News, good and bad.

As avid readers will recall, we recently met the Canadian branch of the family (Bruce and Wendy) at the airport and waved them off in their luxury mini bus to Mt Maunganui (aka The Mount). They kindly invited us to stay with them for a wee while, so we headed off to see them last Sunday. Nicky was due at prison so while she was at church I packed the car and we drove down to Wiri after Nicky had had a little to eat. While she was in prison I drove over to the Botanical Gardens and had a wander and ate my lunch, before collecting her, feeding her with hot cross bunnies, and heading south-east to The Mount. We had an uneventful journey and arrived in time for dinner and a good evening with Bruce, Wendy and Marnie.

We started Monday with a leisurely breakfast on the balcony before Marnie departed for Auckland for a few days with friends. Nicky, Wendy and I went for a swim in the sea, and Bruce joined us for some time on the beach before an impromptu lunch. The afternoon was spent in the pool, jacuzzi, reading and snoozing in order to muster all our energy for an early evening walk round The Mount. By the time we had got back, made salads and Bruce BBQ’ed the lamb, we were eating by the illumination of the pool lights. A very pleasant day.

Tuesday was another lovely sunny day. Nicky and I had an ulterior motive for accepting Bruce & Wendy’s invitation, and that was to visit the Papamoa Sands Freedom Lifestyle village. This is for the over 50’s who are still living independently. Knowing that we need to leave our current (rented) home, we wanted to investigate what a lifestyle village offered, and whether or not it might be within our financial reach. It was helpful having B&W with us to provide a different perspective and to see things that we had missed. We quite liked the layout of the village, and the property we looked at was good value but a little beyond our budget. The location of the village is just a few minutes walk from shops, a cinema (which we visited later) and the gorgeous Papamoa beach.

After all the fact finding, we were in need of lunch so drove down the the famous Maketu Pies. They were very good and most welcome. 

We headed back to the cinema at Papamoa to meet Jim and Clarise, American friends of B&W, for a matinee showing of “On the Basis of Sex”. The cinema was cosy and the film pretty good. We helped B&W raid the supermarket on the way home (they had decided not to hire a car this time so our transport assistance was also welcome) as the Fish and Chip shop that we had planned to go to was closed. The evening was spent eating and playing a word-based card game which is nothing like Scrabble.

We needed to be back in Blockhouse Bay by Wednesday evening for Nicky to help at Alpha, so after Wendy’s swim in the pool and my stroll along the beach we had brunch at Mixture which was really good. We dropped B&W in town and started towards home, via Matamata and Cambridge, to take a look at the other two Freedom Lifestyle villages. Both of these have a small dwelling which we could afford, but the size would require some significant compromises. However, we did like the build quality and design, and what we could see of the village layouts, both of which are in the early stages of development.

We arrived home with much to think about as Nicky zipped off to church and me to the supermarket. Jancis popped round late evening for a catch-up.

The Freedom Lifestyle villages are not a perfect solution, but we now know that there are places on the north island that we could afford, and they also give us a yard stick to measure other options against.

Thursday in BHB started cool and quickly developed into a hot sunny day. We were making preparations for lunch visitors (Fay and Ivan who were up visiting from Christchurch) when Dawn popped round with, for us, very significant news. She has decided that she would like us to stay here for as long as we can afford the rent, and that she will not be asking us to leave so that she can offer the house to family. This really takes the pressure off us to find a new home and really raised our spirits, which added to the pleasure of lunch even though Ivan was not feeling too well. Nicky had a quiet evening while I went off to Deep and Meaningful and then a beer with James and Wendy (the group organisers) as they are off travelling for awhile.

Friday was a laundry, admin and bacon and egg flan making day for me, and a visit to the Kelston Quilting Show for Nicky. This was her favourite quilt:

It wasn’t until late afternoon when we put the TV on to watch The Chase that we learned about the appalling events in Christchurch. The events and their aftermath have dominated the news here since. There is a great deal of shock that a mass shooting has taken place in NZ (the last one was about 25 years ago I think) as we all view it as such a safe and stable country.

The weekend has largely been warm/hot and sunny. More laundry and admin has been completed, Scrabble has been played (with Stella), church has been attended, gardening has been done, and reading about and ipadding have been enjoyed.

Take care, Rick