Wintery Weekend

By -

 We have had another week of largely dry, sunny weather. The rain came on Friday and lasted into Saturday. The wind moved round to the south so our weekend has been much colder.


The first layer of mega mulch on the CBD was completed on Monday:



It will probably need topping up in the coming week or two, but we still have some of our last delivery in stock.


A young man by the name of Nahum came to see us on Tuesday to take a look at our floor. Some of the corners of the vinyl planks have risen enough for slivers of the top surface to come off. We had kept them so he was able to glue them back in place. The section by the living room ranch sliders is more of an issue, as the planks expanded and didn’t settle properly when they cooled. He is going to talk to Dan at BuildTechNZ about a way forward.


Luna was back at the garage for her last visit in the current round of maintenance. A new cam sensor was fitted as the old one had started leaking oil. After delivering her to the garage I had a wander round town. I called into the Stihl shop to look at their line trimmers (strimmers). In Kathmandu I bought some new merino tops as some of my Icebreaker ones are becoming challenging to repair. I popped into the Bargain Chemist, and my sortie concluded with coffee and a scone in The Yellow House Cafe, before catching a bus home.


Nicky’s week has included her regular activities of church cleaning, home group and staffing the Aramoho Library. The weather has also enabled her to spend some time in the garden earlier in the week.


On Wednesday evening we quizzed, coming 5th with 87 points. On Thursday evening we went to the Community Kai at the marae. Nicky made a lovely apple and orange tart, and I took a dish of mac ’n’ cheese which needed more (or stronger) cheese. We hadn’t been since April so it was good to see people again and catch up.


Friday was a very sociable day. Libby and Graham came over for morning tea and coffee. In the evening Phil and Kristina came for dinner, bringing a lovely pre-dinner platter of goodies with them. We provided roast pork followed by pumpkin pie. It was an enjoyable day.


We had a quiet indoor day yesterday because of feeling quite jaded, and the showers and cold wind didn’t encourage us outside. Nicky started preparing a dinner of chicken peanut satay in the morning, the odour of which just encouraged our hunger pangs. Today Nicky went to Christ Church and then onto St. Mary’s in Upokongaro for its deconsecration. I hung our three loads of washing to take advantage of the breeze.


Last night we started watching a C.B.Strike series on Neon, The Ink Black Heart, which we expect to finish tonight, after dinner of Spanish omelette and scones.


Take care, Rick and Nicky

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Short List

By -
Image
Our list of things to be done to finish the house build has become much shorter this week, due to visits from various tradies every day except for Wednesday, when we won the America’s Cup again. Coincidence? On Monday Caleb came and did the tiling of the window sill behind the gas hob to make it legal. He also tiled splash backs for us in the downstairs loo, shower room and laundry. This was partially to use up the one whole black tile and three sections of grey tile that we had left over from the original tiling in the shower room. However, due to the way they had to buy the extra tiles, we now have four whole tiles and bit of another left over! Hey-ho. All the tiling looks really good and works well. Tuesday was Bert’s turn. He finished the balustrade and built a retaining wall by the drive to stop the gravel disappearing in the rain. This has produced a nice “boxed” area which Nicky is looking forward to planting. He did a couple of other minor fixes too. Thursday was the “big”...
Read more

Fair enough

By -
Image
 While we at one of the ceramics studios last Sunday, we were told about the Otaki Pottery Club “Festival of Pots and Garden Art”. This is held every January. After we had packed and cleaned the PSA unit in Raumati on Monday morning, and acquired mini quiches and raspberry and almond tarts from the patisserie for dinner, we started our journey home. On the way we decided we would take a short diversion into Otaki (population slightly under 4000) just to see what was there. Roadworks it turned out, but behind the roadworks a row of shops, one of which was a Bendon Outlet. Neither of the Bendon Outlets we had tried to get to in Auckland in September were operational, a little like the state of some of Nicky’s foundation garments. We parked the car so that Nicky could investigate some new unmentionables, but between us and the Outlet there was a bookshop… On the face of it you wouldn’t think a wee rural town would even have a bookshop, let alone lone a stunningly brilliant one. Along ...
Read more

Tidying

By -
Image
 As I sit down to write this week’s post, it is just turned half past four in the afternoon and we have finished the bulk of the clearing up after hosting a shared lunch for around 28 people. Just the dishwasher to empty now. We are putting up our feet with a pot of tea in the lounge, where the temperature is 28º, same as in the shade outside. The ranch sliders have been open all day, but the hot sun has been out all day too, accompanied by a warm northerly wind from Oz. The shared Parish lunch went very well. I made pork pies yesterday, and Nicky converted two loaves of bread into sandwiches this morning. We added gluten free muffins from the freezer and thick slices of watermelon. Everybody brought something with them, some quite a lot, and we ended up with masses of food. It felt like a banquet. There was quite a bit left over, but not an excessive amount. We had laid out the food and drinks inside and put most of the seating outside in the shade under the car port. With most pa...
Read more