Same Again

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It has been a case of same again for us with house progress this week - Bert on Wednesday and tradies on Friday. This time the tradies were plumbers who fitted the basin and vanity units in the shower room and downstairs toilet, and the gas cook top in the kitchen. Bert had brought the cook top with him on Wednesday, along with the door handles. It is quite a mighty device, but we need to have a non-combustable surface behind it to meet with its installation requirements. Our first choice is to the left over black tile from the shower room, but as an interim we have a couple of the grey tile off-cuts doing the job:


We are really enjoying the basins the shower room and the replacement one in the downstairs loo, and they also take us another step along the path to completion. We have used the cook top already, doing some veg to go with dinner on Friday evening, and boiling eggs for breakfast yesterday - our first boiled eggs of the year!


Our week began with a public holiday as Whanganui has the same Anniversary Day as Wellington. This was also the last day of the Vintage Weekend and I wanted to go and see the Soapbox Derby as I had never made it to the one Auckland. Nicky was happy to come along and once it got started we quite enjoyed seeing the creations and their drivers hurtling down the hill. 




We walked down most of the course into the old part of town which had a really friendly feeling to it. We started walking along a street I thought we hadn’t been down before but discovered we had, because we found the NZ Glassworks. This is where we had discovered the artist who made our stained glass windows, Richard Landers, and much to our joy the furnaces were in operation so we stayed and watched the process of creation.




After lunch and a chat with Claire I did some remote support work and Nicky took advantage of the sunny afternoon to do “gardening”. After dinner I set up a left over piece of gib and some paint pots so that we could have a surface for doing a jigsaw.


Along with the hot sunny weather, it has been a week for deliveries. The replacement vanity and basin for the downstairs loo arrived on Tuesday, and after the excitement of Bert’s items on Wednesday, the shed arrived. I had to ask Paul (our neighbour) to help the courier and I get it off the lorry, as he had not been provided with suitable equipment and it was over a 100kgs. The shed is a flat pack, which we have now been told is not very easy to assemble. Currently, I have completed the initial assembly of the door, but that took me 3 hours and required a brief tutorial from one of the plumbers on how to use my new drill!


I have done some remote support work every day except Friday, and Nicky has been doing daily laundry and getting into the wilderness when she can. This has now included preparing the ground for the shed.


On Friday Nicky had her first appointment with our new GP, so we both went over to the Gonville Medical Centre for the experience. Everybody that we encountered, reception staff, Doctor, Nurse and pharmacy staff were very friendly and helpful.


Today Nicky had a special combined churches service and picnic lunch at the Bason Botanic Gardens. I went with her and had a wander round the gardens while she attended the service, and then we sat in the sun chatting while eating our picnic.





The gardens are quite extensive and very pleasant. I suspect we will be quite regular visitors. On our return we both felt quite jaded so have had a quiet afternoon and completed the second of our jigsaws - the 1000 piece ones that Nicky bought in a charity shop and gave me for Christmas. Both had one piece missing, but we enjoyed tham all the same.


Take care, Rick

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