Another trip, another season, another year

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This week has been dominated by house hunting and socialising.

We were occupied on Monday and Tuesday with what we had found in Whanganui. We thought we had made an offer on the house to the agent, but it turned out that we hadn’t done it correctly so therefore we hadn’t actually made an offer. A discussion with the bank scuppered our plan of buying house and land and using the house as collateral to build on the land. Then on Wednesday a visit to a factory in Papakura where they build complete houses and then truck them to site was very interesting, and re-invigorated our house building thoughts.

We took Mary, Nicky’s BHB Quilter’s co-organiser, out for lunch on Wednesday to celebrate her birthday. She came back from church with Nicky and we drove over to OTT in Birkenhead, had lovely beef-filled rolls and baguette. The staff lit a candle in a large slice of apple strudel for us, and the entire café of complete strangers joined in with singing Happy Birthday. Mary was suitably embarrassed, and we all (three of us) enjoyed the strudel. I had no intention of buying strudel for everybody!

After returning to BHB and going over to Papakura, Nicky and I just had time to get to Deco in Titirangi for 6pm to join other members of Nicky’s house group for dinner. As ever the food was excellent and the company very enjoyable. We learned that Warwick was also heading south on Thursday, to visit their daughter in Taupo, and see how easily he can get there in his all electric Nissan Leaf.

On Thursday we drove down to Hastings, mainly in the sunshine, to see what we could find. We spent Friday looking round, avoiding the rain, taking to estate agents, and discovering that we couldn’t afford anything suitable for us in the area. We finished the day with excellent curries. With a prompt after breakfast departure on Saturday morning we were home around 4-ish, and enjoyed our soup and cheese and crackers after watching The Chase and the news.



I got the heaters out earlier in the week but we didn’t use them until Saturday as winter, which also started on Saturday, started to bite with cold winds and quite a bit of overnight rain.

This morning while Nicky was at church I did laundry, admin and some work emails. We went out to Ampersand in Orakei for lunch to celebrate my birthday. I had chosen it after reading a review some time ago and discovering they served devilled lamb’s kidneys, which I haven’t had for over 30 years, since enjoying them as part of a stunning Easter breakfast provided by Richard Milne. Nicky had a kale and cos Caesar salad which she enjoyed. This afternoon Stella, Steve and Ros came over to play Scrabble, and the birthday candle was lit and the fruit cake which Nicky had made for me was cut and enjoyed (with cheese).


Our evening has been tellyboxing and Nicky has made a start on the ironing.

Take care, Rick

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