Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

  The most noticeable thing about being back home this week has been doing a great deal less talking. We throughly enjoyed our trip to Auckland last week and catching up with everybody whom we met, but we did do a lot of talking. The experience and the driving was quite tiring, so we enjoyed our pace of life returning to “sedate Whanagnui”. Our first priority on Monday was getting through the laundry. I started on this while Nicky went off to clean the church and have her postponed hair cut. The weather assisted with getting the laundry dry so Nicky was able to get on with the ironing upon her return. Pat had given us some jigsaws, one of which I fancied doing, so it was started in the afternoon. Restocking the pantry and fridge was first on my list for Tuesday morning. Nicky continued coping with the laundry, but the weather wasn’t   co-operative. After attending Home Group in the afternoon she had a bit of time at home before going to the cinema to see ‘Downton Abbey: the Gr...

 Good evening Dear Reader. We have been away on our jollies this week, up in Auckland. Claire was a member of an organising committee for this years’ NZLLA (NZ Law Librarians Association) Conference which was in Auckland. Nicky and I decided we would pop up to Auckland to see her and Nicky’s family as we hadn’t been up to Auckland since I had started working on the paddle steamer over three years ago. We drove up on Tuesday, surprised by the lack of traffic on the roads for the majority of the journey. We arrived at Paul and Jenny’s a little after 5pm and had a good catch-up and lovely dinner. Claire’s flight arrived in Auckland at 11.15am on Wednesday so we drove out to the airport to meet her (and a colleague) and take them to their accommodation in the CBD. After Claire had checked in, we went to the Art Gallery for a very enjoyable lunch, and then to see the Century of Modern Art exhibition. This was a bit of a curates egg, but we all enjoyed the Van Gogh and Monet paintings, i...

 It is 18 years ago today that we arrived in Aotearoa after our long farewell to England and our trip across the USA. We started off in Auckland where most of Nicky’s family live. Claire now lives in Dunedin with Ryan, and Nicky and I have retired to the North Island Riviera of Whanganui. I think we all feel that we did the right thing in moving here. Since we moved to Whanagnui there has been a walnut tree in the paddock behind us, either dead or close to it. This week it was finally taken down. This is what it looked like two years ago: The toi toi still remains and is looking good: Nicky’s health has slowly improved through the week, but she is not right yet. Her stamina is still to return and the cough is lingering. Apparently this is par for the course with this bug. She has done some sewing but didn’t start returning to her regular activities until Thursday when she staffed the Aramoho Library. If she had been with us at the quiz we might have come 3rd instead of 4th again, t...

 Nicky’s week again began with a Monday morning funeral at Christ Church. Jill was very popular and well liked, and the service was very well attended.   With a Vestry meeting next week Louise came over for lunch on Tuesday to discuss the Pastoral Care report that Nicky will submit. We had tomato soup with the walnut bread that I had made on Sunday. I also bought a farmhouse loaf while shopping but we didn’t break into that. Nicky and I have been enjoying it through the week. Home group was in the afternoon over at Josie’s. I cooked us some chicken for dinner, but just as we finished eating Nicky started vomiting. Nicky seemed to be alright on Wednesday morning as we both worked in the garden, but by the afternoon she was starting to feel like she was coming down with a cold. She wore a mask while we attended the Candidates meeting for the upcoming Local Elections, which was very useful on helping us make our decisions for voting. The event was unusually running ahead of sched...