Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

 We have had a quiet week at home, doing jigsaws and listening to Harry Potter. Nicky seemed to be getting better at the beginning of the week but it was short lived. As the week has drawn to a close she has actually started getting brighter and felt like doing some things round the house. Nicky got dressed for the first time this week on Friday to go to the hospital for a blood test, and we did a little shopping on the way home. Yesterday she made a couple of lemon cakes and delivered one to Eleanor for her birthday. Nicky found the few minutes walk there and back exhausting. Meanwhile, I gradually got worse through the week until Friday. On Wednesday and Thursday I ploughed through a whole box of 240 tissues, and most of a packet of throat lozenges. Paracetamol helped with the general aches and temperature fluctuations. This weekend is the first time I have done my morning exercises in over a week, and I even managed a short amble this morning in the lovely (almost spiring-like) ...

 It has been a challenging week. At the beginning of the week Nicky was still getting worse, so she arranged an appointment with the GP on Tuesday afternoon. The GP confirmed that Nicky had bronchitis and sinusitis, but that her chest sounded clear. With the infection being viral, there was no medication that could be prescribed, but some additional painkillers were in order to manage the symptoms and assist with the pain caused by congestion, coughing and vomiting. As the week progressed Nicky started to improve slowly. The periods of incessant coughing and coughing induced vomiting started to subside yesterday. She was able get a little more sleep and keep a little more food down. The washing machine has been very busy with regular changes of PJ’s, dressing gowns and bedding. Some of the laundry has been dried outside but the winter weather has deteriorated over the last couple of days. While Nicky has been unwell she has cancelled all her commitments. I have been running errands...

 The end of our week has been quiet. A combination of Nicky having a respiratory bug and poor weather has kept us at home inside. We have occupied ourselves with a a jigsaw and listening to some more Harry Potter. The beginning of our week was much busier. Nicky had a full Monday with church cleaning and a Pastoral Care meeting with Louise. In the afternoon we had afternoon tea with a fellow book club member, Libby, and her husband Graham at their home on St. John’s Hill. While Nicky was out during the morning I did some MacOnSite work and had an amble. After lunch I did the trenching and cleaned the cook top. We watched a bit of telly after dinner but Nicky was in need of an early night. Tuesday was a pleasant day so laundry was done, and the supermarkets were raided. In the afternoon Nicky hosted a church home group. Before dinner she went to a Service of Lament for abuse. Then we watched a little more telly after dinner and Nicky had another early night. I cut the berm on Wednes...

 July became August this week, and we have been finding the keeping track of which day it is, a challenge. I find this a little odd, as it has largely been a routine sort of week. Nicky has done her usual activities of church cleaning, home group and staffing the library. She also enjoyed the fashion talk at the museum on Friday. We quizzed on Wednesday coming equal second with 98 points but loosing the tie-breaker. However we now know how many sports people are competing in the Olympics…10,714! I have had an amble everyday. This was in town on Monday while Luna had two new tyres fitted, so included a cup of coffee at The Burrow. I walked into town on Friday to the Yellow House cafe for a coffee and a catch up with Trevor, who volunteers on the boat. I hadn’t realised that his wife would be with him otherwise Nicky would have come too. Our evenings at home have been dominated with binge watching Keeping Faith. We have now finished all three seasons, and Nicky would like to watch it...

 While it has been a more routine week, there have been a couple of developments. We had always planned for the second bedroom, now known as The Room of Requirement, to be Nicky’s sewing room. Our hope had been that we could also use it as a guest bedroom. Unfortunately its limited size makes achieving these functions a challenge. In addition, since the early days of our living here we discovered what a lovely room it was to sit in. Many years ago when Nicky worked at the Sutton Bonnington campus of Nottingham University, the library had a re-fit. In the process the lovely big 6’x4’ oak tables were being thrown out. Nicky asked if she could have a couple as they would be just great for her to use for quilting and sewing. One weekend we hired a van and collected a couple. We didn’t start using them until we moved into Matata Street in Blockhouse Bay and set one up as our dinning table. After three years of trying to use them in the way we intended in The Room of Requirement and fail...

 The week didn’t start well with England’s defeat in the EURO24 final. Spain were the better team, but football is probably still wandering in the wilderness. Enough said. Almost 18 years ago, when we still lived in England, we bought a dozen tumblers from IKEA. Decorated with two different styles of patterns of dots, they were a good size and shape and had a well weighted base. They were for use at Claire’s 18th birthday celebration and so we viewed them as Claire’s tumblers. By the time we left England I suspect a couple had already succumbed to the force of gravity and landing on the unforgiving terracotta tiled floor of the kitchen (a floor which claimed more crockery and glassware than any other we have lived with). Over the years in Aotearoa their number have slowly diminished. Claire didn’t take them to Dunedin with her, trusting the remaining ones to our loving care. This week, the twelfth one has broken, the result of a saucepan lid toppling over on the draining board. The...

 I don’t think the penalty was justified, but who am I to question the decisions of a football referee. England won and with their semi-final victory still tingling in their feet, they will face Spain tomorrow morning NZ time. We will see if football finally comes home, but even if it does, I don’t expect it will hang around for very long. In other feats of athletic activity, I have ambled everyday this week (don’t snigger). This is the first time for many years that I have had a walk every day. I have been helped by the high pressure system that has been sitting over us for the past 10 days or so. We have been waking to chilly, sometimes foggy, mornings before being bathed in winter sunshine by mid morning. While still chilly outside, the solar gain from our big north-facing windows make it T-shirt weather inside until late afternoon.   Much of the back garden is shaded by the house at this time of year, so weeding and strimming has been primarily an afternoon activity. Nicky...