A typical Whanganui sunset

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 This week has not turned out as expected. We were not scheduled to sail on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, so I was looking forward to having three days off. This had become four days when last Sunday’s sailing was cancelled due to our skipper being ill. He is still not entirely recovered. However, the weather had other plans and we caught the edge of a major storm system on Thursday and Friday. Sailing was cancelled due to the high winds, and I was relieved not to be on the boat because of the accompanying rain. Instead we both stayed home and watched the wind and the rain whilst reading and doing a jigsaw. Nicky also had some periods of nausea on Wednesday and Thursday along with feeling generally “not right”, so didn’t quiz or staff the Aramoho Library.


While Monday was a little damp at times, it was mild and we achieved the national highest recorded temperature of 25º here in Whanganui. I cut the grass in the back garden and Nicky cleaned at church. Tuesday was a better day so after shopping I cleared the gutters, in readiness for the forecasted rain. Nicky went to Home Group in the afternoon and I had a snooze.


On Seven Sharp (an early evening “magazine” TV programme which promises much and delivers little) there was an item about preparing your household electricity system for the coming winter. The advice that was new to me was testing the RCD’s on the switch box. I had never noticed the test button on our three or the label that said “test monthly” (it’s been added to my list). So on Wednesday I had fun (you see what an exciting life we lead) testing our RCD’s and observing which parts of the house they controlled. They all passed by the way.


The Charlotte’s Dummies quiz team consisted of just Danny, John, Mike and myself. We came 6th with 84 points suffering badly in the popular culture rounds.


We had tickets for Dad’s Army at The Rep (one of our local am-dram groups) on Thursday evening. Nicky didn’t feel up to going so Mark from up the road (a bit of a thespian himself) came with me. The play was a re-hash of two of the classic episodes and quite good fun, but it was a decidedly amateur production.


Nicky felt brighter on Friday so attended the monthly fashion talk at the Whanganui District Museum and made apple strudel for us after I finally sourced some filo pastry at Stevo’s. The Outfit of the Month was a 1960’s pumpkin coloured lamé ensemble. Very Jackie Kennedy.


The weather has improved over the weekend so Waimarie river sailing has resumed. We did three one-hour cruises yesterday to see how it worked and to do some training exercises. We didn’t carry many passengers which was actually quite nice and it all went well. Nicky spent the day doing a mountain of laundry. While sitting down for dinner we were accompanied by a lovely sunset:



By the evening we were both very tired and kept nodding off whilst watching The Great British Sewing Bee.


Nicky dropped me at the wharf this morning to prepare the Waimarie in 5 degrees of warmth, and attended church while I sailed. Afterwards she enjoyed another swift visit to our new Sarjeant Art Gallery before driving us both home from the wharf. The rain has stayed away this afternoon but the temperatures are dropping as autumn gets into its stride. 3º forecast for tonight, so even colder than last night.


Take care, Rick and Nicky

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