Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

By my reckoning it’s five years since I last wrote a blog post on Christmas Day, and I think it is fair to say that today has been the highlight of the week. Nicky and I were awake around 5.30 this morning and started with the life-giving pot of tea, which was quite quickly followed by a second pot of tea and some present opening. Nicky hadn’t had much sleep with having been to midnight mass and then doing some more present wrapping and tidying up before coming to bed, but we managed to open a brilliant selection of gifts all the same. Breakfast was a bit of departure from the usual as I tried to recreate the one we had on Nicky’s birthday at the Woodside Café. I served cheese with onion marmalade on buckwheat toast with some really nice thin and spicy pork sausages which Nicky had given me for Christmas. It wasn’t quite the same but enjoyable none the less. We then got on with our final preparations for the desserts we were taking to Clem and Pats, made more phone calls and h...

It is true that not everything that glitters is gold - some of the other things are rubies, emeralds and diamonds. This we discovered on Monday in Tiffany’s (Auckland branch), which was one of the highlights of Nicky’s birthday. We had started the day with card and present opening (very Harry Potter book orientated) followed by a drive to Birkenhead. We collected Maria (internationally famous TV chef amongst other things), and drove round the corner to her daughter and son-in-law’s café, Woodside. They focus on natural foods and are 100% gluten free. We had fantastic cheese and onion relish on buckwheat toast tartines, tea and coffee, sunshine and good conversation. After dropping Maria near her home, we headed into town to have a look at the Lego Christmas tree. It isn’t quite as big as I had expected, but it’s fun nonetheless. We walked down to Galway Street and found our way into Tiffany’s. The only products that were priced were what I assume is the cheap stuff, mainly fou...

As the end of the month, the end of the year, and more significantly it would seem, Christmas approaches, I contemplate making a folder called 2017 inside my folder called Blogging. It is a small respite from the social whirl that now has us firmly in its grasp. Just to add to the jollity, as you may have already heard, our Prime Minister John Key has stepped down. He will be replaced by Bill English tomorrow in an un-contested election buy the caucus of 59.  Nicky has been busy in the library again, and their pre-Christmas roadshows have begun. This is where various members of staff go to local Residential Homes to entertain the residents with carols, skits and mysterious tales of book classification systems. Apparently the roadshows go down very well. My working week has been very quiet, with just one short job this morning adding a little to the coffers. The usual shopping, cooking, laundry and ironing has been completed, along with a morning immersed in the parceling and p...

Summer is finally starting to arrive here in Aotearoa. Not only are we now into December (the official start of summer) but it has also started to get warm enough for me to wear my shorts. Nicky and I have had separate “specials” this week. On Friday evening I took Nicky over to Swanson for a 24-hour retreat with her fellow prison prayer group members. This turned out to be much less structured than she thought it might be, and was enjoyable and relaxing. My special was doing the Auckland Coast to Coast walk with Jan, John and Heather (a friend of Jan’s). Nicky would have joined us but wasn’t allowed the day off. We did it North to South, starting at the Maritime Museum and finishing in Onehunger. It was more able than ramble, taking us around 7 hours to do the 16kms, though that does include a good and leisurely lunch at the Cornwall Park Café. It was a good walk, taking in a variety of Auckland views and environs. Work has been busy for Nicky, and a little quieter tha...

There are a number of events upon which I can report this week, but I suspect the headliner is the one from which we have just returned - Puchin and Claire’s wedding. No, not our Claire, another Claire (there is more than one Dear Reader, though there is only one that’s dear to me (it’s getting near Christmas again!!)). Puchin is the son of Amy and Victor, a lovely Chinese couple who Nicky worked with at New Lynn library. They invited a number of members of current and past New Lynn library staff, and also asked me to take informal photographs both at the wedding today, and prior to the wedding yesterday. Yesterday’s photographs involved going out and about to the Arataki Visitor Centre and Blockhouse Bay beach, along with some in Amy and Victors front garden. Today’s event was at the Markovina Vineyard in Kumeu. The invitation stated 3pm, so we assumed that was when the ceremony was scheduled to commence. We duly arrived around 2.30pm, and discovered we were some of the first...

November marches on. The weather is still a bit on the changeable side, with some lovely sunshine from time to time, and some heavy rain at other times. We have both had busy weeks, even though I haven’t earned a great deal, and we have each had a night out with prison prayer group (N) and Deep & Meaningful (R). We have had a couple of technology upgrades this week. The 2-yearly service of there HRV ventilation system revealed that a new motor was required, and as part of the package we got a new control unit with niffty new graphics, and a dedicated Burnt Toast button (this now puts the system on full blast for two hours to remove the smell). In order to try and improve Nicky’s internet performance on her iPad, I have installed a PowerLine network system and moved one of our wifi access points into the lounge. So far things look promising. Yesterday started dull, and didn’t get much brighter, along with drizzle on and off for most of the day. Nicky was quilting in the aft...

I think week can be best summed up by an item in The Listener’s Quips & Quotes column by Jeff Rubenstein, who I assume is an American: “Let this be a lesson to England: nice try, but you can’t beat us at crazy”. As I am sure you can imagine, joyous rapture was not most Kiwi’s response to the US Presidential election result, though I think even if Mrs. C had won it would at best have been a sigh of relief. Apparently we are destined to live in interesting times. Back in the world of mortals without strange hairpieces, things have been a little more routine. The weather has had an interesting take on my laundry routine, but most of the heavy rain has been at night and then sun has been warm when the clouds have acquiesced. We had both lunch and dinner on The Rattigan on Thursday, though it was a little cool for dinner. We have both had busy weeks work-wise. I rang the library on Tuesday afternoon at 5.32 (Nicky is supposed to finish at 5.30 but never makes it out of the lib...