Getting Sociable
We have been getting more sociable this week.
On Tuesday Maria, my friend from D&M, came over for afternoon tea, so Nicky and I conjured up delights for the event. Nicky made puff pastry, caramelised red onion and goats cheese squares. She went to the trouble of making her own puff pastry (Paul Hollywood’s recipe and photographic guidance) which she topped with the Hairy Bikers caramelised red onion and goats cheese. They were absolutely wonderful, and we had some of the onions left over for future use. I made flaky pastry lemon curd tarts with a layer of Philadelphia cheese in the bottom. They were pretty good too. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo of Nicky’s creation because we were just finishing putting them together when Maria arrived, so were straight into tea and chatting. I had finished my tarts earlier:
It was really good to have some time with Maria and enjoy the food we had made, though we all agreed that doing two dishes with butter rich pastry wasn’t necessary the best idea. However, we have lived, though the arteries my be a little more clogged.
On Thursday evening I ran a Deep and Meaningful (D&M) conversation at our usual venue. It’s the first one we have had “in person” since March and we had a very interesting discussion on the difference between meeting in person and using video conferencing technology. We had to limit the group to 10 (we usually limit to 16) and everybody there were seasoned members (I got comments about using the word mature) which made it very comfortable.
On Wednesday Nicky went up to Icoco for lunch with some ex-colleagues from BHB Library, but due to unforeseen cancelations it ended up just being her and Anitra.
On Friday Judy came over to do some pinning out on some quilts on our 6”x4” ex-Nottingham University Library table which we use as a dinning table, which she really appreciated. In the evening I joined some other menfolk for a beer up at The Block.
This morning, Nicky has been to church for the first time since March, though no singing allowed. All the same, she enjoyed and appreciated the comparative level of normality and contact that it provided.
More mundane things have been a check-up at the dentist for me, and Nicky getting her hair done for first time in 9 weeks. I have done a little remote support work and one short on-site visit, so it has been another quiet week. Co-ordinating the laundry with the weather is now becoming necessary, so we really took advantage of the sun on Thursday. We quite enjoyed watching “Death of Stalin” on DVD, a satire on the event.
We started a jigsaw, as usual, yesterday. We had unexpected and gorgeous sunshine so lunched on The Rattigan, and then had an amble through the reserve. Tomorrow is officially the first day of winter, and we were having lunch al fresco! Steve, Stella and Ros came over for Scrabble in the afternoon. The jigsaw was finished at lunchtime today and have spent much of the afternoon playing Mah Jong, while the weather got duller and then wetter.
On the house front, things are on hold while Bert gets a soil engineers report before pouring the slab, as a problem has been encountered. I think last week’s rain and nearby earthquake (this is New Zealand after all) have lead to this decision.
Take care, Rick
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