Another septuagenarian
It has been birthday week again - the same thing happened last year. Claire’s birthday started chilly and misty, in Whanganui anyway. I had a morning sailing on the paddle steamer and Nicky was attending to the necessaries at church. She returned to church later for her Advent prayer stations slot and collected me from the wharf, by which time it had turned into a lovely sunny day. This encouraged Nicky into the garden while I went shopping and made birthday cake number 2 - a hummingbird cake. At some point, possibly late afternoon, we had a good chat with Claire on the phone.
Nicky’s birthday started cool and dull. I popped into town to collect flowers that I had ordered for her.
After making a picnic of smoked salmon rolls we drove to Kai Iwi beach for a walk and our lunch. I had been once before but Nicky had never been, and it is much talked about by locals in these parts. It was cool and windy, and nobody else was there.
After a wander on the beach, we found a sheltered picnic table where I had some lunch but Nicky was still feeling the effects of her late breakfast. On our return home we prepared for all the visitors that Nicky had invited to call in for a cuppa and piece of cake. I got the caramel and peanut butter cheesecake out of the fridge, removed the ring of the spring form cake tin, and it started to expand in every direction. I think I put too much caramel and mascarpone in to it, and not enough Philadelphia cheese. Either way, it looked a disaster, though it tastes great, so we just served the hummingbird cake.
We had a lovely afternoon of visitors and cake. We finished the day watching the concluding episodes of the two Grand Designs series that have been airing on TV.
I was supposed to be sailing again on Wednesday and Thursday, but both were cancelled because of the high winds. I cut the grass and the berm instead, and did some MacOnSite work. Nicky went hospital visiting on Wednesday afternoon and staffed the Aramoho Library on Thursday. The Wednesday night quiz was the last of the season for the organiser at Stellars. He is moving to a different venue next year and our team will follow him. Due to the end-of-term nature of the event, scores were grossly modified so there was no official winner. We still enjoyed the evening and teams were awarded prizes which were much enjoyed.
We pottered round the house on Friday morning, and I had an afternoon sailing. The wind had eased and the weather was sunny. The summer quilt has now gone onto the bed.
Yesterday was a 12 hour day for me with morning and evening sailings. The planned training session for in-between the sailings was postponed so that we could drive up to the Upokongaro wharf to extract the gangway which some local miscreants had pushed into the river. The day was hot, sunny and tiring. Nicky gardened but had a bout of heat stroke and had to rest. In the evening she went over to Mark and Krystyna’s for pre-Christmas drinks which she enjoyed.
Today has been even warmer, possibly 29ºC. It was the Santa Cruise on the river steamer, so we sailed a couple of hours later than usual. Santa is delivered to the boat by the Coast Guard and we do a boat-to-boat transfer. The boat was full, and unsurprisingly there were lots of children. Jen, our manager, organised a BBQ for Waimarie crew members following the cruise as our Christmas celebration. It was calm and enjoyable.
Nicky had a good morning at church followed by a Special General Meeting, which also went well. A relaxing evening with the telly awaits us.
Take care, Rick and Nicky.
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