September song

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It’s been nice for September. This is the time of year when I feel I am more likely than other times to recall the weather during the equivalent month in England. Summer is gradually moving into autumn with cooler mornings and evenings, but still some very warm sunshine during the middle of the day. We have had a little rain this week too, but the weekend has been lovely (which is not what was forecast on Thursday), and we had breakfast on The Rattigan this morning - porridge for me and WeetBix for Nicky.

Nicky’s week has been back to her usual routine, and this week included the regular ukulele concert in town. In addition, she did a listening course, delivered by the world famous Jancis Barlow, which even though she has done it before, was still very good. Prior to the course she cooked up a dozen peach and WeetBix muffins which were enjoyed by all, including me.

My working week has been quite busy, but also frustrating at times with a couple of jobs being inconclusive. I have ended up with one of them bringing both the customers’ machines back home to work on over the weekend. On Monday afternoon I made a chicken and ham hot water crust pie. I have been wanting to try this for ages and it turned out well - still 6 portions left!

Nicky invited an Indian couple for dinner and they came on Wednesday evening. Diya did prison outreach with her. Both she and her husband Jo are having difficulty finding permanent work that uses their skill sets (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science respectively), even though they have both been in New Zealand for a number of years. We provided smoked salmon and penne followed by apple & orange tart and had a good evening.

Last night we started watching the HBO miniseries Chernobyl, which was on FreeView late last year, and it was gripping and appaling in equal measure. We plan to finish it this evening.

Our Sunday has been quite routine also, with Nicky to church and me to Karekare, and Stella and Ros over for Scrabble.

Take care, Rick

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