The patter of large and wet raindrops

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The wet, windy and stormy weather of last week has continued into this week, finally starting to abate on Thursday. Today has been our first dry day of the week, and we have had a little afternoon sunshine which has been welcome. Some of the plants seem to have got over excited with all the rain and had a bit of a growth spurt. The flax in the “almost lap pool” at the bottom of the garden have been holding their own:


Last Sunday night I went to bed in considerable muscular back pain. I don’t know what I had been doing with my posture to cause this but I had been more sedentary than usual (yes, that is possible) due to the inclement weather. As a result, I have made a more concerted effort to have a walk each morning this week, and managed it more days than not. This has lead to two discoveries: another new build to keep an eye on, and a new bench on a grassy area just down the road from us:



We had a very nice picnic on the “old” bench once, but I can’t remember when that was. I was a little disappointed that it’s not possible to see our house from the new bench, but the grassy area is on the river curve nearest to us, and our house can only been seen from a little further round the curve and down river.


The weather has meant drying laundry mainly under the car port or inside. The clothes rack that I bought in New Lynn many years ago and which has been the worse for wear for quite a few years now, finally collapsed. Nicky has replaced it with a shiny new one which is very good, and came with a pair of high spec (ie: Skellerup Red Band) gummies/wellies. The green ex-Claire ones which she has been wearing for ages have now split. I feel being married to the owner of a pair of Red Bands has raised my social standing considerably.


The easing of the rain has enabled us to have some time in the garden. Nicky has been taking the pioneering plants to task, and I have been doing some strimming. Nicky had meetings with Louise (Pastoral Care), Life Group, and Vestry. I have also had a couple of hours of MacOnSite work. Nicky had six borrowers visit the library on Thursday, though five of them were below knee height and unwilling to sit and listen to the stories she read them. Yesterday Nicky had a Small Group Leaders training day at church (the groups are small, not the leaders) which was good. In her absence I did lots of laundry and ironing. I had a walk along the beach at Castlecliff, though it was quite overcast. I must go on a nice day sometime!


Our notable TV viewing has been disappointing this week. A film called Submarine about adolescent growing pains in Wales, and a two part drama (The Holiday) where the writers overindulged in mis-direction and under-information. There are better ways of creating suspense and leading the viewer to the denouement.


The flowering cherry is about the only tree in the garden with any leaves left, and they have turned autumnal now:



While Nicky was at church this morning, I did some horizontal surface tessellating in The Room of Requirement, and started a jigsaw at the dinning room table. The view through the kitchen window is as unobscured as it gets as we approach the shortest day:



It’s frittata tonight and a dried fruit pasty with custard for tea, and hopefully some better telly.


Take care, Rick and Nicky

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