Inside

 Up until this weekend, the weather this week has been cold, wet, or both. This has not been conducive to outdoor activities such as gardening, or convenient for drying laundry. Consequently we have had a very indoor week.

Nicky’s week has been busy with her regular activities. Church cleaning on Monday morning took longer than usual due to changing the church hangings, all the candle wax that had been spilled onto the carpet, and the monthly brass cleaning she and Dale undertake. Tuesday afternoon was Home Group, and we had an early dinner so that she could get to her evening Vestry meeting. This was a long and challenging affair.

Wednesday morning was Book Group discussing The Lucky Galah by the Australian author Tracy Sorenson. Nicky had been disappointed by the ending until it was explained by the only scientist in the book club that the mathematical equation which ended the novel was for gravity. This gave them clarity and marvelling at the author’s ingenuity. Hospital visiting was after lunch. The rain absolutely poured for quite a period, and mist started rising from the river. It looked quite eerie:

Nicky had another quiet day with no borrowers visiting the Aramoho Library on Thursday. Early Saturday morning she zipped up to the Quaker Acres (as they are locally known) to wash the dishes at the Alpha breakfast, and was fed a welcome waffle breakfast of her own. The rest of the day at home Nicky cleaned and vacuumed before making coq-au-vin. We had invited Mike over for dinner prior to having our quiz team members over for a games evening. I made a tiramisu for dessert (Mike’s favourite) and the coq-au-vin was a delicious first course.

I have managed an amble most days this week. On Monday afternoon I took all my old computer technology left over from being self-employed to Technoman in East Whanganui for reuse and recycling. I also dropped our old disintegrating airing racks into the Recycling Centre in town. We are really appreciating the two new ones which I bought last week. We were struggling with the jigsaw of Waterloo Station which we had started on a particularly wet afternoon last week. Its orientation (portrait not landscape) was a bit of an issue, but the real problem that the two images were very dark and very similar. We were not enjoying it so we packed it away on Wednesday. In the evening we quizzed poorly coming 7th with 77 points.

Having turned 65 I am being strongly encouraged to have a range of health checks, and some things I can now get for free. On Thursday I had eye and hearing tests at our local Specsavers. My glasses prescription hasn’t changed and my eye health is the same as a year ago. My hearing is starting to deteriorate at the high frequencies which is not surprising.

On Friday evening we attended an exhibition of paintings and ceramics by Agent Felicity, the estate agent who found our section for us. She had emailed us a few weeks ago inviting us to the “opening night”. We had no idea that she painted. Her work uses wonderful bright colours and material within the oil paint to add texture. There were a couple with which we were very taken, but didn’t feel we could justify spending the money on them. However, we were very pleased to have been able to attend, see Felicity for a brief catch-up and meet her husband Steve. We returned home and after dinner watched Red, White and Brass, a film about a group of Wellington Tongans forming a brass band to see the Tonga-France match at the 2011 Rugby World Cup. It had a bit of a slow start but ended up being an amusing and enjoyable watch.

The weather calmed and turned cool but sunny yesterday. I felt finally I had the opportunity to wash the windows outside after having done them inside a couple of weeks ago. I can’t remember when I last did them so this might have been the first time this year. I got so tired when I was working on the paddle steamer that I just didn’t have the energy to wash them. While cleaning the Room of Requirement ranch sliders a NZ Post van arrived to deliver another of our Ruby Wedding anniversary gifts to ourselves - a red clock. I have been looking for a new clock for some years and finally found something that took my fancy on-line. It looks very cheerful on the kitchen wall:

Our Saturday evening with the quiz team was very enjoyable. Only Danny, Mel and John joined Nicky, Mike and I. We had prepared some nibbles and Danny and Mel came armed with tuna flan, mini cheesy scones and lemon cake, all home made. Unusually they hadn’t eaten so were quite peckish. John managed to shift most of the tiramisu that Mike and I hadn’t eaten. I had prepared a film music quiz as Mel has commented previously that it was her strongest subject when quizzing. Mel won, which I was very pleased about. Following that we played Trivial Pursuit using our British Genus Edition. This didn’t do Danny and Mel any favours with it being UK centric and having travelled the least in our quiz group.

Today has again been lovely. The tui and piwakawaka are enjoying the flowers on the kowhai in the front garden, as are we:

As Nicky came home from church this morning, one of her few library regulars was just walking past our home. Angela called in on her way back home for a chat and a cuppa to tell us all about her forthcoming move from Aramoho to Springvale. She is downsizing and wants to be closer to town.

Nicky is planning on preparing bacon and eggs on toast for dinner as there is now an open packet of bacon in the fridge shouting EAT ME every time the fridge door has been opened today.

Take care, Rick and Nicky.