New tricks

 When I go for my morning amble I have two choices: up stream or down stream, as most of Somme Parade runs parallel to the river. Down stream takes me towards town and I can meander up and down various streets depending on how far I feel like going. Up stream takes me past the cemetery and out to the countryside where across the fields I can see the hills. There are only glimpses of the river on this route, but the autumn weather has made the view observable when passing the cemetery less obscured:

Nicky was in town on Monday morning, cleaning the brass at church, having a blood test, and getting one of her hearing aids repaired. I finished washing the house and cleaned the cook top. After lunch Frances called in with some feijoas, Nicky arrived home after a long wait and rubbish cuppa at the hospital, and then Laurie paid us a visit. Many hot beverages were consumed.

The inner door handle on the toilet door had started to come loose towards the end of last week, and I couldn’t figure out how to resolve it. I contacted the manufacturer over the weekend via their website. This elicited a request of a video of the problem which I provided. The response was “we will send you a replacement”. This arrived on Wednesday morning. I approached the task of replacing the door handle with a little trepidation, as I had never had done this before. Once I had taken the “old” handle off the door, it was relatively straight forward and we have a fully functional door handle again, much to my relief. I will approach a similar problem with more confidence next time.

In the afternoon of Wednesday I had another first time experience: using the pruning saw which I bought last week. The first 11 pages of the 25 page manual were warnings of the dire consequences of misuse, so I wore my sturdiest gloves. The major issue seemed to be regarding to loosing control of the saw due to kick-back, so I picked a straightforward tree for my first victim. All went well, though it produced way more saw dust than I was expecting.

In the evening we quizzed with almost a full strength team and came 5th with 81 points. The top 5 teams were separated by 12 points, a much larger range than we are used to, and probably due to the increased difficulty of the questions.

While Nicky staffed Aramoho Library on Thursday I started cutting the grass. I did the berm and then started on the back garden. I had to stop about half way round as an altercation with a flax (which the flax, as usual, won) pulled the rotating head off the trimmer and dispersed it round the garden. I was unable to find a key part so had to stop, but Nicky found it on her return. I was able to get the grass cutting finished on Friday.

We went to the Aramoho community kai at Te Ao Hou marae on Thursday evening after preparing our contributions of roast vegetable rice and a feijoa crumble. It wasn’t too busy, so we were able to have coherent conversations. There were only about 40 neighbours attending. On our return we enjoyed watching The Great British Bake Off with a pot of tea.

The weather turned dull and eventually moist during Friday afternoon. Nicky sewed in-between forays to the washing line. Despite all the weather warnings, we didn’t get as much rain or wind as expected. We enjoyed watching The Great British Sewing Bee after dinner.

Nicky was at church most of Saturday undertaking training for Small Group Leaders and Pastoral Care. She was thankful not to be having to stay for Prayer training in the evening. The prayers are for the ten day Thy Kingdom Come global prayer initiative for the ten days before Pentecost. The weather wasn’t inviting, so I started a jigsaw and listened to a podcast which Claire had recommended: The Rest is History. The four episodes which she had mentioned were about Britain in 1975 and 1976, a period I remember. I sat my “O” Levels during the hottest summer on record. My knowledge of the political events is quite superficial, so it was very interesting to learn many of the details behind the headlines. In the evening we had dinner at Mark and Krystyna’s which we enjoyed.

The weather has been bright today but still windy, so more progress has been made with the jigsaw. Once church was over, Nicky has sewed, ironed and is preparing dinner, when not adding jigsaw puzzle pieces. Grand Designs New Zealand is TV on tonight.

Take care, Rick and Nicky.