Boosted

One way and another, we have been kept busily occupied this week. We have had a couple of lovely mild sunny days and dried some laundry outside. However, some has been dried inside because of rain or threatening grey clouds. 

Suzanna, a recently widowed elderly lady in Nicky’s Life Group, came over for lunch on Monday. Nicky spent the morning making a very good focaccia while I was on the phone with a customer. It accompanied the butternut and apple soup which I had defrosted. Suzanna stayed until quite late in the afternoon and I continued working.

Nicky went to the cinema on Tuesday morning to see Whina with the other members of her Life Group, which was very good. I dropped her at the cinema and then went off to do the supermarket shopping. We met up in town, early afternoon, to have our second Covid boosters. From what I read it may not make much difference in terms of our level of protection, but we thought we would give it a shot (pun intended).

Following the booster we both felt quite tired during Wednesday, but Nicky managed to stay awake for her Pastoral Care meeting in the evening.

On Thursday Whanganui had New Zealand’s top temperature of 22 degrees. I went down to the port in Castlecliff for an open day, and a presentation on the planned development. The council were mainly wanting feedback on dredging. The planned development looks like it will really improve the area its facilities, as it is currently a little bleak:

On the way home I did a bit of shopping and ordered some timber for “topping out” the posts of the retaining wall.

I took Nicky down to the port on Friday morning, because she had been at the Aramoho Community Library on Thursday (one borrower), and on our way home we had a look at one of the sections that we considered. It is primarily a sleep slope and has not yet been built on, or sold. The current owner, a local builder, appears to be working on it to try and mitigate some of the difficulty with the slope and make it more saleable. We gave up on buying it, as Bert warned us the initial earthworks might cost in the vicinity of $76,000. It was in a lovely street.

Yesterday Nicky had the day at the local marae, Te Ao Hou. We had received a flyer earlier in the week inviting us to attend a presentation on community housing, local relationships and healthy food. The land opposite us (which used to be the grounds for the Jubilee Hospital) is owned by the marae. They plan to build up to 130 dwellings for affordable community housing. Nicky found the event very interesting and came home with beef mince, spuds and carrots which she had been gifted. She had made plaited bread filled with apricots which had been soaked in lemon juice, for her koha. I stayed home and did laundry and cleaning, and had an amble in the afternoon. We enjoyed the second plaited loaf that Nicky had made, for our tea with some cheese, and washed it down with tea and telly.

This morning Nicky went to St. Marys in Upokongaro (across the river and upstream from us) for a special Patronal service. She enjoyed both the service, highlighting Mary Magdalen, and the beautiful wood-panelled church. The day started out  cold and wet, so I began a jigsaw with which Nicky has been helping, when not preparing her roster for St. John’s. We are having hot cross buns for tea. They had some in the supermarket on Tuesday (it  seems so long since Easter) and a packet magically appeared in my trolley!

Take care, Rick and Nicky.