More art

 Labour Day dawned chilly, windy and cloudy. We continued visiting artists’ studios on the Kapiti Coast Arts Trail after calling in to Ben’s Buns to buy bread, croissants and pies for dinner. The trail took us out to the Nikau Valley:

One of our best visits of the weekend was to The Art Barn where we saw the work of Roly Hermans; highly detailed paintings of ships, planes and trains. They were very good and selling like hot cakes. By lunchtime we had visited 29 studios in total over the weekend and were all cultured out. The weather improved with some sunny spells but we didn’t amble on the beach for very long because of the strong wind. We started on the jigsaw that we had taken with us and throughly enjoyed our pies for dinner.

A very windy night was followed by a stormy morning so we had had a very slow start to our last full day in Raumati. When the weather started to improve, we drove to a furniture shop in search of a dining table and chairs. We had found one that we liked at Whanganui Furnishers back in 2019 but they closed a year or two ago. A Google search located the same table and chairs at Paula’s in Paraparaumu. I have been wanting a new dining table and chairs for many years. We are currently using the gate-leg table that we bought in Maidstone in 1986 in preparation for our move to Belmont Way in Loughborough, along with Nicky’s parents’ dining chairs that they bought in the 1960’s. We had used one of the library tables that we acquired in England as our dining table in Auckland, but it was too big for our living room in our new wee home. Paula’s didn’t have the table in the showroom, but they did have it on order with their suppliers. We tried the chairs and found them to be as good as our memories suggested, so placed an order. I was very pleased to get the 30% off Labour Weekend sale price. If we are lucky, they will be delivered before Christmas.

We had the best weather of our visit to Raumati in the afternoon, so had a lovely long amble along the beach. More progress was made on the jigsaw before we packed it away ready for our departure on Wednesday morning. We called at De Molen Cafe in Foxton for our morning tea and coffee, and were back home by midday. Nicky started on the laundry and I did a supermarket shop, confusing the staff by shopping on the “wrong” day. Gold Card holders receive a 5% discount at the checkout on Tuesdays so that is when I usually shop. We quizzed in the evening coming 8th with 87 points.

I finished off the laundry on Thursday while Nicky was at the Aramoho Library and the showers turned to persistent rain. This was replaced by an increase in the wind. Friday morning wasn’t much better but the weather cleared enough for me to do a little weeding in the afternoon as one or two seem to have popped up during our absence.

Nicky joined a Working Bee at church on Saturday morning. I went to the Jigsaw Exchange and the supermarket and was again told it was the “wrong” day. The staff are lovely really. Nicky spent the afternoon preparing Coronation Chicken and a selection of salads as Mark and Krystyna were coming over for dinner. We heard all about their recent excellent holiday in Bali, and their much less successful Labour Weekend in Auckland. When they arrived at Palmerston North airport they discovered their flight to had been cancelled due to fog. They had a range of pre-paid activities already booked, so they decided to drive to Auckland. Our excellent meal concluded with hot roast pineapple and ice cream which was a recipe we hadn’t tried before but will be repeated with alacrity in the future.

We were both up very early this morning having a pot of tea we before the sun rose. Nicky ironed the church laundry before she left, and brought some more laundry home which she put in the machine on her return. I cut the grass and Nicky made potato salad for this evening’s BBQ at Danny and Mel’s. They had invited us and others for a “gender reveal” party for their current pregnancy. It’s another boy. We stayed for a short game of pop culture Trivial Pursuit with them, Mike and John, but didn’t stay late as we are both tired and looking forward to bed.

Take care, Rick and Nicky.