Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

It is often said that the weather in Auckland can deliver four seasons in one day. Crowded House even wrote a song with that title. It hasn’t been quite that variable this week, but we have almost had four seasons in one week. We started with cold wintery wind with torrential showers, and have finished with some unexpected but welcome long spells of warm sunshine. Nicky came home mid-afternoon on Monday as she was owed some time off in lieu, which was good, and after dinner went to her prison prayer group meeting. She had her hair cut and dried after work on Tuesday. On Thursday we went to court in Henderson to appear at a hearing for our insurance company. They are still trying to get the money for the repair to Lilly from last year when a young lad reversed into her. It was quite an interesting experience, with neither the lad or a representative from his insurance company turning up. So, it was juste Nicky and I, the representative from our insurers and the referee. The refe...

Elections have featured heavily this week. We watched with interest the news reports in the last few days before the independence vote in Scotland, and feel though it was probably the best result overall, we are sorry for the 45%. Here, the incumbent government was returned for a third term with a slightly increased majority. For the first time since NZ switched from first past the post to MMP, one party (the right-of-centre National Party) got a large enough proportion of the vote to govern on their own. They say they will still “co-operate” with a couple of the minor parties, but it looks like we have interesting times ahead. Work-wise I have had another quiet week, just doing a couple of jobs, both locally so I was able to walk to them. It has been very much a sunshine and showers week with the usual repercussions for getting the laundry dry. Looks like we are in for more of the same this week. On Monday evening Jan came over for dinner again. This time I roasted a leg of lamb, d...

Well Dear Reader, today we have two significant events on the same day: this is post number 400, which I write and will post on the 7th anniversary exactly of our arrival in NZ. Isn’t that stunning! Seven years, 400 posts, and if you have read them all then you are very well informed. On order to celebrate our seven year anniversary, Nicky and I did a tiki your up to Whangaparaoa today. We started out at Red Beach with a wander along the sand, though there wasn’t much with the tide being very high. The weather was fine but windy so we had our picnic English-style while watching a family and their dog playing in the waves, and enjoying the changing hues in the sea. Next stop was Duncansby Road to see that the new owners has done some major trimming to the bush (shrubbery). Then onto Te Haruhi Bay, which is at the end of the peninsula in Shakespear Regional Park. It was much windier there, with some rain too, but it was great to see wind surfers and kite-boarders out on the choppy sea...

Monday, being September 1st, was the first day of spring, which probably explains why it rained all day. It had rained all night too, but we did get some sunshine on Tuesday, after 20 hours of solid rain. It has been a sunny/cloudy/wet sort of week until today, which has been clear blue skies, little breeze, and 19°C. Much more like a nice spring day. The variable weather has impacted on the footfall to the library, and Nicky’s week has been as busy as ever, along with house group on Wednesday evening. I have had a quiet week work wise. Nothing on-site but quite a bit of email and phone support. The usual house-husband tasks have been completed, along with finishing reading the Wiki Coffin series, which I have enjoyed. I went into town on Thursday evening for my discussion group, which was stimulating and enjoyable. Yesterday started cloudy with the odd shower, but slowly improved. Steve came over for an early game of Scrabble, then Nicky made crumble-top cheese and bacon muff...

August has closed with quite a routine week, but for me it has been a good month overall for work. The week has been a mixture of Mac work, shopping, cooking, laundry and ironing, helped by a week with some good sunny spells until the weekend arrived. Nicky’s working week as been as busy as ever and quite good. She was out on Monday at prison prayer group and up to church on Thursday evening too. Our most exciting news of the week is the booking of flights to Dunedin for a weeks holiday later in the year. I’ve booked a hire car too and started looking at accommodation over the weekend. The weekend has been wet, especially yesterday, so pottering round at home and Stella and Steve coming over for Scrabble was ideal. Stella has been very pleased to receive her first pay packet this week. Today Nicky was doing her annual shift at the Storylines event in the Aotea Centre in town, so I dropped her there just after 8 this morning. She had another good day there, as with previous ...

Well, it has been a rollickingly exciting week here in NZ for John Key, the Prime Minister. Our week, in contrast, has been a more sedate affair. For the first three days we had some major showers, but than a high pressure system took pity on us and it has been clear and sunny since Thursday morning. This has meant some cold nights of course, but the very chilly wind dropped today so it is was almost spring-like. In addition to doing Mac work at the beginning and end of the week, I have got the “new car” issues sorted out. The CD player now works and we can get both of the radio stations that we want. This has required a band expander on the radio because the car is a Japanese import (like Lilly was) and they only use a small range of frequencies there. It is not a perfect solution, but works for now, and in the fullness of time I might look into having it replaced with an NZ radio with hopefully and iPod connection. I took Luna to a main Suzuki dealer on Tuesday to get a new rem...

…our new wheels. She is a 9 year old Suzuki Swift that the car yard down the round found for us. Being a Japanese import she wasn’t registered in NZ. I asked if we had any influence over the number plate (other than having a private plate) and was told no, they are computer generated. So, imagine my surprise when I was informed what it was. For those for whom the significance is not obvious, here is the explanation: about 10 years ago Nicky announced that if ever we had a sweet wee blue car then she would like to call it Luna, after Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter books, who is in Ravenclaw house, whose colour is blue. Hence her name. But, if the penny hasn’t yet dropped, Luna Lovegood only appears in the books which cover years 5, 6 and 7. So, we have Harry Potter Years 5, 6 and 7. Stunning, eh? Anyway, she is a great little car, feels very solid drive, and has got nice wee features such as variable-speed intermitted windscreen wipers. The car yard called on Monday to say t...