Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

It has been a quiet week on the whole, in the various aspects of our lives. The library has continued to be not too busy, I have only done one on-site job, and we have had no social commitments. The weather has been pretty good overall, with just some light rain on Thursday morning. I had my fist swim of the season at Herne Bay on Tuesday morning after taking Nicky to work, which was very good as the sea was calmer than I was expecting. I took Nicky to work again on Friday morning which turned out to be fortuitous as I heard on my way home (and she when arriving at work) that the trains were not running anywhere in Auckland due to signal failure. They were going again with a reduced service for her homeward journey. I had a Grand Day Out yesterday while Nicky was at work. It had been suggested at the first Deep & Meaningful meeting of the year that we could hold some summer picnics, similar to what I do for my Christmas Office Party. So I organised a gathering at Takapuna ...

Men, some would say, are just boys in bigger bodies, which if true, explains why we can take great pleasure in simple things, such as riding in the front seat on the upper deck of a double decker bus. Regular readers will recall the trip which Nicky and I took over the harbour bridge on a double decker during the 2016 Christmas holidays. Well I had noticed during this Christmas break that there were double deckers being introduced on the 25B route, one of my regular buses for going into town. I also observed that there were still single deckers doing the route so I knew it wouldn’t be guaranteed that my next trip on a 25B would necessarily be on a double decker, but going into town on Thursday for my Deep and Meaningful MeetUp group, the 17.08 25B from Blockhouse Bay was a double decker. I was the first passenger so headed straight upstairs for one of the front seats. A couple of stops later the second passenger alighted, another male, and he took the other front upper deck seat. We e...

The combination of a more work-structured week and some lovely summer weather has seen us developing a new routine. It has been too warm to have dinner on The Rattigan, so following the 6.55pm weather forecast on the tellybox we have been taking the Barlow Recliners outside with our mugs of tea and books, and having up to an hour in the cooler evening air. Only when the sun has finally dipped over the ridge of the kindy roof, or the breeze has become cooler than the warmth, have we returned inside. Night time temperatures in the house have not been getting below 23º, and mid-afternoon temperatures in the roof-space have been reaching 44º. We have had no rain. We had a trip to Dilworth Hearing on Monday as one of Nicky’s hearing aids wasn’t working properly. A replacement is on its way. On our journey home we did some food shopping and bought three very nice salmon steaks, as we had invited Stella over for a birthday celebration dinner. Nicky made some salads and I baked the fish w...

And welcome to yet another New Year. They come round with predictable regularity don’t they. Our New Years Eve was quite busy with laundry and shopping to start the day. We both had plans for working in the kitchen to make contributions for our evening out. I had first session in the kitchen making 12 individual topless Christmas Pies with flaky freezer pastry. While Nicky took over the kitchen to make red onion, feta, beetroot and spinach pin wheels, I set up Steve and Ros’s new computers. After a light tea Nicky and I headed into town to friends of mine for a New Years party which concluded with watching the Sky Tower fireworks from their apartment balcony (great view). As ever, James and Wendy were excellent hosts and it was an enjoyable evening. With having a busy day and late night on the 31st, we had a slow start to January 1st. We had a good crop of calendars this year so it took us awhile to work out where to put each of them, but we rose to the challenge. We also ...