Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

 Our exciting news this week is that we have had a house guest; Nicky’s sister Stella came to stay for a few days. You may recall from last week, Nicky went up to Auckland on Sunday on the bus. This proved to be a long journey, not as comfortable as going by car, but not so bad as to be unrepeatable. The bus was about an hour late arriving in Auckland. Stella met her and took her home. Nicky was travelling to Auckland because of the osteoporosis/arthritis drug trial that she joined 10 years ago. It was time for another check-up and test visit, so she spent Monday morning at the Medical School and hospital. On Tuesday while I made pork pies, cleaned the house and did laundry, Nicky and Stella drove down to Whanganui. They had seen some of the Queen’s funeral on Monday night, and I had it recored for later viewing. We spent Tuesday evening chatting and giving Stella a tour of our new home as it was her first visit (yes it can take that long, I have Irish in my ancestry). The weather ...

Top story in the on-line edition of the Whanganui Chronicle on Wednesday morning: Top story in the on-line edition of the Whanganui Chronicle on Friday morning: Then on Saturday morning, no longer on the top spot: What a wonderful place we live in when the top news story is a cat-up-tree. In other news, which didn’t make it into the local media, we celebrated our 15th anniversary of arriving in Aotearoa on Wednesday. We bought bagels from a recently opened shop in town and brought them home for lunch. We would have found a nice place to sit if we could but the wind was very chilly and not inviting. All the same, we enjoyed our Baconater and the smoked salmon, followed by a pot of tea: Thursday was busy. Steve and Ros called in for lunch on their way past. They had some time with Nicky at the Community Library, and then came on to Tiramaroa. They brought goodies from Angel Louise (pasties and bacon and egg pie) and I had made fruit bread to accompany the cheese and crackers. Nicky added...

 Nicky has had a busy week. Along with her regular commitments she has been on the hospitality team for the Alpha course Spiritual weekend. This took place on Friday evening and all day Saturday (which was a 7.30am start for her). When she arrived at the Community Library on Thursday she found our local MP (Stephanie Lewis) was there, along with two assistants, her husband and their younger son. Stephanie was doing a “Meet Your MP” session. This made the library very busy for Nicky who was very pleased to put her feet up for awhile when she got home. Monday was cold and damp so we started a jigsaw. We finished it on Wednesday which was cold and uninviting, though Nicky did spend some time in the garden. The rest of the week has been better, with some good sunshine on Thursday (lovely solar gain inside). As a result I have started working on garden benches 3 and 4. This required the procurement of some wood for the seats and back support and I have cut the last of the half-round pos...

 Yesterday, Saturday, was significant for two reasons; it was my first “proper” sailing on the Waimarie as it’s newest deckhand, and it was also exactly two years since the first frames of our new home were erected. On September 3rd 2020 we had a meeting arranged with Bert the Project Manger at 2.30p.m. We had seen the previous day that some of the framing had been delivered. As we walked along to the section from the holiday park we could hear hammering and activity and were greeted by Bert, Brodie and Devon and the first few pieces of framing already up. By the end of the afternoon this is how our new home was looking: We were incredibly excited and felt that finally tangible progress was being made. We were out of the ground and rising! As I am sitting writing this I am looking south through the house, seeing the walls that those first frames have created. My season with the Waimarie started on Wednesday with a training sailing just for crew, and to make sure the boat still work...

 It has been another largely routine week, but there have been some highlights. One of them has been this pink lily flowering in the front garden, gaining flowers as the week progressed: Nicky’s regular commitments of Life Group, Alpha and staffing the Aramoho Community Library were expanded by a visit to the hairdresser and it being her turn to produce dessert for Alpha. She shopped on Monday and baked for most of Wednesday, making a very large hummingbird cake, and a large tray of lemon and coconut slices. All dairy free and gluten free to accommodate dietary intolerances. I have been quite busy with MacOnSite work, and have been strimming the grass in the back garden and on the berm, when the weather has allowed. A trip to Mitre 10 to get some more sanding pads enabled me to complete our second garden bench: On Friday evening we had some “new” neighbours over for dinner. They bought a house just up the road at the beginning of the year and we met them at the shared meal at the m...

 Our weather this week has been dominated by warm wet tropical winds from the north. Some parts of the country, primarily the northern parts of both islands, have had major rainfall. The flooding in Nelson has been significant, and there are hundreds of landslips all over the country closing roads. We haven’t received as much rain as was forecast, but the temperatures have been much higher than normal for this time of year. Daytime highs have reached the low 20’s, and night time lows have been the the low-mid teens. The humidity has of course been up, so it has felt quite sticky and oppressive. We had a wonderful rainbow yesterday morning which Nicky managed to photograph: The unpredictable weather has made getting the laundry dry a bit more challenging, and it hasn’t enticed us into the garden until the weekend, when it turned drier. Nicky has had her usual commitments of Life Group, Alpha and staffing the Community Library. Her diverticulitis has been uncomfortable and painful ag...

 It has been the coldest week of the year. We can confirm this both from the frosts and when emptying the tea pot for the first brew of the day.   This morning the MetService app indicated that it felt like -4ºC, and by golly they were right. The meteorologists were telling us it would be the coldest before the week began, so I don’t know if that just means this week was colder than the previous 32, or if it has been colder than the forecast next 19. It was certainly the former and I’m hoping it was also the latter. In order to celebrate the event, the MetService has given us a new symbol on their app: The snowflake and thermometer means: “beware emptying the tea pot with bare feet - it’s chilly”. The cold temperatures have been caused by southerly winds and almost cloudless skies, but this has enabled us to enjoy the apricity. Before you all reach for your dictionaries, you won’t find it unless you have an OED. Apricity indicates the warmth of the sun in winter, and we have d...