Meatballs ahead

 One way or another it has been a bit of a week. In the national news, summer officially started on Monday accompanied by heavy rain, gale force winds and cold southerlies. The rubbish weather occupied our Wednesday and Thursday, so we started a jigsaw. On Thursday IKEA opened its first store in Aotearoa at Sylvia Park in Auckland. We will pay a visit sometime, as I need three more support pegs for our Ivar shelving. Various house moves have taken their toll.

December also marks the winding down of regular events in order for people to prepare for Christmas. Nicky just had church cleaning and staffing the Aramoho Library this week in terms of regular commitments. The bible studies at Home Group has finished for the year, but they provided food and catering services for the Christmas Bible Friends nativity play on Tuesday evening. Frances (Mrs Egg) also enjoyed it. On Friday Nicky attended the last Fashion Talk of the year at the Whanganui Museum (very good again) before delivering her edibles to Unity Foods. As a result, she has been able to spend quite a bit of time in the garden this week.

I had finished digging the trench for the power supply to the water feature (we may see the sparky in the coming week) last week, so this was able to return to my regular Under Gardener weeding duties. I started with a section on the eastern border and used the last of our mega mulch:

It has about a third of what it needs so more will be ordered in the not too distant future. The grass has also been cut in the back garden.

A couple of hours or so after going to bed on Friday night I got up the go to the toilet. Before leaving the toilet I began to feel nauseous and very hot. 20 minutes later Nicky discovered me lying on the floor in a pool of perspiration. I hadn’t lost consciousness, but I hadn’t been able to raise the energy to alert her to my situation. With neither of us knowing what to do, Nicky sensibly called an ambulance which took about 10 minutes to arrive. The paramedics diagnosis was an over-reaction by my vagus nerve to something. They gave us advice on how to deal with how I was feeling and what to do over the next 24 hours. They were very reassuring.

As a result, we had a very quiet day yesterday as I still felt fragile even though I was improving. A couple of periods of sleep during the day really helped, but we decided not to go and watch the annual Duck Race (2000 plastic ducks) on the river. By the late afternoon I felt much brighter. Mark and Krystyna down the road had invited us for pre-Christmas drinks and nibbles and we decided to go as we could easily get back home again if I begun once more to not feel well. It turned out to be a lovely evening. Krys invites the same group of people each year, so we are starting to get to know each other, though some of our paths also cross during the year. The nibbles were unsurprisingly lovely and extensive, the conversation was varied and lively, and we finished the evening with some garden games of Jenga and quoits. We were all hopeless at the quoits.

Today started quite mild, but the sun came out while I was ambling and the temperature started to rise accordingly. While ambling I discovered that Aramoho was throbbing with activity. A bike race had its starting point right outside Krystyna and Mark’s home, and as I walked past I heard rowers, racing on the river being set off with a klaxon to mark the start and finish of each race. It was all happening, as they say.

After Nicky returned from church this morning we had some scrambled eggs for lunch and then went into town for the Santa Parade. We had not experienced this in Whanagnui before, because it’s usually on a Saturday and most years I have been working on the Waimarie. We arrived at the junction where the parade made its way onto Victoria Avenue just as it was starting. As usual with these parades, lots of fun floats from local businesses and organisations, with Santa bringing up the rear:

Back home Nicky made lemon and raisin scones for tea, before we went to the Tripes for pre-dinner drinks in Fordell. The church organises an advent calendar of events for December, so there is something on every day. A number of them are 5pm drinks hosted by different members of the congregation and we go to some of the ones hosted by people who we know well. We thoroughly enjoyed sitting in the Tripes back garden, chatting with more than a dozen other people. We finished the weekend off with the scones, a pot of tea, and some telly.

Take care, Rick and Nicky