Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

 On Tuesday evening I met Jackson at the cinema to see Project Hail Mary, the latest film adaptation of one of Andy Weir’s books. We both enjoyed the film but there was a particular sequence that I was looking for that had been mentioned in the review which I had read. The film was peppered with moments of humour; verbal, visual and musical. The sequence I was looking for was where four probes, called Beatles, were dispatched from a spaceship. The reviewer commented that the event was accompanied by an appropriate Beatles song. I thought it might be Across the Universe from the album Let It Be. I was right about the album but wrong about the song, which was Two of Us. The theme from Two of Us that was appropriate for the sequence was that of going home. The song has some vivid lyrics but I wasn’t sure that I had got the correct ones running through my head, so I Googled them. The line that really resonated with me was “ You and I have memories / Longer than the road that stretches ...

 Autumn seems to be trying to compensate for where summer failed. The weather has been lovely this week, so we have been able to spend lots of time in the garden drinking tea. One of us has also been thinking about scones. And chocolate brownies. And pikelets. And the resulting Event Waistline, which is like an Event Horizon but more localised and troublesome. Nicky didn’t do any church cleaning on Monday because before she left Dale had texted to say that she had done the little that there was to do. This enabled her to spend most of the day working in the garden. I washed the windows inside and out. This took me until afternoon tea time and the cuppa and rest were very welcome. After dinner we watched two more episodes of Murder Trial: The Jury. Two juries, unaware of each other, see a real trial re-enacted by actors, and their conversations and deliberations are filmed. We spent quite a bit of time discussing it afterwards and so were late to bed. I did my usual supermarket shop...

 We still had the pleasure of Claire’s company on Monday. It was a cool clear start with the promise of developing into a nice morning, so the washing machine was pressed into service. Nicky went to do the church cleaning and I did the trenching. Claire and I then set about finishing the jigsaw. Nicky brought samosas home for lunch which we all enjoyed. We decided to slip into tourist mode and go to see the Durie Hill elevator. It is accessed via a 200m tunnel which has changing lighting and information points: The elevator, which is carpeted, has a gift shop in it and a seat. It was installed early in the 20th century to give local residents transport up the hill which was too steep for the trams. The ride was a fun experience. I had assumed that it was now largely just a tourist attraction, but on asking the operator about all the concession cards and seeing all the youngsters coming home from school using it, I realised I was wrong. It is still an integral part of Whanganui’s pu...

 The highlight of our week has been driving down to Wellington to collect Claire. She had flown up on Friday for an NZLLA meeting on Saturday. After catching up with various friends and colleagues in town on Friday afternoon, Claire caught the train up the hill to the Hanlon’s in Khandalah. Also visiting the Hanlon’s was Anney, one of their nannies from Andover days. Anney regularly visits Felicity in Farnborough and is trying to meet as many of her Collard-Scruby siblings as possible whilst here. Nicky and I drove down to Wellington on Saturday, heading into unexpected sunshine, and arriving at the Hanlon’s a little after 2pm. We had a welcome pot of tea made by Tim and Ned and a good chat with Anney who was just lovely. Kit and Clemmie came down to say hello and we briefly saw Bea later. After her meeting Claire caught the train back up the hill and soon afterwards the three of us drove north to Whanganui. Claire hadn’t driven through Transmission Gully before so was taking pictu...

 With yesterday being the 28th of February, it was the last meteorological day of summer, and it was a corker. Warm, sunny, little breeze, blue skies and white fluffy clouds. Summer couldn’t have ended on an a better note. However, as many people here are commenting, summer has just not managed to get into its stride. It has not been like a conventional summer. We have had no periods where the grass in our garden has turned brown and stopped growing. There has been too much rain for that. Combined with some warm to hot temperatures, some of our plants seem to have doubled in size since July last year. The weeds of course, have followed suit. The growth in the garden prompted me to request professional help from Frances (Mrs. Egg). You may recall Dear Reader, that in the stormy weather around the turn of the year a couple of our trees suffered. This was, in my view, partially because of their size and because they hadn’t thought about the future implications of sticking branches out...