Celebration and sadness

We started our week with the 13th anniversary of our arrival in New Zealand. In order to celebrate we bought some dessert wine on our way home from getting Nicky’s hearing aid fixed. When chilled it went down very well. It was announced that our Covid level would stay at 2.5 in Auckland until the 23rd, with confirmation being announced on the 21st. We had a quiet afternoon and in the evening watched the first episode of the new series of Grand Designs NZ. It was supposed to be the last episode of the previous series, but didn’t get aired. I was especially interested to see it because it was the conversion (into a New York style apartment) of the old Farmers tea room on the top floor of what is now a hotel. I had visited the old tea room a couple of years ago during the Heritage Festival, and of course Nicky had been as a child. The purchase was discussed during the visit as it is a registered heritage site. The building of the apartment was completed within the requirements of the heritage status, which mean the construction of a supporting framework within the space which didn’t impact on the existing walls and ceiling at all. It was done well, but the total budget (including the purchase of the tea rooms) was $6,000,000, yes six million! Puts our little build in the shade somewhat!

Nicky has had a challenge getting Doris to cut her hair as Doris’s dementia is becoming worse resulting in much mis-communication. Nicky finally had a successful appointment on Thursday. Cooking, in order to have meals to take Wanganui for easy preparation saw Nicky producing Shepherd’s Pie topped with kumara and Paul Hollywood bacon and egg pie. Both v. good, as Bridget Jones would say (I also made mince and cheese pie as a contribution). Watching Belgravia on DVD (loaned by Ros) also cheered our evenings.

With the exception of a “mates rates” job, all my work this week has been remote support, which is OK but not as lucrative. I am thinking of reviewing my rates.

We have a had a couple of trips out. The first was to the Westgate shopping centre to have a look at a dining table and chairs which I found on the internet, and also to go to bed shops to investigate new mattresses for our German frame bed. They are not a standard size, bit like me really. The table and chairs were good so give us an alternative to the ones we found in Wanganui. We still don’t know how much space we are going to end up with for the dining area, which is why we want options. The other trip was to Bodega in Oratia for lunch to celebrate Warwick’s (life group) 75th birthday. We had had to cancel a meal there some time ago so were very pleased to get the opportunity to go before leaving Auckland.

Not all our news this week is good. On Tuesday I had an email from James, the Deep and Meaningful MeetUp co-founder, so say that Gordon, one of the “core” members of the group was now in a hospice due his pancreatic cancer. On Thursday Gordon died. On Friday when phoning another group member who was very close to Gordon and who is helping his family with the funeral arrangements, I discovered that the “new” man in her life (I don’t know if they have married but they have bought a house together) will soon be in the same hospice himself. As you can image, she is very upset.

BHB Quilters was cancelled again yesterday, due to the Covid restrictions, but the Scrabblers met at Splendour and I finally got the washing dried and ironed. Today has been sunny and spring like, with the breeze not quite so cutting.

This picture is of some amusing door mats which I found during the week while looking at a storage system for wardrobes and cupboards:

Take care, Rick