lot that is in-between). The new clock is much better, and aesthetically more pleasing.

Time was getting on so we popped home to freshen up before going to the Lido Cinema in Epsom to see The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. The cinema is small, friendly and very comfortable and we thoroughly enjoyed the film. Back out in the fresh air for around 3.30 pm, we called into the Farro’s food store across the road to look for some Woody’s pork products. We saw this farm (which is run by an Englishman) on Country Calendar a couple of years ago. He raises speciality pig breeds and has been selling his meat on-line and in a local market near Wellington. He now has Farro’s stocking some of his range so we bought a couple of packets of sausages. We had bought some of his other products on-line ages ago and really enjoyed them, so I hope the sausages are just as good.

Nicky also wanted some thread so over to Onehunga we went, only to find the shop she wanted to visit had closed down. We were directed to another outlet in Mt Wellington which we eventually reached and turned out to be a most acceptable emporium for Nicky’s needs.

We rounded off the excellent day with my home made pork pie and some salad while watching the last four episodes of Borgen series 3 which we had started on Monday, so it was midnight before we were in bed.

We had a quiet day on Saturday, sewing, cleaning and cooking (I will leave you, Dear Reader, to work out who did what) as we had invited Paul (of drinkies at The Block fame) his mother Daphne and his son Jason over for dinner, along with Mary, Nicky’s quilting co-organiser. We took the opportunity of having visitors to try out a new recipe; Texas oven roasted brisket. The inspiration for this came from an episode of Young Sheldon, a spin-of from The Big Bang Theory sitcom. The recipe called for applying a dry rub to the meet and cooking for 5 hours. It turned out to be fantastically tender, but Nicky and Daphne both found the chilli in the dry rub too hot for their tastes. I served it with baked spuds and kumera and roasted veg. Dessert was vegan Christmas pudding and dairy free custard, along with an orange and feijoa flan which Nicky had made. We had a very nice evening and the day was a good extension to our anniversary celebrations.

The rest of the week has been much more routine. On Monday our financial adviser Gerald paid us a visit to discuss what to do with both of our pension dollars and gave us some sage advice. I was up early Tuesday morning to watch England just manage to beat Tunisia, and Nicky went up to church in evening for a meeting. I had Thursday evening in town for my discussion group. Work has been steady for Nicky and quiet for me. Today Nicky went over to Stella’s for Scrabble after church, and Meenu who she used to work with at BHB library came round for a chat this afternoon. I did the ironing, watched some of the World Cup highlights, and started the jigsaw. To round off the day we have watched last week’s and this week's episodes of Endeavour (series 4 I think - new to us).

We have now passed the shortest day, and even though the difference isn’t obvious, it’s good to be “over the cusp”.

I think the only other thing of note this week is that our Prime Minster gave birth to a bay girl.

Take care, Rick.