Riparian Entertaining

 The weather has been settled this week with cool nights and hot sunny days. We, on the other hand, have been busy. Monday was a little “calm before the storm-ish”. Nicky undertook church vestry & brass cleaning and laundry. I cut the grass. We enjoyed a cuppa sitting in the garden, and I made some bread and soup for dinner.

Tuesday was our first major event of the week. We hosted Nicky’s home group for a shared lunch and as it was Shrove Tuesday Nicky made pancakes for dessert. She used a mixture of buckwheat flour and rice flour as our friend Dale needed gluten-free flours. The pancakes were very good. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and I don’t think anyone went home hungry. We had a small earthquake (4.5) later in the afternoon. Nicky went to church for the drive-through Pancake Party. She returned to church later for a difficult Vestry meeting.

For the second time in 40 years on St Valentines Day (Ash Wednesday) Nicky and I had bought each other the same card - a simple but lovely picture of a fantail. I also gave Nicky a couple of small chocolates, one with a lemon cheesecake filling and the other with a kahlua filling. Pat and Clem drove down from Auckland. Dale and Bob (Clem’s best man) joined us for dinner. I made four salads to go with the rotisserie chicken that Pat provided. For dessert I had prepared an almond and oat milk rice pudding to be topped with Bob’s plum jam. Nicky made a Swedish style apple cake. 

After dinner Nicky and Dale went to the evening Ashing Service. Pat and Clem had booked in at the Top 10 Holiday Park but had only been able to get a dormitory room - no kitchen or en suite. Pat decided she would prefer to use the single bed in The Room or Requirement, so after a lovely evening Dale and Bob departed and Clem went up to the Holiday Park. 

Clem and Pat had breakfast with us on Thursday morning. Pat extracted a promise that next time they come to Whanganui they will stay overnight with us, but only if we don’t make them sleep in our bedroom. Pat wants to use the the Room of Requirement single bed and a floor mattress. After Clem and Pat departed for Wellington Nicky got the bus to staff the Aramoho Library and had one borrower, all day.

Thursday through to Sunday was work on the boat for me, sailing six river cruises. On Friday and Saturday we had evening sailings, casting off at 6pm and returning at 8pm. This meant there was break of a bit over 2 hours between our morning and evening sailings on those days. On Friday I came home for lunch and brought Mike, the other Deckhand, with me. Nicky had laid out a lovely lunch, as well as doing all six loads of the household laundry. While I was home she used the car to go and have a blood test at the hospital. On Saturday Mike and I went to St Anthony’s Medieval School Fair, which has a good reputation in Whanganui. As school fairs go it was very well organised, but it was still only a school fair. We bumped into most of the other members of our quiz team while we there, and it was very hot. After a kebab and some chips Mike and I headed for the cool of the food court at the Trafalgar Square Shopping Centre.

Nicky meanwhile was on Lenten Retreat with Valda, who is in town for about three weeks. She is house siting at her son’s place. In the evening Frances joined Nicky and Valda for dinner and apparently largely put the world to rights. Frances had left to water her nursery by the time I got home mid-evening. Valda just stayed to say Hi.

Both of us are feeling tired today, so after church and collecting me from the Waimarie wharf we have been snoozing, while my washed work clothes dried on the washing line.

Finally, we learned last August that a roadside utility cabinet, just up the road from us, would be painted by a local artist. It has been completed this week and looks really good:

Take care, Rick and Nicky.