Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

It’s been tropical again this week, with high humidity and temperatures, some sunshine and a couple of dull days in the middle of the week. On Tuesday afternoon, I had the ranch sliders open while giving Jancis a tutorial, and it was 27° in the lounge. I closed them for 25 minutes while I collected Nicky from work and it went up to 29°. We were very pleased to have cold smoked fish pie and salad on the Rattigan that evening. Nicky’s penultimate week at New Lynn has been quite different, as the staffing changes are now coming into effect and there have generally been far fewer staff in the library. At times this has meant things have been quieter, because the members of staff who talked while they worked are no longer there. The borrowers are already noticing the changes and commenting. I have had a busy week with Mac work - my busiest since last August, which is good. However, this has not prevented me from pressing buttons on the washing machine and pegging out the resulting dam...

One way and another I have had a busy week, but at least the weather has been good most of the time which has meant I could get the washing dry without having to stand and shout at it. Monday started off with a trip to Devonport to look at what turned out to be an almost terminal Mac. On my way back I called into the White Cross centre in Avondale to have my right foot checked. There appears to be a bit of debris still in one of the wounds from my beach accident. The Doctor said it would probably work it’s way out in time. Unfortunately, it took me two and a half hours to receive this news because somehow I dropped off the waiting list after signing in at reception. So, by the time I got home it was well into the afternoon and I was hungry, thirsty and not feeling too good. Some food and a restorative pot of tea worked wonders. We had dinner on the Rattigan and Jancis popped round in the evening to use the wifi. She stayed to watch a DVD Nicky had brought home from the library (Scap...

I will probably get into trouble for the Help the Aged title for this post, but 3 of the 5 people who I have helped with their technology this week (4 of whom were paying customers) were 70 or over, and one of the other two must be in his 60’s, so it has had that feel about it. The evenings have been the most eventful parts of the week, though Nicky did fall on her way to work on Monday morning so was grazed and shaken when she arrived. Directly after work on Monday evening there was a do for all the people who are leaving New Lynn in the next few weeks. I understand it was quite a muted affair, but the flowers were nice. On Tuesday evening we went to a very intimate meeting at the Community Centre about the Whau Board 3 year plan. The Whau Board is the “local council” for our area of Auckland, and they are starting to put together their plan and have a series of consultations with the residents and businesses in the area. It was good to meet some members of the board and have an...

Well, that’s January over already. The month hasn’t really finished with a bang, but it has been an eventful week. It all began with Monday, Auckland Anniversary Day, and therefore a Public Holiday. Jancis (our friend who lives in Loughborough when the weather is nice there) and I went for a “day cruise” on The Spirit of Adventure. This is a three masted schooner used by the Spirit of Adventure Trust to ”offer equal opportunity to young New Zealanders to develop qualities of leadership, independence and community spirit through the medium of the sea.” They take groups of 16-18 years olds on 10 day trips and teach them how to sail the ship. They also do day and half-day trips for oldies (i.e. anyone over 18).  I picked Jancis up at 8 and we drove into town, which was much quieter than I had expected as I had forgotten that it was a public holiday. We parked and walked down to Princess Wharf for our 9.00 registration and 9.30 departure. Once we had boarded we were given a wee w...

Nicky planted some lettuce seeds a few weeks ago. She put them in little pots, then put the little pots in the top and bottom of one of those plastic cake holders that your get with supermarket cakes, and put them on the Rattigan to get some sun. A week or two ago they started to sprout, one of them particularly diligently. We caught the edge of a tropical storm (Ian I think) at the beginning of the week, and got more wind than rain, and the effect the wind was having on the optimistic lettuce seedling reminded me of E.H. Shepard’s illustrations of Piglet tramping his way through the 100 acre wood against a very strong head wind. So now we don’t have lettuce seedlings outside, but Piglet's on the Rattigan. The tropical storm passing over us has been the main feature in this weeks weather, bring intermittent showers and lots of wind. Washing has still been dried outside however, and the requisite ironing completed. Along with the shopping I have also done a couple of Mac jobs. Me...

It has been one of those weeks which has for me, been busy, with lots of little bits.The weather has been a bit variable so timing with putting the washing out has sometimes been an issue, but we have had plenty of warm and sunny spells, and the weekend has been pretty fantastic. In between the punctuation by laundry, I have had a range of Mac jobs, various shopping trips (all food of course), and my usual cookery duties. I tried another Paul Hollywood recipe this week, from my Christmas present book: corned beef pie. It turned out very well, and has largely been consumed on the Rattigan in the sunshine. As an aside, we watched the Winslow Boy (the more recent film, not the old black and white one) this week I and discovered that I have been spelling Rattigan incorrectly since its inception. Sorry Terrance. I didn’t have to cook on Tuesday night because Jancis invited us over for dinner; chicken with apricots followed by boysenberry ice cream - lovely. We had a very relaxing even...

Well that’s the first proper week of the new year under our belts (along with quite a large quantity of Christmas food which has taken up residence under my belt), so what have we been up to? Nicky has been back to a full five day working week, though with the schools still being on holiday and lots of people still away, it has been a bit quieter than “usual”. She started the week off by un-decorating the Christmas tree and getting it ready for me to recycle while having her breakfast on Monday morning. I took the rest of the decorations down later in the day, after collecting a couple of Macs to work on at home. Monday and Tuesday were gorgeous hot sunny days, and then a bit of cloud the rest of the week with some showers on Thursday (which was because I had washed the towels and was trying to dry them!!!). So, we have had dinners on the Ratigan and 40° in the roof which generally means it has been a reasonable week. Our big news is Claire and Ryan moving to Dunedin. They bro...