Is that rain I hear?

 I know talking about the weather can be boring, but I just have to give it a mention this week because it has been a little bit gobsmacking. It was still dark on Monday morning when we were having our first cuppa of the day. The showers started, then turned to rain and developed into a cool dull day. We were wearing longs with an extra top layer, and it felt like autumn was starting to get into its stride. Tuesday stared cool but with a clearer sky. The forecast high for the day was 28º, and oh so wrong as it hit 32º mid-afternoon with gorgeous blue skies and blazing sun. Wednesday started dry, but by late afternoon the temperature had dropped and water was coming through the holes in the sky again. The rain ceased sometime during Thursday night, but Thursday was sufficiently dull to warrant having the fairy lights on all day. The rain returned on Friday morning along with a gale - very Piglet ears weather, but it was dry again by the end of the afternoon. The weekend has been better - milder, dry and little or no wind. I am assuming that next week we will get everything that we didn’t get this week while autumn (or Dan Corbett) makes its mind up what to do.

Nicky’s hard work in the garden is really starting to pay off, possibly with a little assistance from the rain this week:

The retaining wall trench turned into another lap pool on Thursday, but I had already dug pole hole number 1 on Monday, and have now done numbers 6 and 7, and started on 2,3, 4 and 5. I am starting to think of them as long drops and when I mentioned this to Nicky she said “Choice!” I realised she didn’t mean it in the Kiwi colloquial sense of “that’s good” but more the “a number of options to choose from” perspective.

I found on Monday that I quickly encountered sand while digging the first hole, but couldn’t get the depth I required with just the shovel, so a trip to Mitre 10 was required for what they refer to as a “hole digger”, which I though was me, but looks like this:

It has turned out to be very handy.

Carol, who lives down the road and walks past our house every time she undertakes her daily constitutional, has called in twice this week while being caught short and needing the loo. On her first visit she also stayed for a cup of tea which seems going a bit full circle to me, but we had a good chat in the fresh air.

With the weather keeping us inside, we started a 998 piece jigsaw, which turned out to be a 997 piece puzzle. Nicky feels she had seen the new missing piece so did a thorough search and sweep of The Room of Requirement yesterday but didn’t find it. We enjoyed the puzzle all the same.

On Friday afternoon Joy and Peter came round to discuss rosters with Nicky, primarily with the request that she takes over doing from Joy for St John’s. This meant she had to make scones, which I throughly enjoyed (along with Joy’s chocolate topped banana cake). Other activities have included Nicky attending Life Group and me doing a little MacOnSite work.

I have changed my coffee supplier and started on the new product this week, which I am enjoying. We have a local roaster called Havoc, who will deliver (for free) a good value 1kg bag. This prompted me to do a quick Google search for tea and coffee tins, for which we have been looking. I found some which appeared to meet our needs (particularly colour). Two were ordered and have been put into service and are working well so far.

Our Covid restrictions have changed this weekend - no more requirement for QR scanning at establishments, greater indoor gathering limits, and none for outdoors. Auckland’s cases seem to have peaked and the numbers in hospital are slowly coming down. Life is changing yet again.

Take care, Rick and Nicky.