Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

We began the week with a public holiday for Anniversary Day. Whanganui doesn’t have its own Anniversary Day so we share Wellington’s, which is nice of them. The country also moved to the Red setting of the Covid Protection Framework, the most restrictive, but not as restrictive as previous lockdowns. This is because our vaccination rate is pretty good. Frances (Mrs Egg, just up the road) is on the committee for organising the Anniversary Amble for Whanganui Arthritis, an event to raise funds for Arthritis NZ, which takes place in Whanganui on Wellington Anniversary Day. The Amble is around gardens, 11 in total this year, and we had volunteered to help on the gate and in the kitchen at Frances’s garden. I was on gate duty from 10-12 with Nicky. She then went onto kitchen duty for a couple of hours before doing the last couple of hours on the gate before the event finished. I had to go home to do pre-booked MacOnSite phone calls. The Arthritis Amble was very popular, and the weather was

The beginning of our week (Monday to Friday) was very similar to our previous two or three weeks. Nicky has continued planting in the back  garden with native flax, grasses and saplings. I have started digging out the trench for a retaining wall. The weather has been mainly hot and sunny, so we have been forced to spend midday time reading, and having after-dinner pots of tea watching the sun go down over the river, in the shade. To add a little variety I have done some MacOnSite work. On Wednesday morning we walked down to Fiona’s for morning tea and a good natter, much enjoyed by all three of us. We have finished the week (Friday to Sunday) in a much more manic fashion. We began Friday with a trip into town to buy some very nice beef from a wholesaler, nip into Mitre 10 to give the credit card a workout, hospital for a regular blood test for Nicky, and some supermarket shopping. On our return home Nicky continued planting while I cooked the beef and started preparing six pork pies.

It has, overall, been a lovely week. This has been due both to the weather, and to the things we have done. At the beginning of the week the days dawned with overcast skies that cleared by mid morning into warm sunshine. The later end of the week has seen us rising to cooler temperatures due to the clear blue skies and a whole day of warm to hot sunshine. The temperatures have been hitting 25-28ºC, so we have abandoned the northern patio in favour of the south-east for most of the day, and the south-west in the evenings. Here we have been reading while consuming our post-dinner pots of tea, enjoying the evening air, watching the sun drop in the sky, and taking in the view of the river. To say we are still getting used to how fortunate we feel is a bit of an understatement. The beginnings and endings of the days have seen the most activity (by us) in the garden. Nicky has been planting, weeding and watering. I have been strimming (an English verb which relates to the use of a line trim

 The three wise men finally made it to the stable this week. A bit of a glitch in their GPS sent them on a detour into The Room of Requirement, but a quick update to their Google Maps got them back on track with their perambulation round the living area to finally arrive at their destination. Their joy was relatively short-lived however, because with it being January 6th we took all the decorations (and nativity scene) down and packed them away. Nicky decided the nativity figures were looking a little “travelled”, so put them all through a delicates wash in the washing machine, and they came out looking much cleaner. We have had gorgeous weather much of the week, so gardening (primarily planting of new acquisitions) has moved to the cooler hours at the beginning and end of the day. Much time has been spent reading on the south-east patio because it gets sun, shade and breeze. Having al fresco mugs of tea after dinner has also been a pleasure. We had busy day entertaining on Tuesday

Please accept my apologies Dear Reader, for posting so late this week, but we have been out. It has been a week of socialising. The Jafa (Just Another Friendly Aucklander) invasion began on Monday, with the arrival in town of the Williams tribe, (Paul, his son Jason and his mother Daphne) from Blockhouse Bay. They were staying in a motel in town and came over for dinner. We were joined (due to an impromptu invitation) by Lyn from over the road, and had an enjoyable evening (Christmas pie, salads, Christmas pudding and custard, mince pies and peach cakes). Nicky was up early on Tuesday making four types of bread in order to cope with gluten and dairy intolerances, as not only were we joined by the Williams tribe for lunch (breads and cheeses), but also Judy and Rachel Thurtell (also from Blockhouse Bay, both customers of mine, and Judy was in Nicky’s quilting group). The morning sunshine gave way to rain in the afternoon, but Paul, Jason and I managed to keep dry on our way to and fr