Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

 Monday was Labour Day, so we began the week with a public holiday. This is very important to those of us who are retired or semi-retired, as it means we have to use our memories to remind us that we can’t do what we would usually do, because it is probably closed or it’s going to cost us more. For Nicky however, such obstacles are mere trifles and the church was going to get cleaned, public holiday or not. The day started cool and clear and developed into a lovely sunny spring day, so laundry was done by the under-laundry-person as being temporarily skipper-less, the paddle steamer wasn’t sailing. When Nicky returned from church and had brunched we drove into town and had a very pleasant walk by the river: Reading, gardening and trenching completed the afternoon, and the telly was again put to use after dinner. On Tuesday morning I did a number of errands in town along with the supermarket shopping, and I called into work to have a chat with Jen (our Manager). I had emailed her ov...

 Gosh, it’s been an exciting week, though I admit that could depend on your definition of excitement. Clem and Pat had been in New Plymouth for the weekend and came over to us for dinner on Monday night. We discovered some time ago that Clem’s best man at their wedding (Bob) now lives in Whanganui. So we invited Bob and his wife Dale (who does church cleaning with Nicky) to join us. We all had a very enjoyable evening. Dale has some food intolerances so I modified our apple crumble recipe and it turned out well. Dale was pleased to eat the same as everybody else. Clem and Pat stayed at the Top 10 Holiday Park just up the road and took Nicky and I out for breakfast on Tuesday morning. Pat had requested the Funky Duck Café again, as she enjoyed their corn fritters so much last time. Pat also wanted to buy a cake to take to Wellington for Milly’s 50th birthday. In order to try and find the sort of cake she was looking for we went to Stevo’s, a local food wholesale outlet. Nicky and I ...

 For those of you not in Aotearoa, the preliminary result of yesterdays General Election has given us a National/ACT coalition government, with possibly a hint of NZ First (Winston Peters). In short, a change from left to right wing policies. The the result from the official count and Special Votes will be issued in about three weeks, but it doesn’t usually change the overall result significantly. Again, for those of you offshore, Special Votes are those cast outside your electorate. The system here enables any voter to walk into a voting Polling Place anywhere in the country and cast their vote. If the Polling Place is not in their registered electorate, they cast a Special Vote. The result is no surprise as National have been ahead in the polls for some months. Even though Chris Hipkins did appear to make a good fist of the Premiership after taking over from Jancinda, there still seems to be much resentment for the Covid restrictions which kept us safe. Much of our week has been ...

 We have been behaving like socialites again this week, with three evenings out. On Monday we went to The Rutland Arms for dinner, just the two of us. The anniversary we were marking was 40 years, give a day or seven, since we first met at The Barley Mow in Loughborough. Much has happened over those 40 years, but to start our retirement in a town which has echos of the place where we met gives a sense of closing the circle. Just in case you are feeling peckish, we started off with a selection of ciabatta breads with dips. We both chose small plates: duck for Nicky and scallops for me. Both very good but only small portions. We had a little dessert at home with a pot of tea. Our other two outings were quiz night (we won!!) and the Community Kai at the marae.   The weather has been colder and wetter than of late, so another jigsaw was completed. Nicky has continued sewing the quillow for Ari, the 8 month old daughter of Kat and Israel. We had a chilly evening amble on Tuesday, b...

 It has been another week of wet and windy weather, tempered with a some periods of blue sky and sunshine. It has also felt like quite a busy week because of having three evenings out. The first was to church for a meeting of the candidates for our electorate (we have a General Election in a couple of weeks). This was hosted by the Budgeting Advisory Service. The representative for ACT didn’t turn up (no loss from our perspective) but the four who did were asked a range of questions. Some were “quick fire” ones to test their local knowledge, and some were more policy related requiring longer answers. The lady from the Green Party was reasonably competent but obviously didn’t expect to reach parliament and was primarily canvassing for the party vote (we get a party vote and a candidate vote for those of you not familiar with our MMP system). The chap from NZ First was utterly hopeless and unable to answer many of the questions, including the policy ones because apparently NZ First d...