Drafty Out

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 Aotearoa has been having some weather this week. Again in Whanganui we only caught the edge of it, but we did have a little damage. The lemon wood tree was horizontal on Friday morning, and the akeake was at 45º, but neither was uprooted. Meanwhile, Claire was sent home from work as trees in Dunedin were being uprooted by the wind strength, and they were big ones. I spent my garden time on Friday putting in more and deeper stakes to support the two trees. The approaching weather system gave us a lovely sunset on Tuesday evening:


Nicky has started physio treatment this week for the sprained muscle in her left thigh. She had two appointments which both went well, and has been given a range of exercises to do at home. It has already started to improve the situation but after distributing some leaflet to neighbours letterboxes yesterday she was in a lot of pain. Jacqui came over on Tuesday morning to do a hat fitting with Nicky (birthday gift) and stayed most of the morning having a catch-up chat with us. As the week has progressed Nicky’s sleeping pattern has improved, but she didn’t make it to Home Group on Tuesday and I drove her to the library and the physio on Thursday. She was able to drive herself to church on Friday to deliver some home grown salad to the re-opened Unity Foods, which provides food and grocery items to those in need, caught up with NZ’s cost of living situation.


My week has been very routine, with morning walks most days, shopping, helping Nicky with the laundry from time to time, cutting the grass and weeding in the garden. I’m making progress but it’s slow. 


We started watching Linley on the ThreeNow streaming service this week, and watched the concluding episodes of series 3 of The Twelve on the TVNZ+ streaming service. Again it was very good, and I think possibly the best series so far. We quizzed on Wednesday and did well, coming 3rd with 95 points. According to Mike this was because he was brilliant, but the rest of us have a more accurate perspective of his contribution.


Yesterday we went into town to swap jigsaws at the Jigsaw Exchange, and to the Repair Cafe to see if our dead iron could be fixed. There were no electrical repairers in attendance so we will try again next month. After a bit of supermarket shopping we returned home and I made a couple of tiramisu inspired desserts. Mark and Krystyna were coming for dinner, and Nicky was producing a beef, walnut, celery and orange ragout. It was just lovely, the desserts turned out well, and we had another enjoyable evening.


Nicky attended church this morning and this afternoon we have had the pleasure of enjoying real Egyptian green tea and baklava. You may remember, Dear Reader, that in the autumn of 2024 we had a new neighbour for a few months. Said El Ur was staying in Jacqui’s caravan until the tenants moved out of the house which he had bought. He called in on Friday and invited us over to his place, apologising that he had not done so sooner, but had been very busy at work and had also assumed that we were out when their was no car on the drive. We had a lovely afternoon, and throughly enjoyed the tea and baklava, which was not like any other baklava that we have had before. It wasn’t sweet, but also not savoury because of the dried fruits, nuts and berries.


We started watching Erin Brockovich on Friday evening. We plan to finish the film this evening.


Take care, Rick and Nicky.

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