Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

 We started this week with a public holiday for Labour Day. I had Paddle Steamer sailings on Monday and Tuesday which gave me five consecutive days on the boat. This has really helped with getting to grips with handling the ropes and steering the vessel. On Tuesday morning Nicky went to see “Mrs. Harris goes to Paris” at the cinema, and thoroughly enjoyed the heartwarming plot, exquisite Dior clothes and post-war nostalgia. In the garden Nicky finished planting the grasses and the trailing fuchsias, which we had purchased from Frances last weekend, in the north-west bed by the retaining wall, and it is looking good: She has also been working hard on rooting out the pioneering plants (aka weeding). Meanwhile, I have started installing our back garden irrigation system. We bought a couple of 15m irrigation pipes last year but we didn’t have an adjacent water supply with which to connect them. Connecting the additional outside tap, which our water softener plumber installed for us, I ...

We have had a week of early starts, or possibly more correctly, early awakenings. I think this is probably because of the sun rising earlier now, and my new work routine starting to have an impact on our sleeping pattern. Each day I have a morning sailing I need to be at the wharf for 8.30, so I aim to be up by 6.30a.m. However, I am finding that I am regularly awake by 6am and really fancying a pot of tea.   I have done three sailings this week (Fri/Sat/Sun) and feel I am making progress with my steering. I have got to the stage where I am less likely to drive into the bank, but am still getting to grips with having the boat in the right place on the water (we drive on the right on the river). I am also still on the easiest stretch of the river. One of the more experienced deck hands has been away, so I have been more relied upon, which has been good. We have generally been having good weather with a little rain. The really clear skies didn’t arrive until the weekend and the wind ...

 Most of this week it has been raining, damp or overcast. As a result we have spent most of out time indoors. I had a sailing on Monday morning which went OK, and the weather wasn’t too bad. Nicky made brioche ready for Steve and Louise coming over for lunch. It was good to catch up with them when I returned home from work. I discovered on Monday when my blood test results arrived that no PSA test had been done. Another blood test was required (done on Tuesday) for the PSA. While I was at the hospital Nicky ran some errands in town. The weather became wetter on Wednesday so we started a jigsaw, which was completed this morning. It was the last of the ones we have borrowed from the Jigsaw Exchange so they are ready for swapping with another batch. Nicky was at the Aramoho Community Library on Thursday. The weather continued to be un-inspiring but not as wet as forecast, so I made a lemon curd cheesecake, walnut bread and Boston Beans. The latter two items were for dinner. After dinn...

The weather has been making its presence felt this week. According to the MetService at 7am on Friday the temperature was 1º but felt like -4º. It certainly did. The cold antarctic blast has brought snow further south: ©CED 2022 The clear skies have also given us some lovely views of the river and sunsets: We had some very heavy rain, and some clear sunny days. Even out of the breeze and in the sun, the air was still cold. Consequently another jigsaw has been completed this week (yippee!). The weather warmed up at the weekend and on the sunny days we have got things done in the garden, primarily weeding and strimming. I think the strimming is going to be much more frequent now as spring continues. This is a shame, as I broke the strimmer today. I may be able to effect a repair but a replacement part would be ideal if available. Nicky has moved some of the dark/burgundy coloured flax from the front garden, to the bed on the south side of retaining wall number 2 (the one I built). They l...

 The beginning of the week brought with it some lovely weather. Consequently Nicky got some weeding done in the garden, and I built us another bench, number 3. We have been able to start using the garden benches for morning and afternoon tea. I have also done some more strimming, but got rained off on Thursday. Nicky did brass cleaning at St. John’s, and her volunteer stint at the library, but life group was cancelled this week. Wednesday was her last evening at Alpha which went well. Her visit to the audiologist was successful and the adjustments to her hearing aids seem to be beneficial. She finished the week by updating the roster for St. John’s and it is now almost finished. In between all this she has been doing laundry and ironing while negotiating with the weather, and has made three batches of scones. Some of these disappeared in my direction. Some disappeared out the door. I had my first charter sailing on the Waimarie on Tuesday. It was an employee’s reward event for some...

 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...