Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

It has been a very warm and sunny week, we had an official high of 29°C yesterday. It was 27° in our lounge, so it was very nice to sit both in the shade and the breeze and still feel warm. Outside in the sun, it was decidedly hot. People seem to be waking up after Christmas now (some of the schools start back next week), and I have had a couple of Mac jobs. Laundry, shopping and cooking have all been done at a relatively gentle pace due to the weather and my health. I have not been 100% again this week the the vertigo. I haven’t had any dizzy spells but I have long periods of not feeling at all right, which is quite confidence-sapping. Just before bed on Friday night I suddenly started to feel really bad so took one of my prescribed anti-nausea tablets, had a poor night’s sleep, and took another half yesterday morning. As a result, we have had a quiet couple of days at home, as opposed to going into town as planned to enjoy some of Auckland’s 175th Anniversary celebrations. Nick...

I now feel that summer has arrived. It has been a warm week, with temperatures between 25 and 27°C in the shade, and probably 10° higher in the sun. In fact, at times, it has been hot. Even the concrete on the drive has become too hot to walk on in bare feet, which is unusual with it being very pale. Nicky has been as busy as ever in the library, but my customers still seem to be on holiday. I had a long visit to one on Friday but other than that just a couple of issues delt with via email. This has given me time for my domestic responsibilities and helping Jancis, and getting over the excitement of us both winning on the Bonus Bonds again this month ($20 each AGAIN!). On Thursday I went to Sulphur Beach Road to get an alternative view of the CBD. Since our very early days here I had noticed cars parked between the motorway and seashore just before the bridge when heading south, and finally got round to investigating how to get there. It was quite an interesting view, but not as ...

It has been a different sort of week, one way and another. Nicky took Monday off work to look after me and arranged Dr Vather to come and take a look at me. I was struggling to get to the toilet let alone the surgery so was very relieved to have a home visit. He diagnosed an infection in my semi-circular canals and prescribed appropriate medicine. I was able to spend some time out of bed on Monday evening. The rest of my week has been one of recovering, taking down the Christmas decorations and disposing of the tree, doing the laundry and the shopping, and as little cooking as possible due to the lovely warm weather. Having said that, the Christmas period has not been as hot as usual. The “Dickensian” wreath which I stick to the outside of our front door with blu-tac hasn’t fallen off once this time. Usually gravity takes over every two or three days, helping the heat make the blu-tac give way.  Fortunately none of my customers have required my presence, I have just dealt wit...

Fist of all dear reader, my apologies for not posting this on Sunday as per usual, but I have been afflicted with vestibular neuronitis, a viral infection of the semi-circular canals. This made me both dizzy and nauseous, so I have been confined to bed for a couple of days. However, I am now on the mend an back at the keyboard. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday between Christmas and New Year were work days for Nicky. The library has been closing early (5.30 as opposed to 6.00). Unfortunately the automatic doors which are time-controlled have not been informed of this, so someone has had to stay until 6 when they lock!  Tuesday however was an exciting day, as Nicky got to work on a new holiday project - the Book Bus By the Beach. I drove her over to Henderson first thing for the arranged pick-up, which didn’t go as expected but all the staff and the mobile library ended up in Brown’s Bay as planned. They had a very good day with over 500 borrowers coming onto the bus (though I thi...

So at last dear reader, we come to the last posting for 2014. I am going to have to make a new folder called 2015 on my Mac. The weather has been better this week - mainly dry and even some nice sunshine. Monday and Tuesday were work and last bits-and-bobs shopping (because I had forgotten ingredients) for me. I “closed” MacOnSite for Christmas Eve so that I could cook. Nicky had her hair done on Monday evening but other than that was just very busy at work for the first three days of the week. We had dinner on the Ratigan on Tuesday evening, for the first time this season, and were bombarded by flies. Such a contrast to last year - by the time Gill & Dave arrived in mid-November we were already into the routine of eating on the Ratigan. Christmas Eve wasn’t too hot this year, which helped with the making of a 3kg game pie and a dozen mince pies. The game pie required almost 4 hours in the oven, but came out looking mighty, until I tried to get it out of the spring-form tin. ...

I wasn’t sure that it was ever going to go dark. Now if the significance of that doesn’t get your grey cells working dear reader, you obviously need more coffee or a cold shower. As Christmas approaches, or “the cooking season” as I now think of it, we have both been very busy, especially with work. This has been very good for me as it has been my second busiest week of the year, and some of the money for the work has already started to come in (thank you nice customers). Nicky has also been very busy at the library, especially with the school holiday activities starting. We have only had dinner together twice this week (Wed & Thurs). Monday and Tuesday I was late coming back from work and Nicky is always starving when she gets home from the library so was already eating. Friday night I ate out at a Christmas gathering which I had been invited to as part of the Auckland Life Models Collective. It was a pot luck supper (I took bacon, cheese and onion quiche) in a 14th floor...

It’s been THAT week in December again. However, with Claire being in Dunedin it has been the first time we haven’t had a birthday get-together at some point on the 11th/12th. We spoke to her on the phone which was good. Nicky’s birthday was on Friday and she took a half day off, so we met at The Block for lunch and had very nice aged Hereford steaks. Jancis came round for afternoon tea with birthday lemon curd and passionfruit cheesecake (see below) and we were happily joined by Jan and Dawn, which was really good. The weather wasn’t stunning so we opted for an early evening cinema visit to see My Old Lady. This we thoroughly enjoyed, and by encouragement of Jan and Dawn were introduced to the Lido Cinema in Epsom, which is a really nice venue. We had a light toast-based bite when we got home which just rounded the day off for us. We have had two other very enjoyable social engagements this week - both pre-Christmas / end of year gatherings. The first was Nikcy’s church house gro...