Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

It doesn’t feel like it has been a good week, because the negative things which have happened have occupied our thoughts more than the positive things. It started on Tuesday morning, with a funeral for one of my elder customers. Nicky came with me and although there was joy and laughter in the service, which Helena would have wanted, it was moving and affected us. Then on Tuesday afternoon we had an email from Bert the Builder with some detailed costs about the “additional extras” we had discussed when meeting him in Hawera a couple of weeks ago. We were not surprised to discover they are beyond us, but the confirmation of our expectations was a disappointment. A major fire started in town at the construction site of the new Convention Centre, and though this didn’t affect us directly, it was to have consequences for us the following day. On Wednesday we were up at the library to print out the BHB Quilters Circle 2020 posters in colour, when we met up with a lovely lady that N...

I’m pretty sure today is Sunday. At least I think it is. I have been having difficulty with knowing which day it is all week, and it’s not as if we had a public holiday to mess things up. I think it might have stemmed from the fact that I have only done one on-site job this week, which was on Tuesday, but I think I thought it was Monday, and then somehow I was always a day ahead in my head. Go figure. The rest of my work time this week has been taken up with remote support, monitoring comments on Apple’s new operating system upgrades, and getting to grips with them. I have also enjoyed reading “This is going to hurt”, the diary of an NHS junior Doctor, which was both funny and moving. Nicky had her usual Monday and Wednesday visits to church, along with her last session at the dentist to finish her crown and a check-up at the optician which went very well.  On Friday we had a very long (12 ½ hour) trip into town for some Artweek events. The first one was an art walk wh...

This week has been a little more normal, along with the Heritage Festival featuring large on the social front. I have been busier with work having something on every day, and a machine on my bench over the weekend.  Nicky was at church on Monday morning and then had another visit to the dentist for further work on her tooth. She didn’t make it to church on Wednesday so headed off into town a little earlier than planned for a Festival talk about the St. James Theatre restoration, which turned out to be as good as she expected.  Thursday saw us both heading into town for different events: Nicky for a lunchtime concert (greatly enjoyed) and me for Deep and Meaningful conversation in the evening (interesting discussion of the difference between how we see ourselves and others see us). On Friday we both did a Ranger guided walk round Gitto’s domain, which is not only in Blockhouse Bay, but is also one of the oldest of the 4000 (yes, four thousand) parks and domains...

We have had a tiring week. Even though we had a quiet Sunday to help us get over Saturday evening and a very late bedtime, we were still feeling a little jaded on Monday along with the effects of changing the clocks. Monday was a reasonably normal day with Nicky at Seniors Church, doing laundry, and making brioche, while I did  an on-site job and some shopping. On Tuesday we drove down to Hawera, which is just a few minutes from Normanby, where Bert the Builder has his office. The first two thirds of the route was the same as going to Wanganui, but it made a pleasant change to have a different final third, which included some coastline. We would have also enjoyed seeing Mt Taranaki if it hadn’t been shrouded in cloud and rain. We had arranged to see Bert on Wednesday afternoon as we had booked a visit to a stained glass artist near New Plymouth on Wednesday morning. We were really inspired by his work and very impressed with his attitude to what we would like to try and do...

This week has been more like winter than spring, with a strong southerly wind, and some heavy rain. Some welcome sun appeared towards the end of the week, along with the return of the shorts, and with having changed the clocks this weekend and had an extra hour of daylight in the early evening, there is a feeling of winter slowly receding into history. For now. I think Tuesday is going to be very wet! Along with Nicky’s M/W/F church routine, she has had another enjoyable trip to the cinema to see Downton Abbey again (with Stella and Ros), and a ukulele and sing along concert (in town). This was followed by having way too much fun in Smith & Caughey’s, and coming home with lots of free makeup samples. The beginning of the week involved more house design discussions, and the end of the week was focused on cooking for Saturday night. We had invited a number of my fellow Deep and Meaningful attendees for a winter dinner, and eventually 13 of us sat round the table (well, three...

Our focus at the beginning of the week was on house design and Nicky’s dental treatment. She already had a regular checkup appointment at the dentist for mid-day on Monday, which she was very pleased about when she started experiencing pain on Saturday. It turned out she had an abscess under a dying tooth. The dentist did some temporary work on her root canal, and prescribed antibiotics and pain killers, and she is due back in a couple of weeks for further attention. Regular consumption of pain killers helped, but she didn’t start to feel more comfortable until Thursday. The wires have been buzzing between us and Bert the Builder with house design considerations. When we were last in Wanganui we asked Bert if there was any way the design could be changed to give us access to the view down to the river from the main living area, without going beyond our budget. He sent us a plan that gave us a view, but was a bit more than we could afford, so some changes were made. Decking and win...

I was going to say that this should be last week where I have to post early in order to keep on the right side of Mrs. Trellis (Endeavour finishes tonight), but having just looked at next week’s TV schedule, a new series of “Making New Zealand” starts next Sunday so I might still be posting early. The things I do for you, Dear Reader. This week has marked another step in our new home project. There were two clauses in our Sales and Purchase agreement that we had to satisfy, and we have done both of them now. The next step is for the vendors to have the services installed, and then get title issued on the section, so for us in that respect it is now just a case of waiting, possibly until mid-December. We expect to use the time to design and plan with our builder, so that the consents paperwork is all ready for when we are allowed to submit it. The weather has been quite spring-like, which I suppose is reassuring, with some welcome sunshine and showers to keep us checking if the...