Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

 We have had some gorgeous winter weather this weekend. The skies have been clear for the most part, and the sun has been warm, especially yesterday. Lunch has been taken outside on the north-east patio, me wearing shorts and T-shirt and thinking to myself “meteorologically, this is mid-winter!” I had an amble up to the cemetery yesterday afternoon and thought the trees were looking rather good even without their foliage: Now that the sewing room is more organised we can access the blind and the window on the western wall. It is the only window on that side of the house that doesn’t have obscured glass, and I enjoyed the view this morning when opening the blind and was pleased to still be able to see the river over the fence: The majority of my week has been very quiet with no billable work and having my second Covid-19 vaccination on Tuesday morning. By late afternoon Tuesday I was starting to ache, and this got worse on Wednesday so spent the day consuming paracetamol. By Thursda

Many of you will already be aware, we had a disappointing start to the week with England losing the Euro 2021 final on penalties. We had got up early to go into town to watch the game, with it not been shown on terrestrial TV. We had found a sports bar that would be open and arrived there about 10 minutes into the game, with England already 1-0 up. The bar didn’t serve hot drinks or food so Nicky went to a café round the corner and bought tea and mince on toast for us. Very Kiwi second breakfast (for me anyway). As the game drew to a close we had a very good conversation with a couple who live on Durie Hill, exchanging house building anecdotes. The weather was sunny, but cold, as we left the bar and headed up the road to the supermarkets. We were expecting Milly and the youngest five Hanlon off-spring for lunch, and they arrived about 40 minutes after we got home. Things were quite hectic during the production of lunch, but it was great to see them. They were on their way to Awakino f

It feels like it has been a busy week, especially in terms of coffee production, but more of that later. Nicky did a laundry marathon on Monday with us having been away and the weather last week not having been brilliant. We were both quite jaded after our long drive home, so took the day gently. While in town doing a bit of shopping I discovered that the scaffolding round the Opera House had been taken down, revealing the new paint job: In the late afternoon Nicky went off for a church meeting, the first she has attended since joining the Friends of St John’s committee.  On Tuesday morning Lake (pronounced lucky, because he is Tongan) and Kane arrived to continue with the installation of our fencing. They have been with us for the rest of the week and have made significant progress. The slope of our section has provided some challenges, and to Nicky’s disappointment the red camellia tree by the dinning area ranch slider had to come down.  However, we are very pleased with how the

Towards the end of the wedding festivities that we attended yesterday, I drew Margaret (the bride) aside to have a quiet word. I said “You’re not a football fan then?”. Her blank expression suggested more information was needed. “You wouldn’t have arranged your wedding for Euro 2021 Quart er Finals day if you were.” “Correct” she said “I’m not a football fan”, which is a bit of a shame really because England’s 4-0 victory over the Ukraine would have been the cherry on top of the icing on the cake (which was chocolate, by the way). At the time of writing this post (sorry it’s so late) all I know is the score line, I have yet to investigate the details. But I am getting ahead of myself Dear Reader, as the earlier part of the week didn’t pass us by un-noticed. Monday was the re-scheduled extraction of the paddle steamer Waimarie by two traction engines for boiler and general maintenance. It had been postponed from Sunday because of the tide not being high enough, and I had not gone down