Solid Gold

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 It’s Official. I am soon going to be proper grown-up. I know this because my SuperGold Card arrived in the post yesterday. For those of you who don’t live in Aotearoa, this is a card that provides discounts for the over-65’s in many establishments. For example, the supermarkets in Whanganui give Gold Card holders a 5% discount at the checkout every Tuesday. The downside of this is that on Tuesdays the supermarkets are overrun with oldies, many of whom are indecisive, some of whom are quite mad, and all of them have no idea how to drive a shopping trolley. I am the exception to the rule. Except possibly for the indecisive and mad bits.


The news from the rest of our week is far less earth shattering, though the heavy afternoon rain for Thursday only lasted a few minutes. Nicky’s week has been punctuated with her regular commitments and laundry. She has squeezed in some weeding when she could.


I had a pretty quiet Monday that included cutting the grass in the back garden, and sleeping overnight for a continuous 7½ hours. This had dire consequences. When I woke up my balance was very poor and I couldn’t move round the house without supporting myself. Things did improve after going back to bed for a while, but I needed a quiet couple of days. I didn’t feel like going to the quiz on Wednesday because I didn’t want to be too late in bed with having work on the boat on Thursday. Nicky went, and Charlottes Dummies came first. I think this demonstrates just how useful I am. Work was interesting, as I was still feeling a little wobbly each morning but it faded increasingly quickly day by day. I have been OK today.


I didn’t feel up to doing my usual supermarket shopping until Wednesday, and Nicky came into town with me so that we could do some other errands; visiting the banks and the folks who made our blinds. The large blind in the bedroom had stopped going up and down. They explained how to take it down which after a bit of a fiddle I managed. Nicky dropped it into them on her way to do her hospital visiting duty and they returned it a couple of hours later.


We had some filo pastry left over from last week. The packaging recommended NOT freezing, so I used it to make a smoked fish pie and a beef and onion pie.


Yesterday we drove to church as Nicky had a Small Group Leaders training session, and I didn’t need to be at work until 10am. I walked down to the wharf via Jolt, where I had coffee and a savoury muffin. Nicky’s training course was good and she prepared dinner for us after collecting me. We enjoyed watching The Great British Sewing Bee in the evening.


Today has been lovely and sunny like yesterday, but not quite as warm. Nicky dropped me at the wharf so that she could have the car to get to church. After our sailing we sailed for another hour to let a new potential skipper practice key boat manoeuvres; departing, turning and parking. It all went well.


I don ’t have any photos from this week, so here is one from the archive taken 3 years ago. A classic view of Whanganui taken from Durie Hill.



Take care, Rick and Nicky.

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