Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

 We began this week with the Arthritis Amble Open Garden Day. The cool clear start of the morning turned into a lovely sunny day with a cooling breeze. I helped with a bit of setting up before going off to work, and our three volunteers (Elaine, Lyn and Jacqui) were great. Jacqui stayed a little longer than her shift so that I could shower and change on my return from sailing. We had around 260 people view the garden, lots of good positive comments, and the day as a whole raised around $9400. We didn’t have a period between 9.45am and 4.15pm without at least one visitor. By the end of the event we were both very tired so sat down with a pot of tea, followed by a range of left-overs for tea. Today, along with most of the other garden owners and helpers, we have visited most of the ten gardens in the Whanganui Arthritis Amble as we did last year. We thoroughly enjoyed seeing the variety of gardens which people had created, and getting to see parts of town that we don’t know. One of t...

 Gardening and sailing have dominated our time again this week. All week our days have started cool and clear, and developed into hot and sunny weather. We have enjoyed some lovely sunsets: Along with her usual household duties, Nicky has squeezed as much time as possible into getting the garden ready for tomorrow’s Arthritis Amble Open Day. One of my contributions to tidying the garden has been trimming the grass. This came to an abrupt halt on Wednesday evening when the motor in the line trimmer died. I took it down to Mitre 10 on Thursday for repair, hopefully covered by the warranty. I have undertaken nine sailings this week. I have felt the regular rope management and steering tasks on an almost daily basis have really consolidated my knowledge and understanding. One sailing included a stop-over at Upokongaro for an hour, and we did two evening Jazz cruises. I arranged for Nicky, Jacqui and Frances to go on the Saturday Jazz cruise, and they really enjoyed themselves. The live...

 Our main activities this week have been gardening and sailing. Nicky has spent as much time as possible in the garden, weeding and tidying, ready for the Arthritis Amble on the 23rd. The impact on the garden is noticeable. I have also been out with the line trimmer, as the combination of warm sunshine and a couple of days with quite a bit of rain has encouraged growth, including the damsons which have begun to colour: I have sailed most days, apart from my day off on Tuesday, and Wednesday. It was too windy with edge of Hale wreaking havoc across Aotearoa. So far our summer has been pretty wet. Nicky had a routine doctors appointment, I had a B12 injection and also saw the optician. My left eye had been causing me some concern, but things are now improving naturally, as he thought they would. We went to the cinema on cheap Tuesday ($10) to see The Lost King. This was partially because it had a good review in The Listener but mainly because of us living near Leicester for many year...

 While this week seems to have flown by, it feels like a long time since I took this picture of the sunrise on Monday morning: The summer season has started at work, so we are now sailing six days a week. On Saturdays we do a second one-hour trip, and on Wednesdays in January we have a one hour stop over at Upokongaro: Mooring here is a little different as we don’t have anybody on the wharf to help with the ropes. Most of the sailings have been in good weather, but Saturday afternoon was very wet. On Monday evening I went across the road to help Lyn build some shelves for her new greenhouse, and sink a bottle of bubbles to celebrate the New Year. We didn’t do these things in the “right” order, so we made a few mistakes with the shelves. I collected Nicky and Shani (daughter of Nicky’s niece Kim) from Ohakune. It had been a smaller gathering than previous years, and not everybody was there for the photo, but everybody appeared to have enjoyed themselves. On our return I made a fourt...

 Welcome Dear Reader, to 2023. It would appear to be five years since the first blog post of the year was also the first day of the year. This might explain why I don’t remember it. With the Christmas and New Year holidays, and a different work schedule for me, I have really lost track of which day was which this week. Today hasn’t felt like a Sunday, or any other day of the week for that matter! However, it has felt much more like summer, with some hot and sunny days. I was working on the paddle steamer on Boxing Day (Monday), and also on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and today. We are now sailing six days a week until the end of March. The view in the sunshine while waiting to cast off is lovely: I had a treat on Monday - blowing the whistle for the first time. I took the helm just as we were passing the holiday park and the skipper suggested I let Nicky know we were in the vicinity. He could see her waiving from our garden, and she could see someone waving on the boat but didn’t k...

 It has been quite a week, as the week preceding Christmas often is. The kitchen has been in great demand. I have made twenty four mince pies, eight 350g pork pies, four 350g Christmas pies, one 1.5kg pork pie, and a Christmas pudding. Nicky has made two more Christmas cakes, roasted a leg of lamb, parcelled up one of the cakes as twelve small Christmas gifts, and given cake or mince pies to our various delivery/collection people, when able to catch them. The week had an exciting beginning with the World Cup Final. I was up early enough to watch it from part way through the second half, before starting on pie production. The weather has been variable, with some heavy showers, so Nicky has been running in and out to deal with the laundry. She has also managed some time in the garden, especially on Wednesday, when she worked until it was too dark to see. It was also our longest day. Wednesday also brought the very sad news that Reg had died. Nicky’s brother-in-law turned 100 recently...

 Monday, as many of you will know, was Nicky’s birthday. It started quite bright, but didn’t really become sunny until early afternoon. We started the day with a pot of tea and present opening (very Harry Potter themed). The Yellow House Café was the chosen destination for breakfast. Nicky enjoyed her Turkish smoked tomato with grilled eggs and a berry smoothie, and I my eggs benedict with bacon and a cup of coffee. We nipped home to deal with the laundry and assemble a picnic lunch to eat on the beach, with some stops on the way. The first of these was the Glenlogie Rose Gardens: We have known about these for awhile but never visited them, and even though the roses were past their best, we enjoyed the peace and serenity the gardens provided. Next stop was the Sarjeant Gallery as the exhibition had changed since our last visit with Stella, and the shop is always an enjoyable visit. Across the road in the exhibition space the Sarjeant currently uses at the iSite Information Centre, ...