Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

Scattered among our routines of church for Nicky, shopping, laundry, and work for me when wanted (not much this week), there have been a few diversions. Luna (our lovely little car) had her annul pamper day up at the garage for her service and warrant, which turned into two days, and will need another two days of work this coming week to get the warrant of fitness certificate. For the first time, I have been to two Deep and Meaningful meetings in one week this week, one of which I ran. This made Wednesday feel like a Friday. It was just a good job that we didn’t have a public holiday in the week also as that would have confused me even more! I have also had a CT scan to further investigate my mild BPPV. The week started out wet but has finished dry, so much laundry has been done over the last couple of days. Nicky has stared doing garden designs. We are progressing with our usual weekend jigsaw, and Nicky also did a 500 piece Art Deco one during the week. Yesterday morning Nicky ...

We have had a fun week in the kitchen. A couple of weeks ago Kim and Sean very kindly sent us a Hello Fresh food box gift voucher. We placed our order and the ingredients and recipes for five evening meals for two arrived last Sunday. So, each weekday this week we have been having a treat. It is something I have been wanting to try for awhile, but the cost put me off a little, so this has been a really good opportunity for us.  How did it go I hear you ask? Overall, very well. We ordered a standard package of meals so Hello Fresh determined what we got, and in what order the meals should be eaten. We enjoyed all of them, though one or two more than others. We were impressed that with each meal there was a very good balance of flavours. All were tasty and nothing was overpowering. The portions were a good size too, and each meal felt a little special.  On the downside, I was less impressed by the protein and carb balance. We had chicken, chicken, beef, beef, pork, and bread...

We have been battling with the weather to get washing dry this week. Even when it has not been raining and the sun has been out, the air has been cold and often still, some some things have dried better inside just because it is warmer. The nights have become chilly enough to warrant the winter quilt on the bed. Nicky has had a sociable week, with her usual church attendances apart from Mainly Music which doesn’t run during the school holidays. She had a walk down to see Doris on Monday, but she wasn’t in, and also Mitra and Azar who live near where we used to live. Mitra is an architect and made some positive comments about our house design. After church on Wednesday Nicky picked up Mary and joined about 20 others down at Bricklane for lunch. Mary came back for a chat afterwards, and then a lady who had borrowed, via N, a sewing machine from Ros came over to return it and have a cup of tea. Work has been quiet for me - one on-site job and one remote until this evening when I had t...

Moving into the second half of the year this week has been accompanied with work, new things and good news. The first three days of the week were very busy for me with work, most of it on-site, and it was good to be greasing the wheels of commerce again, but I also appreciated Thursday and Friday being quiet. The screen on Nicky’s iPhone broke last week, and the repair has resulted in her being provided with a new iPhone this week (exactly the same model), which is working well. Dawn, our lovely landlady, has provided us with a new dish washer this week, which is quiet and very good - the dishes come out clean! However, we have been using some free sample detergents so far (which are much more expensive than what we normally buy) so I will be interested to see if the standard is maintained when we start using our usual powder this coming week. Our good news is house related, not that anything is happening yet. We were very fortunate to receive a First Home Grant of $20K at the end ...