Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

It’s been quite a week. We have had some gorgeous weather which by the end of the week was more summer than spring, and my sister Gill and her husband David arrived on Monday. It is their first visit to NZ. Nicky and I collected them from the airport before breakfast on Monday morning. Once we were back home we had breakfast and they had showers. After getting a little organised Gill, David and I went shopping (SIM card for Gills phone, sunglasses for David, and stuff for lunches). Lunch was a leasurely affair in the sun on the Ratigan. G&D had booked into the Blockhouse Bay B&B for three nights, so after lunch they walked round with Nicky while I took the luggage in the car. We all had some R&R in the afternoon and then regrouped for dinner and were joined by Claire on her way home from work. G&D went back to the B&B early evening as the jet lag was starting to take its toll. Tuesday started off with a bit of cloud and rain, but cleared. Nicky made us a pac...

It has been an uneventful week really. I have had quite a bit of Mac work, Nicky has been busy at the library, clothes have been washed, dried (with the help of the weather) and ironed, shopping has been done and food has been cooked (and eaten). Life goes on, though not at a pace because we just don’t do fast anymore. We have a tea towel which lists many of the signs of ageing, more of which I realised this week when I ironed it are becoming parts of our everyday lives. The weather is getting warmer, the clear skies producing cooler nights, but clouds have been present on and off through the week but I don’t think it has rained. We even had dinner on the Ratigan on Wednesday before Nicky went off for house group - our first al fresco dinner of the season. Claire and I did some successful birthday present shopping for Nicky on Thursday. We didn’t feel we could run to celebrating her 60th with a ballon ride as hoped for by Nicky, so have shelved the idea for a few years. Yesterday...

Summer it trying to make it’s presence felt, and the shops are starting to gear up for Christmas. Nicky took Monday afternoon off as she was due some TOIL (time of in lieu), and Monday is one of the best staffed days in the library. The weather was also lovely - sunny and warm. I got two loads of washing dried easily and the food shopping done before picking Nicky up at lunchtime. We went over to Glendowie to see Ruth, who is looking well. While Nicky and Ruth chatted I went for a walk through the Roberta Domain and Glendowie Park. It felt like a late summers day in England - the place was warm as if the ground had got thoroughly heated through by the sun over a number weeks, and the mulch left from grass cutting a few days earlier smelt like the stubble in the fields after harvest. We drove home and had some dinner before Nicky went off to prison prayer group. Nicky has been as busy as ever at work. The move of staff throughout the 55 Auckland libraries which was announced month...

The best way to start a week is with a public holiday, so we had a good start to this week. We had a lovely lazy start to a sunny but breezy day, packed up a picnic lunch, and headed for Tamaki Drive to watch the tall ships depart. We had time to stroll along the waterfront for an hour or so before the ships started to leave, and we watched to end of the departure from the car while we had our picnic out of the wind. They were quite a site to see. For the afternoon we drove up to the museum to see the Moana exhibition about the sea around Auckland and particularly the Kermadec Trench. This is one of (if not the) deepest sea trenches on the planet. The exhibition was divided into four sections, each focusing on the life in the sea at different depths. The life size models of some of the sharks in the area were stunning, especially the 6m Great White. The displays and film shows were very engaging. One of the shows about the deepest part of the trench required us to lie on bean bag...

It has been a week of getting back to normal, and the weather has assisted by being good all week (apart from a damp Wednesday) enabling me to return to my laundry duties. Nicky commented that the two green laundry baskets (which were used one inside the other because of their condition) that I use to keep the ironing in were well past their sell-by date, so I replaced them with a spanking new white one this week. Such excitement! Tuesday was a good day as for the first time since my return I actually felt awake when getting up - the jet lag finally fading away. It was a bit of a shame it hadn’t happened a day earlier as I had my longest Mac job of the week in Takapuna on Monday morning, and concentrating was a bit of a struggle. However, I think it went OK, and I did a couple of other jobs this week too. So, all in all, it feels like a week where things have been achieved. I had major problems with my left knee on Tuesday evening, so had to give it some TLC for for the next coup...

Hello Dear Reader, I'm back. My trip to England wasn't the easiest three weeks of my life, but it was successful. I was able to help Gill clear mum's house, get it on the market, and much to our surprise, sold. Nicky took me to the airport on the morning of Tuesday 24th Sept to catch my Singapore Airlines flight to Heathrow. Along with my baggage I was taking a swollen left ankle, the result of a couple of mozzie bites that my body wasn't appreciating. The 10 hour flight to Singapore didn't do them any good, but things improved in the 4 hours I had in Terminal 3, walking around, putting my foot up, and having a cup of tea and sticky bun. The anti-histamines which I bought at Auckland airport might have started to take effect too. Unfortunately things went downhill on the 13 hour flight to London, and to add insult to the injury about half way through the flight I bashed my ankle on the seat support in front of me. The paracetamol didn't really take the edge...

The main features of this week have been getting ready for returning to the UK for 3 weeks, a weekend break on Waiheke Island, and not yet quite having won the America's Cup. My mother is now in residential care, so I am going to England to help my sister clear the house and get it ready for the market. We don't think leaving it empty over the winter will do it any good at all. Much of this week has therefore been taken up with organising the trip and managing the consequences of my absence from NZ. In amongst this I have done one Mac job and grabbed a quick coffee with Claire. Nicky has been had at work in the library, and has had two prayer groups this week. It has only been a four day week as she took Friday off for our long weekend in Waiheke. The weather forecast wasn't good for the weekend, but we were looking forward to the break and having some R&R together before I go away. We drove over to Half Moon Bay on Friday morning to catch the 10.00 ferry. ...