Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

 Our exciting news this week is that we have had a house guest; Nicky’s sister Stella came to stay for a few days. You may recall from last week, Nicky went up to Auckland on Sunday on the bus. This proved to be a long journey, not as comfortable as going by car, but not so bad as to be unrepeatable. The bus was about an hour late arriving in Auckland. Stella met her and took her home. Nicky was travelling to Auckland because of the osteoporosis/arthritis drug trial that she joined 10 years ago. It was time for another check-up and test visit, so she spent Monday morning at the Medical School and hospital. On Tuesday while I made pork pies, cleaned the house and did laundry, Nicky and Stella drove down to Whanganui. They had seen some of the Queen’s funeral on Monday night, and I had it recored for later viewing. We spent Tuesday evening chatting and giving Stella a tour of our new home as it was her first visit (yes it can take that long, I have Irish in my ancestry). The weather had

Top story in the on-line edition of the Whanganui Chronicle on Wednesday morning: Top story in the on-line edition of the Whanganui Chronicle on Friday morning: Then on Saturday morning, no longer on the top spot: What a wonderful place we live in when the top news story is a cat-up-tree. In other news, which didn’t make it into the local media, we celebrated our 15th anniversary of arriving in Aotearoa on Wednesday. We bought bagels from a recently opened shop in town and brought them home for lunch. We would have found a nice place to sit if we could but the wind was very chilly and not inviting. All the same, we enjoyed our Baconater and the smoked salmon, followed by a pot of tea: Thursday was busy. Steve and Ros called in for lunch on their way past. They had some time with Nicky at the Community Library, and then came on to Tiramaroa. They brought goodies from Angel Louise (pasties and bacon and egg pie) and I had made fruit bread to accompany the cheese and crackers. Nicky added

 Nicky has had a busy week. Along with her regular commitments she has been on the hospitality team for the Alpha course Spiritual weekend. This took place on Friday evening and all day Saturday (which was a 7.30am start for her). When she arrived at the Community Library on Thursday she found our local MP (Stephanie Lewis) was there, along with two assistants, her husband and their younger son. Stephanie was doing a “Meet Your MP” session. This made the library very busy for Nicky who was very pleased to put her feet up for awhile when she got home. Monday was cold and damp so we started a jigsaw. We finished it on Wednesday which was cold and uninviting, though Nicky did spend some time in the garden. The rest of the week has been better, with some good sunshine on Thursday (lovely solar gain inside). As a result I have started working on garden benches 3 and 4. This required the procurement of some wood for the seats and back support and I have cut the last of the half-round posts u

 Yesterday, Saturday, was significant for two reasons; it was my first “proper” sailing on the Waimarie as it’s newest deckhand, and it was also exactly two years since the first frames of our new home were erected. On September 3rd 2020 we had a meeting arranged with Bert the Project Manger at 2.30p.m. We had seen the previous day that some of the framing had been delivered. As we walked along to the section from the holiday park we could hear hammering and activity and were greeted by Bert, Brodie and Devon and the first few pieces of framing already up. By the end of the afternoon this is how our new home was looking: We were incredibly excited and felt that finally tangible progress was being made. We were out of the ground and rising! As I am sitting writing this I am looking south through the house, seeing the walls that those first frames have created. My season with the Waimarie started on Wednesday with a training sailing just for crew, and to make sure the boat still works af