Cleaning

 I feel that I have spent most of the week cleaning. After doing the trenching on Monday morning I started cleaning part of the fence, and ended up doing all 85m. It looked a great deal better without all the cobwebs and bird crap, at least for a few days…

Meanwhile, Nicky was busy making some lovely orange and date scones. As we had some “spare” mascarpone she used that in place of yoghurt and I really like the change. Ros and Steve, who called in for lunch, also enjoyed them. They came armed with lots of goodies for us - cheese and nuts from Auckland and pasties and pie from Angel Louise in Raetihi. They are always very generous.

On Tuesday I started weeding the haha. By the time I had done around a third of it the green waste wheelie bin was full, and my feet were quite wet in my leaky walking boots. Nicky did some planting and weeding before going to Home Group in the afternoon. Late in the afternoon Murray from next door came round to borrow a ladder and trim the tree that was starting to overhang our roof. It didn’t take him very long with his battery chain-saw-on-a-very-long-pole tool. It has been a big improvement and also gives us more light:

Nicky worked on Andrew’s blanket on Wednesday morning while I did a number of errands and a little MacOnSite work. In the afternoon I started washing the house, Nicky did more planting (of the plants purchased at the Parish Fair last weekend), and we had afternoon tea on bench number two.

I have noticed that we have started to get back into the routine we fell into last summer. Taking advantage of the greater number of daylight hours to work outside, having a shower before dinner, and no longer closing the blinds. With there being no other properties behind us there is no privacy issue with our bedroom, and we get to lie in bed and see the stars. With the fence at the front, there is no privacy issue in the living room either.

Even though it was quite breezy on Thursday morning, I continued washing the house, and finished it shortly before Nicky returned from the Aramoho Community Library. She had had another quiet day with just one borrower, but thoroughly enjoyed reading a Tudor detective novel.

Friday was noticeably cooler even before the rain came. This forced Nicky to move the laundry to under the car port while I did some more MacOnSite work. In the afternoon Nicky had a Small Group Leaders training meeting to watch three short films in preparation for her third part of leaders training, which she did yesterday. This went well, as did my sailing, apart rom the rain which was a torrential at one point. The afternoon was drier with some sun. After I had collected Nicky from her training day at church, Jacqui from next door came round for a pot of tea. It was get to catch up on her and our news as we haven’t had a good chat for awhile. Her build is still proving to be challenging to get going, and we really feel for her. Fortunately she does seem quite happy in her caravan.  It’s just the increasing building costs, are playing havoc with her building budget.

We enjoyed watching the women’s Rugby World Cup Final. Obviously pleased that the Black Ferns won, though for us both it would have been a sweeter victory if they hadn’t been playing England. Both sides played very well and it was a close contest.

We had some more light rain today while I was on the boat and Nicky was at church, but this afternoon has been warm, sunny and windy. I have done some strimming and Nicky is preparing dinner - pancakes, some of which will be stuffed with feta and home grown spinach. The evening will be spent with the telly as that doesn’t require much effort from us.

Take care, Rick and Nicky.