Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

Welcome to the last post of 2018. Christmas has been and gone, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We were hosting the family shared lunch this year, with a total of 19 bottoms to seat (the other 15 members of the NZ resident family were doing their own things or had other commitments). Monday, Christmas Eve, was our major preparation day. We had heavy rain overnight and a wet start so Nicky didn’t get the grass cut, but she did get wet doing a quick shop at our local supermarket. She also zipped over to the library in Henderson. Everywhere was heaving with people. I stayed at home and made my 3kg Christmas Pie and prepared my Christmas pudding reading to cook. Nicky also made a flummery dessert. While she was off at midnight mass, I started moving furniture. With having fewer numbers than usual, we had decided to seat everybody round our two library tables and Rattigan table arranged end-to-end. One of these tables normally lives in the garage so some box shifting was also required.

The week began with long hot sunny days, and has finished more like an August Bank Holiday: wet, though a little warmer. After doing an on-site job in Mission Bay on Monday morning, I trundled down to Botany to collect Rachel (my niece), who was up in Auckland for a skating camp. While I was out doing this, Nicky had a meeting with WINZ about social housing and discovered that we don’t qualify, basically because we have pension funds. So that’s one option off the list for when we leave our current abode next year. After lunch and a good chat with Rachel, I dropped her and Nicky off at the skating rink in Avondale, did some shopping, prepared dinner, and then collected them again. We ate on The Rattigan and enjoyed a lovely bottle of Man O War wine. We were up early on Tuesday morning so that I could get Rachel to the airport for her 7.55am flight to Queenstown. I took advantage of the weather to do lots of washing. I took Nicky to work on Thursday morning because the r

Sometime around mid-November last year I casually asked Nicky what she wanted to do for her upcoming birthday. Her reply was “go to Dunedin”. A quick bit of internet research revealed that the air tickets would be almost double what we normally pay because of booking at such short notice. So, I suggested that we plan for Birthday Week in Dunedin for the following year, as this would also coincide with the more significant birthdays. As a result, we found ourselves driving off to the airport on Monday morning for our lunchtime flight to The Deep South. We had a good range of LOB’s from having Tanya and Steve over for Sunday tea, so once the fasten seat belt signs were extinguished, I retrieved my back pack from the overhead locker and we tucked in. We were occupying two seats in a set of three, and Jim, the third person in the row, was quite envious of our smorgasbord of goodies (poor man). Due to a late take off we were a little late in arriving in Dunedin but Ryan was waiting

’Tis the season for Nicky to be inundated with social commitments. She spent Monday afternoon making lemon curd and cheesy biscuits for her contribution to the group gift for Helen and Warwick, who run the life group. Tuesday evening was the work Christmas bash at Zoo Eatery in Henderson. The food was beautifully presented but Nicky found her fish of the day rather bland. Wednesday night was life group doing nine lessons and carols, along with three birthday celebrations, so she came home with lemon cake. Friday night was a much better than expected dinner at the RSA in Henderson with the prison outreach group, Maranatha. The other highlights of Nicky’s week have been getting her Gold HOP card and the crown on her tooth. We went down to the station in New Lynn on Monday morning armed with her newly acquired Super Gold Card and purchased her gold HOP card to replace her blue HOP card. This gives her free travel on bus, train and ferry between 9am and midnight on weekdays, and all t

Nicky has been off work all week, primarily with what ever I had been suffering from, but Friday was due to a temporary crown being fitted by the dentist. She goes back next week for the real thing. In addition to normal Philippa activity (reading about, tea drinking, writing emails) and attending the Advent service on Wednesday evening, she has been through a couple of significant experiences. She has submitted her letter of resignation prior to her retirement so that her boss can get on with looking for a new member of staff. She has also received her Super Gold Card, thus confirming her “senior” status. This came with a range of literature providing advice for managing as she gets older (marry a toy boy), and notes for her care giver (remember that your senior is for life, not just for Christmas!), etc. More tangentially but no less exciting for Nicky was to join me in a visit to our GP who wanted to discuss my back Xray results. I will transcribe verbatim for those who underst