Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

New Zealand are 39 for 3 in the World Cup Cricket final as I start to write this week. Actually sitting and watching a cricket match is a first for me, and I am starting to realise why, but cricket fever has griped Aotearoa since the Black Caps reached the semi-final so we thought we would take a look. It has been Green Living week at BHB library, and Nicky has done the organising of events so it has been a busy week for her. All the presentations and activities have gone well so all her hard work in the run-up has been worthwhile. Wednesday evening she was at house group, and towards the end of the week enjoyed sleeping better. The cooling weather has also helped with this. I have had a good week with work in terms of getting things completed and a reasonable number of hours worked. I had a nice swim at Herne Bay on Thursday lunchtime on my way back from a job on the North Shore and had a good evening in town on Wednesday for my MeetUp group. I was up very early (4am) on Tues...

We seem to have a new house guest this week - Clint the cricket, who we think has taken up residence behind the hot water cylinder in the airing cupboard. We haven’t actually seen him, but we have certainly heard him. Or her. Tropical Cyclone Pam didn’t cause us any problems at the beginning of the week. We had steady rain overnight on Sunday but little wind. The rain eased off by breakfast time and stopped while I was out for my walkies. The rest of the week has been pretty good with lots of sunshine and fewer showers than I was expecting from the forecasts. It has started getting cooler in the mornings and evenings though, especially when the skies are clear overnight. Nicky has had a mixed week. Things have been better at work, though still as busy as ever. She enjoyed her prison prayer group meeting on Monday evening, but was saddened to hear of the death of Joan Turner on Thursday. The Turners were neighbours and close friends from Epsom days. Neil died a few years ago and J...

With the exception of a couple of cloudy starts and a bit of rain late Thursday, it has been another lovely sunny week. We had lunch on the Rattigan yesterday, but it was too hot to sit outside for long. It’s all changing today as Super Tropical Cyclone Pam will reach us overnight. We will only get the edge of the storm here, but today has already been quite windy. Nicky seems to be over her virus and has been at work all week, busy as ever and dismayed at times by borrowers and staff. I have had some Mac work too, and another new customer this week. On Tuesday evening we went to an Estate Planning seminar at the ANZ Bank in Mt Albert, which was interesting and informative (and the nibbles were excellent). It reinforced the fact that we need to get on and update our wills and sort out powers of attorney. Nicky had house group on Wednesday evening and I had a lovely swim at Herne Bay on Thursday afternoon (the sea is clean again). On Monday morning I went up to see our GP, at h...

Nicky has just popped out to mow the lawn as I sit down to write this. She invited some of her work colleagues to come round for a game of mah jongg after they closed the library up at 4, but they haven’t arrived so we are onto other things. As ever at the moment, our Sunday evening will be filled with tellyboxing, so I am getting this done while I have chance. Nicky hasn’t had the best of weeks, coming down with a virus on Wednesday night that kept her off work Thursday and Friday. She still wasn’t too good yesterday but perked up late evening and has been feeling much brighter today. While she was at prison prayer group on Monday evening, I went into town for my first Auckland Conversations event. These are events organised and hosted by the council to discuss the issues facing Auckland in the 21st century. This event’s topic was transport, which attracted some 700+ to the Aotea Centre. This is directly relevant to the current public consultation on the 10 year plan, both in te...

Our first day of autumn has been hot and sunny with very few clouds in the sky. A few minutes ago in the lounge it was 28°, and 41° in the roof space. Yesterday was warm and sunny too but not quite as hot as today. We have the table and chairs out on the Ratigan at the moment but it is still too hot to sit out there comfortably (at 10 to 5 in the afternoon). Maybe it will be OK for cocktails later! With the days starting to shorten we are now getting to see the sunrise with our first cups of tea of the day, and with the angle of the sun changing we are starting to get direct sunlight in the lounge in the late afternoon. The weather has been pretty good all week, though not as hot as the weekend, except for Friday when we had some major downpours. Nicky has been as busy as ever at work, and has been having her lunch at work again this week. The staff want her to teach them mah jongg but seem to think they can do it in 10 minutes at the end of the lunch break. Nicky is find this a ...

We have been very lucky this week to have been chosen as the suburb to host the Annual ARCC. As you can see from the photos a couple of the breakout session workshops were set up on Blockhouse Bay road (some folks  actually think they are roadworks!, laughable isn’t it?). The plenary sessions (held in a portacabin in the car park of the Samoan church) have been covering the leading edge issues demonstrated in the breakout sessions - flow, structural convergence, sequence management and replicability, all fascinating stuff. Unfortunately, even though it is now in its 17th year, the conference has not yet gained international recognition, but once we have the new Sky City gambling-chips-with-everything Conference Centre in the CBD there will be no stopping the spread of the cones! Anyway, onto the more mundane matters of our week, where ours noses have been heavily pressed against the “evening out social grindstone”. Nicky was at the first of the seasons prison prayer gro...

Nicky has been on holiday this week, and I have only had one Mac job, but we have spent most of the week at home because even though the weather has been dry and warm, we haven’t had a great deal of sun. N insisted on doing lots of cleaning (when she wasn’t on the web) and she did get her hair done. Wednesday was sunny so after card shopping in Ponsonby we went to Muriwai, via the scenic route. We arrived just in time for a very good lunch at the Sand Dunz café (Nicky had chicken salad an I had a Gannet breakfast). After walking off our lunchtime calories on the beach we pitched camp for reading and snoozing.  Jancis came over on Thursday afternoon and we fitted in a few games of Mah Jongg before I went into town for my Meetup group. We saw Jancis again on Friday evening for the annual “fish and chips in the Bay at the free music event with Midge Marsden, again.” Coffee and hot chocolate was also consumed as the on-shore breeze was quite cooling while sitting. The music was g...