The knees have it

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The 2018 Auckland Heritage Festival has begun, and I am sure you will remember Dear Reader, from posts in years past, that this is something that we really enjoy.

Yesterday started clear, crisp and sunny, and with the promise from Dan the Weather Man (ex-BBC) of a sunny day, I broke out my shorts after hanging out the washing and before heading for the 8.25am bus into town. I switched to the Outer Link bus in Balmoral and got to Parnell in plenty of time to wander round the Farmer’s Market, resist the desire to buy almond croissant’s, but give in to the need for coffee. Our group assembled at 10am, and as soon as we had crossed the road from the Jubilee Building I was in unfamiliar territory. We walked along some new landscaping over the railway before going through some bush to Newmarket Park which I didn’t even know existed. The walk was titled Streams and Gullies, so our route undulated up and down as we progressed to Hobson’s Bay. The return journey took us through Scarborough Reserve and back to Parnell village, via the Primary School and some interesting houses. Some cloud had produced a little moisture but my laundry was almost dry when I got home early afternoon and I managed to get the ironing done before Nicky returned from work and Stella and Steve arrived for Scrabble. We spent the evening binge watching Unforgotten Series 1 on DVD, which meant we went to bed much later then usual, and that was before putting the clocks forward an hour!



Today started just like yesterday, but without Dan’s promise of sunshine so we had lots of it. While Nicky was at church I upgraded the operating system on my Mac which proved to be as challenging as I had expected. We had an early lunched and bussed (25B and Outer Link again) to Point Erin for the start of our foreshore walk. However, we didn’t get our feet wet was the walk traced (as closely as possible) the line of the foreshore before reclamation, so largely where it was in the late 1800’s. This was very interesting and really illustrated the enormity of the changes that occurred in Auckland’s early history. The route took in a range of Auckland character as we made our way through “points” and “bays” to finish on Tamaki Drive just after the Parnell Baths. Even though this route was much more level than the streams and gullies, my knees were very pleased to have a rest when we caught a bus back into town. This dropped us on Fort Street, just past The White Lady, and as we were both quite peckish after our near 4-hour adventure, and as the said Lady is a historic feature of Auckland’s CBD, it seemed only fitting that we each had a burger. We made our way back up Queen Street for a bus home and a very welcome pot of tea, before embarking on Unforgotten Series 2 which I recored while Nicky was in England.



The rest of the week has been much easier on the knees. Knowing the implications of the operating system upgrade which I have installed, in between the smaller amount of paid work I have had on this week, I have built myself a new invoicing system for MacOnSite, as the only other option was to spend $800 on buying new software. I will run my new and exisiting systems in parallel for awhile to see how things go.

The library has started to get busier towards the end of the week, and this trend will probably continue with the school holiday activities that are being promoted.

Take care, Rick

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