Duck!

By -

 Most days this week have started cool with quite a bit of cloud, but fairly quickly turned to clear skies with hot sunshine. This has enabled us to spend a good amount of time in the garden. Nicky has continued with her seedling planting marathon. These are mainly edibles with some companion plants. I have started digging the trench for the power supply to the water feature:



It needs to be a spade width wide and 600mm deep. It’s physically challenging for my back and knees, and I can only really work in the cooler parts of the day. Wednesday was our only day with some rain showers, so I dug in-between the showers as it was cooler.


Nicky had another physio appointment this week, on Tuesday after hosting Home Group. Her thigh muscles are starting to improve with the exercises she is doing. On Wednesday evening we came equal third at the quiz having scored 86 points. We had the closest answer to the tie-breaker question so won the money! We are planning to use our winnings in the usual way, with a Team Dinner probably in the New Year.


At lunchtime on Tuesday I saw a duck with her brood wandering down our drive. They ignored the path down to the back garden and jumped off the end of the drive to the flat area by the shed:



This morning when I went down to the washing line I found three ducklings in the trench I’m digging. They were unable to get out so I got them into an ice cream box and set them free in the paddock behind us where we have seen a drake and duck with their brood earlier in the week:



Mike took us out for dinner on Friday, to Vietnam Kitchen in town. We had a lovely meal (we will go again) and Mike came back home with us for some hands of Rummy-O and a couple of games of Cluedo. It was a good way to end the “working” week. Mike won nearly every game.


Yesterday Nicky went down to Wellington with a number of other ladies in the church minibus for an ordination service at the cathedral. The day wasn’t as enjoyable as when she had done this previously as they didn’t leave Whanganui until around 10.25am. They didn’t arrive in time to get good seats and sitting in second to furthest row back with tall menfolk in front, meant all the shorties weren’t able to see, much to their disappointment.


I took the opportunity to have some time in town, doing some Christmas shopping and enjoying a coffee and croissant in Article Cafe. On my wanderings I encountered a Free Gaza protest which I can only describe as very bijou Whanganui:



It was at one of the main intersections in the historical quarter of town with a few Palestinian supporters on three corners and some Isreal supporters on the fourth. The Palestinian supporters had composed some short ditties to sing through their megaphone, but the whole thing had an air of “protest without being a nuisance”. 


In the afternoon I had my first free ride on the PS Waimarie since retiring. It was an interesting experience as it was quite difficult to switch into passenger mode. When the boat started its journey upstream I felt compelled to do the walk-round of the boat that I used to do at that point to check that everything was as it should be. I also explained to some passengers the correct use of the ladders to move between the upper deck and lower deck. Old habits die hard, but I enjoyed the trip. I don’t miss working on the boat, but I do miss going up and down the river a little.


Before going to church this morning while I was out having an amble, Nicky finally finished the jigsaw that we started last month:



With the way the weather has been this week, and hearing my first cicada of the season on Friday, it feels like summer is on the way.


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

Weeds and lurgy

By -
Image
 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...
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