Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

One way and another, it has been a busy, but relatively routine, week. Nicky has had a busy week at the library, and has been out three evenings too: prison prayer group, house group, and prayer evening up at church. By Friday she was very pleased to come home, put her feet up knowing she didn’t have to go out again, and relax. I have had a busy week with work, having at least one Mac job each day. On Tuesday evening I did a taste testing session of apple, peas and peanuts, which also added a few dollars to the coffers. I have also been helping Dawn sort out her virus checker after her PC being upgraded. The weather has been getting in the way of the laundry, as it has been “changeable”. Yesterday, the washing machine decided it didn’t want to spin anymore, so Dawn kindly let me put a load of wet washing through her machine to spin. We have also been following the World Cup as the group stage has come to and end and the first set of eliminations has been completed. On Tu...

Ten days into the World Cup and isn’t it exciting!!!! We are getting some of the games “free-to-air” at 7am so we can watch them with breakfast, and then there is a highlights programme late afternoon (which I am now recording for Nicky). It’s a shame England are out, but some of the other games have been great to watch. The rest of our week has been much lest exciting. Nicky has had a bit of a better week at work, and on Wednesday went into town for “digital device training”. The libraries are expanding the services they offer to tablet and e-reader users and have a range of software that borrowers can use. It is also helpful if the staff have a bit of an idea as to how they work too. Much of my week has been taken up with negotiating the drying of the washing in the not very helpful weather (we have had some rain), and reading two of my three very think manuals in preparation for my election work. I have had a bit of Mac work, and also helped Dawn resolve a hardware problem wit...

The week started wet, and then got wetter on Tuesday, and then got very, wet, windy and destructive on Tuesday night. Very few Aucklanders got a decent night’s sleep due to the storm, and we woke to a power cut on Wednesday morning. Power was restored about 7.15 (just after I had put together an alternative non-porridge breakfast) and I got washing done and dried as the sun came out later. We didn’t have any major damage (just a bit or rearranging in the garden) but I caught the bus into town to work and saw this on Princess Street: The weather has been good for the rest of the week, the weekend especially, but that’s due to change tomorrow. Nicky’s hasn’t had a very good week at work, but hopefully the meeting she had with her boss on Friday will have sorted out some misunderstandings and things will improve. She was at prison prayer group on Monday night but was to tired for her other prayer group on Wednesday evening. She took some quilts over to Ranui on Thursday evening r...

We started the week with a public holiday for both my birthday, and the Queen’s birthday. After going out for most of the day on Saturday we had decided to have a quiet day at home for my birthday, which worked out well. Steve, Stella and Katie came over for Scrabble and birthday chocolate cheesecake which Nicky had made, and Dawn joined us for some cake too. Later we had smoked salmon, bacon and bagels for something a bit special for tea, and watched a film (The Hoax) in the evening, which we both enjoyed.  It has been back to normal for the rest of the week. The weather has been very good considering the time of year with plenty of sunshine and gentle breezes to dry the washing. I have had some Mac work every day, and on Thursday did my first bit of work for the election  - system testing. I also saw the dermatologist again on Wednesday. She has put me on some anti-fungal mediation for three months. Nicky has been busy at the library again. Her boss has been away al...

It is officially the first day of winter today, and it was clear and sunny and crisp first thing. We didn’t get any cloud coming over until late this afternoon. The early hours of Wednesday recored a low of 2°, the lowest Auckland temperature since 1976. Again, it was a clear sky during the night that also brought us a crisp and gorgeous sunny day. We have had some rain too during the week, but the late autumn sunshine has been lovely. I have had quite a bit of work this week, and it has meant that May has been a good month in the end. I didn’t have any worked booked on Wednesday so took advantage of the fine weather to go out west exploring. I found a vantage point which gave great views of Karekare and Piha, and then drove on to Anawhata, beach I haven’t been to before. Access is not as easy as some of the others. The 20 minute drive down an unsealed road is followed by a reasonably steep 15 minute walk down to the beach. The walk up to the car park is quite hard work, but the bea...

It has been a quiet, simple, and routine week. The weather has got colder, and wetter, but I have still been able to get the washing dry outside without difficulty. We now have a heater on in the bedroom in the morning so that Nicky can get dressed in the warmth, but when the sun comes out it still warms the open-plan living area nicely. Nicky and the library have been very busy again this week. She was also at prison prayer group on Monday evening and serving desserts at church on Wednesday evening for the Alpha course participants. I have had a reasonable amount of work, which has taken me to Remuera, Devonport, the CBD, Northcote, and just down the road. After struggling through the first 300+ pages I finally finished The Luminaries this week. I can’t work out if it was a simple story told in an overcomplicated manner, or a complex story badly told, but I wasn’t overly impressed. There again, it won the Booker Prize so what did I expect! I have also finally sold three old Ma...

The highlight of this week has to be Saturday at the Writers Festival, so that is where I will start, but there have been other good bits too. The day dawned a little cloudy, but that didn’t dampen our spirits or chill our breakfast boiled eggs and toast. Our first appointment was at an Oxfam morning tea being hosted by Faye who Nicky worked with in New Lynn. Wendy, also of New Lynn library, and Shirley, a friend of Faye’s, also joined us along with Faye’s husband Ivan. We had tea and coffee and a lovely range of home made gluten free goodies, and a good chat. We left for home to pick up Nicky’s hearing aids and have some fruit before heading into town and the Civic car park. Nicky had been given a free ticket from work to see Camilla Lackberg talking about her Scandinavian crime novels at 2.30, so while she went off to that I got into a free session discussing the difference from the writers perspective of books and film. To oversimplify, books are stories told with words by peo...