Ex-viriditas

 It has been one of Nicky’s busier weeks. Church cleaning on Monday was followed by lunch with Louise at The Yellow House cafe. Nicky finishes her term on Vestry next week so it was the last time that she would be producing the Pastoral Care report with Louise. I went into town with her to get a card and gift for Mike as he was 70 at the weekend. Planting tomato and basil seedlings occupied her in the afternoon, while I extracted some more weeds. I was pleased to be feeling back to normal after my shingles vaccination last week.

While I did the supermarket shopping on Tuesday morning Nicky cleaned and vacuumed at home. I met Sam (the contracted skipper on the paddle steamer) while shopping. The first thing he said to me was “please come back!” Apparently they have no Bosun at the moment and he is finding that difficult. Nicky had House Group in the afternoon and I gave some more weeds the Dalek treatment in very breezy conditions.

Nicky had her book club meeting on Wednesday morning, and I cut the back garden grass. With the new trimmer I can now do all of the back garden on one charge of the battery, so it makes the job quicker. I will be interested to see if this continues when the grass really gets going with growing in the summer. While Nicky did hospital visiting in the afternoon more weeds were helped into the green waste wheelie bin (which was also emptied). It was good to get out of the wind when Nicky returned home for a pot of tea and a few hands of Mah Jong. We came 6th at the quiz in the evening.

The rain at the beginning of the week gave way to drier warmer weather on Thursday. Nicky staffed the Aramoho Library and had her teeth cleaned by her hygienist afterwards. I banished more weeds. We watched two more episodes of The Twelve on TVNZ+ in the evening.

Friday was a gorgeous day, and mainly sunny:

Nicky did some planting and laundry in the morning. My knees capitulated after four sessions of weeding so I cleaned the fence (nearly all 85 linear metres) as it didn’t require any kneeling. The temperature reached 24º and it was very comfortable sitting in the shade on one of the garden benches to eat my lunch and drink my coffee. In the afternoon Nicky had a meeting about how her Home Group could assist Unity Foods, a “free” Friday supermarket for those in need run at Christ Church.  We watched another James Bond film (Spectre) after dinner.

A couple of the trees on the east side of the back garden suffered in the strong winds of the week. They are directly downhill of one of the soak- aways. On Saturday I put a couple of stakes in and tied the trees to them with some webbing to give them addition support. While I was out buying the webbing I watched the paddle steamer deport from the wharf:

It’s the first time I have seen the departure from land. I think the coast guard was in attendance because they got a new boat this week so were probably taking it out for a spin. Nicky got much more planting done with having the day at home, but her muscles and joints suffered for it in the evening.

Today started damp, and rain came later in the morning, so I started a jigsaw after returning from my usual morning amble. After church Nicky went to St. Peter’s in Gonville to have a look at a “Flowers for Palestine” 10 metre long embroidery, which was both interesting and impressive. It was created by 74 local embroiders over seven months. This afternoon she has puzzled with me, sewn, and knitted before and after producing our evening meal.

Take care, Rick and Nicky.