All clean on the western front

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We have been really enjoying watching the Olympics this week. The TV coverage has been a little Kiwi-competitor biased, but we have still been able to see a good range of sports and not had to pay SkyTV’s extortionate fees. Highlights for us have been the triathlons, rugby sevens and the rowing.

Over the weekend we noticed that the dishwasher was not getting things very clean anymore, and the crockery was starting to feel gritty. It was really bad on Monday morning so after some discussion as to what the cause might be we concluded the first thing to investigate was the detergent. The bottle of dishwasher powder we were using had only just been pressed into service, and even though I thought I had purchased the same brand as usual we didn’t have the previous container for comparison. So, I popped into town to do a bit of grocery shopping and buy an alternative product. This seems to have done the trick and our dishes are coming up nice and sparkly again, though at an increased cost.


Luna (our car) has had her annual pampering this week, which included an overnight stay while the garage awaited delivery of a new tyre. One of the front tyres had a tear in it sufficiently bad, that they were not able to issue the Warrant of Fitness without the tyre being replaced. After dropping Luna off at the garage, I walked home along the riverside in the sunshine (stopping for coffee part way):



The weather has been sufficiently warm at times this week, that I have started wearing shorts again from time to time. Whanganui was the warmest spot in the country on Friday with a high of 21ºC.


Nicky has been out in the garden most days, moving stones from Jacqui’s section, digging trenches to aid water flow, marking out a pathway, weeding and planting some plants! She had a busy church day on Tuesday, with Senior Fellowship lunch at the Baptist Church which included a jigsaw competition, which her table of folk won, Life Group in the afternoon and then assisting with catering and intercessions at Alpha in the evening. Whanganui Anglicans is running a ten week course, so I didn’t have the pleasure of her company for the monthly Science Forum lecture on Tuesday evening.


I have done a little work this week, and paid my first visit to the new Aramoho Community Library. This opened while we were in Auckland at the beginning of the month. It is a building in the grounds of a school which is a 25 minute walk from home, and has been very nicely put together. I particularly enjoyed the Harry Potter exhibition in the children’s section so took some photos:




Ros called in on Friday on her way to another Andrew London music event, and left us with smoked salmon and a couple of lovely pasties from Angel Louise in Raetihi. Friday and Saturday’s weather have been gorgeous days, so yesterday I started washing to house. The painters told us that doing so twice a year would enable the paint to last 10-12 years. Even though it didn’t look particularly bad before I started, we are both pleased how much better it looks already. I got the western and northern sides of the house done, so I feel that’s almost half way. The North side is a bit of a challenge because of having to use my 3m extending brush. It’s not really possible to apply much pressure at the business end, but it’s better than nothing.


Nicky went off to church this morning and we had lunch afterwards at the Brick House with a number of other parishioners. Mid afternoon Elaine from next-door-but-one, came round to talk to Nicky about one of the ewes and her newly born lamb. They went off to find Rob the shepherd. While out Nicky bought some lemons from a neighbour which inspired her to cook pancakes for tea. Jacqui from next door joined us, to consume them. Now it’s back to the Olympics…


Take care, Rick

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