Deckhand of The Week

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Family health has dominated our week. Over in England Felicity is having to wait longer than expected for a place in Knellwood. Here, Nicky’s younger sister has been in hospital and is now convalescing with Clem and Pat. Her brother Steve had an accident while kayaking on Monday. He wasn’t injured when his kayak hit some rocks, but when recovering his equipment he tripped on a root on the riverbank the bank and badly hurt a hamstring and bruised his pelvis. He came to us on Wednesday to recuperate as it was closer than going home to Auckland. Nicky’s injured left wrist has also been playing its part this week. She had her first visit to the physio on Monday and got on very well, and had some assistance with the arthritis in her right hand too. None of us is getting any younger.


Nicky continued to be tired after her volunteering for the NZ House and Garden open home last week. She cleaned at church as usual on Monday, and met up with a fellow volunteer (also still tired) on Tuesday before going to Home Group. In the evening she had a BYO dinner with Vestry, followed by a Vestry meeting & Diocesan vestry training. On her way out of the house and getting organised with the car her iPad slipped from her grasp to the ground and died. Gravity and concrete are unforgiving.


Steve arrived on Wednesday afternoon and Nicky took him to the hospital for a checkup before they joined me at the quiz. With Steve’s help we came 7th with 93 points. During her staffing of the Aramoho Library on Thursday, Nicky was inundated with littlies for awhile and that really boosted the numbers.


I was busy at the beginning of the week with MacOnSite work and cutting the grass. I took a bit of time out on Wednesday morning to have a walk by the river. I had noticed a new path being laid upstream from the Dublin Street bridge while sailing and wanted to investigate where the access points were. It was a very pleasant 30 minute amble in the lovely autumn sunshine:




The end of the week (Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun) has been work on the river paddle steamer for me. On Friday while on the helm and bringing the boat under the bridges, Bob the bosun commented that he was pleased that I had listened to his request to the crew to stay closer to the starboard bank when approaching the Dublin Street bridge. He was concerned about us getting into a bad habit of being nearer the sand bank which stretches to the middle of the river from the port river bank. In response, our stand-in skipper spontaneously announced me as Deckhand of The Week for paying attention. It is a commendation which doesn’t actually exist, but it was good for a laugh.


We were not laughing when we parked the boat after our first sailing on Saturday. We had almost got all the ropes on the boat in a strong outgoing current when a crew of eight novice rowers departed from the rowing club ramp just upstream from us. They were quickly swept into our wharf, onto our lines and ultimately collided with our boat. It took us quarter of an hour to help them and others from the rowing club resolve the situation safely by encouraging all the rowers to abandon their boat. The water wasn’t deep and they all reached dry ground safely, but the spine of their boat was badly damaged and they had obviously been frightened by the experience.


Our autumn weather has brought much cooler nights (4ºC on Tuesday), and our warm days are being bookended with cool starts and evenings. Nicky and Steve have been playing Scrabble regularly, and Steve has been going for short walks to aid his recovery. On Friday night he bought us a takeaway from the Spice Guru Indian restaurant in town which we thoroughly enjoyed. Afterwards Nicky zipped off to church to help setup prayer stations at church for Holy Week. Nicky used the leftovers in a soufflé for dinner yesterday, and is making omelettes for us today.


Take care, Rick and Nicky.

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