Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

 Welcome Dear Reader to the 1000th post on our blog. Congratulations on making it this far. Give yourself a Gold Star. If you have been with us since the beginning, have another Gold Star and an extra shot of espresso. It has taken 18 years and 5 months (or there abouts) to get to this point. On the 22nd of April 2045, I might be writing the 2000th post for the blog. I had never expected the blog to be such a regular feature in our lives. The initial intention was to let friends and family in England know how we were getting on with our travels through the United States and getting settled here in New Zealand. It has turned into a weekly way-point in our lives. Throughout each day of the week I make notes about what we are doing, as I am well aware that otherwise I would sit down to write and think, “what have we done this week?” I also try to take a photo each week for the blog to add a little colour. Our initial plan when we arrived in Aotearoa was to find work and somewhere to l...

 Our week has been one of sunshine and water. Nicky’s Canadian rellies, Bruce and Wendy, are “in residence” at their apartment in Mount Maunganui. They invited us to come and stay for a few days. We packed the car on Monday morning and headed north on a hot, tiring, 7 hour journey, encountering four sets of resurfacing roadworks, one of which took quite awhile to get through. We had not visited them at the Mount since before moving to Whanganui, so we were using roads largely unfamiliar to us.   We discovered The Dukes Roadhouse in Mangaweka, a lovely cafe which serves very good tea and coffee, and plays Pink Floyd, amongst other quality music. We drove the Desert Road, which is on the eastern side of Ruapehu, in sunshine. This is a road which I hadn’t been on since 1998. On our arrival Wendy produced a lovely chicken dinner while watching the figure skating at the Winter Olympics. Having been a figure skater herself she was able to enlighten us to some of the finer points. Wi...

 We have a new picnic table. Well, not us personally but we as in the residents of this end of Somme Parade: I noticed somebody working on Tuesday on my way back from doing the shopping. Whilst ambling on Thursday saw the results of their efforts. It is in the grassed area which is number 357, but there is no house there. We might go and use it one day when we feel like doing something “edgy”. A notable feature of our week has been “spontaneous rescheduling” of our evening meal arrangements. On Tuesday we hosted Nicky’s Home Group for a shared lunch. She made a lovely tuna and sweetcorn flan with gluten free pastry. As per usual, the range and quantity of food was quite extensive. Even though we encouraged people to take food with them as they headed for home mid-afternoon, we were still left with enough left over bits for dinner on Tuesday, and Wednesday. On Wednesday Steve contacted us to say that he was cutting his kayaking trip short due to his injured ankle, and could we put h...

 The weather has started to improve this week. The showers at the beginning have given way to hot sunshine and it has been a lovely weekend. Some poppies which have made camp on top of the retaining wall look very cheerful: Mark and Krystyna had given us some plums over last weekend. On Monday I used some of them with the last of the Christmas mince to made a pie with shortcrust pastry. It turned out well and Nicky is now converted to shortcrust, while still retaining a strong preference for puff and flaky pastries. With the improvement in the weather we have been able to spend some time working on the big flax in the front garden. Spears of flowers and unruly leaves have been removed to try and help it recover from the collapse in the recent rough weather. More still needs to be done but hopefully in time it will recover. Both of us have seen Dr Rose this week. Nicky had a regular prescription update appointment which has resulted in quite a few changes. Some of her medication has...