Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

 Halfway through the year already, and Italy are out of Euro 2024 in the first of the knockout games. I was only a little surprised. The games with an evening kick-off time coincide nicely with my breakfast time. I can have a couple of mugs of tea during the first half, do my exercises at half time, and settle down to the excitement of the second half with my porridge. A grand way to start the day. Nicky brought Sarah home with her for lunch on Monday. Sarah has recently had a knee operation so getting about is challenging for her. Nicky was cleaning at church in the morning with Dale, and I was doing my usual Monday morning duties before laying the table for lunch. We both had a snooze in the afternoon after Nicky had taken Sarah home. We received a delivery of plants for Frances (Mrs. Egg) on Tuesday morning, so Nicky dropped them into her on her way to home group. In the evening we watched Infamous, a film about Truman Capote writing In Cold Blood. It was a bit grim, but Toby Jo...

 Yesterday was our 39th wedding anniversary. We decided to celebrate over two days by taking bus trips round town to see parts of Whanganui that we hadn’t been to before, and from the higher vantage point that a bus provides. This would also enable us to use some different bus routes from our usual ones in our exploration. We started out on Friday morning by getting a bus into the main terminus in town at Trafalgar Square (no monument to Nelson, just a shopping centre). One of Nicky’s regular borrowers at the library got on the bus with a friend a few stops down the road. Both of them had forgotten both their Bee Cards and Gold Cards, but the driver let them on anyway. We had a chat with them before they got off to have a coffee and a walk. We only had a few minutes to wait for the bus that would take us round East Whanganui. Some of the trip was on familiar roads and passed familiar places, and it was good to learn that we could get to them by bus if we needed to. We discovered th...

 We started the week with a spectacular sky, prior to the rain that followed a little later: Nicky went off to church to do the vestry cleaning and then onto the hairdresser. I spent the day just pottering round the house and not feeling great. On Sunday evening I had had some severe pain on the right hand side of my head. It only lasted a few seconds, but the aftermath lasted a couple of days. It felt like either a tooth problem or an ear problem. I already had a dental hygenist appointment for Thursday, and also managed to get to see a GP on Thursday. Neither found anything wrong, but the GP put me on antibiotics as a precaution. Things improved until I pulled a muscle in my neck on Saturday morning! I finished reading a very interesting book called Our Moon on Tuesday. I learnt much about our relationship with the moon and how it has been the cornerstone of calendar development through human history. The samples brought back by the Apollo missions have had a significant impact o...

 After such a busy weekend it was good to start the week with a gentle day, and a public holiday (King’s Birthday) to boot. The chilly start suggested that the sun might come out, which it did, and helped dry the two loads of washing that we hung on the line. While Nicky cleaned at church, I pottered at home salting the softener and cleaning the filters in the heat pump and range hood. Nicky did another load of washing on her return from church. I marvelled at being able to sit in the lounge with the ranch sliders open enjoying the sun and the breeze on the third day of winter. We had not been out for our usual birthday breakfast over the weekend so had poached eggs and smoked salmon on toast for lunch. Taking advantage of the weather, we drove a little way up the river road   to see the sight from the Aramoana viewpoint. This was a new experience for us. I think you might agree that it was worth the 25 minute drive: We rounded off the afternoon with a cuppa at Mark and Krysty...

 Our week began with Nicky feeling congested. She did the ironing before going off to church to clean. As the week progressed and the infection developed she felt more unwell, but was never really bad. I picked it up from her and as we communicated with other people we discovered many of them suffering in a similar way. We are also aware of another Covid wave going through the country so are mask-wearing and avoiding large groups. We didn’t quiz this week to reduce our chance of catching Covid (or anything else) with having a busy weekend ahead. We have both done RAT’s and been negative. A very nice man came and had a look at our dishwasher and oven on Monday afternoon. The dishwasher was indeed leaking, and the bottom element on the oven had failed. He disconnected the element so that we could continue to use the oven in fan-assisted mode and we are waiting for the quote to affect both repairs. We knew when we were building the house that the contract supplied appliances were inex...