Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

It has been another quiet week living under Level 3 here in Auckland. I seem to have settled into a routine of spending the morning at my desk doing work and personal admin, and remote support when required. Lunch accompanied by the daily briefing from the Beehive is often followed by us taking an amble and playing a game of Mah Jong, Rummy-O or Triominos before watching The Chase while preparing dinner. Our evenings are occupied by the tellybox, and this week we have been watching some of our own DVD’s and enjoyed films that we haven’t seen for quite a few years. The weather has been as variable as ever this week, with some heavy rain and some lovely sunshine, especially yesterday. This might change next week when spring arrives! (You have to give me points for optimism). Nicky has been feeling a little under the weather, and thinking of going for a Covid test, and then this morning we saw a request which was headlined “Everybody in West and South Auckland should get a test”, and t...

We have had a week at home as our Covid Level 3 restrictions mean we can’t go down to Wanganui, and can’t do too much going out generally either. All our social events have ceased, but we have supported local business by having sushi on Monday and fish and chips on Friday, all done by contactless transaction. The Covid Level is to be reviewed by cabinet tomorrow as the current arrangement expires at midnight on Wednesday. I have also done some contactless transactions with a couple of my customers this week, collecting and delivering machines (laptops fortunately) that I have worked on at home. Monday and Tuesday were also very busy with remote support, and the other weekday mornings were fully occupied with various emails, admin and some food shopping. Nicky has been busy doing laundry (when the weather allows) and cleaning, Zooming with church, and sewing face masks. She has also had some cold symptoms but these have been coming and going most of the year and not developing into a...

 It has been quite a week, some of which you will all be aware of because of watching the news, but in order to do it justice, I need to go day by day. Monday. Started out like many others, bright and chilly so the washing machine was pressed into service. While consuming first cups of tea of the day, an email arrived from Bert the Builder - with a schedule!! Yippee! Progress at last! We didn’t really have time to take it all in and work out what to do because Nicky was off to Seniors Church, and I had a fairly urgent call from a customer which I needed to attend to, along with doing some food shopping. My afternoon was already booked with another job. While I was out, Nicky was busy with washing and ironing. In the evening, she was out at a Maranatha meeting so I did some planning of possible trips down to Wanganui to see our new home rise out of the ground. I generated a range of options looking at travel and accommodation costs, time away from work for me, and commitments that...

I think it is true to say that Wednesday was our most eventful day of this week. Nicky went off to Henderson Library in the morning for her monthly Book Chat session. On her way home she discovered that she had left her iPad on the bus. She phoned NZ Bus to alert lost property to the fact and to ask the bus driver to take a look for it.  During the afternoon we went down to the Resene Colour shop to pick up some paint sample cards (we are thinking of having one coloured wall in the main living area) and were introduced to a wee masking device that they have which really helps with perceiving colours accurately, and investigating complimentary colours. It was a most illuminating experience. In the evening Nicky had organised a life group social at Bricklane to take advantage of a 20% off voucher. Eleven of us dinned and conversed and we had a very pleasant evening. On Thursday morning Nicky rang NZ Bus again and was told that an item matching the description of her iPad was at...

As some of you will already know, we have had a quick trip to Wanganui this week to see what is happening at the section. It is six months since we were last there. Exciting news arrived as we planned our trip - the new floor design has been consented by the council, and we had been told by Bert that they were working on the piles and retaining wall. We drove down on Thursday, stopping at our usual haunts for driver swapping, hot drinks and toilet facilities. We arrived while it was still light, but only just, so hopped out of the car and took our first batch of photographs.  We had decided to stay at the Top 10 Holiday Park just up the road, and this turned out to be just a 5 minute walk to the section. Friday was mainly taken up with visiting three window covering suppliers to get some idea of what we need to budget. The discussions were very helpful in coalescing our ideas about what we want where, and some interesting suggestions and comments were made. We had a late mornin...