Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

 Aotearoa has been having some weather this week. Again in Whanganui we only caught the edge of it, but we did have a little damage. The lemon wood tree was horizontal on Friday morning, and the akeake was at 45º, but neither was uprooted. Meanwhile, Claire was sent home from work as trees in Dunedin were being uprooted by the wind strength, and they were big ones. I spent my garden time on Friday putting in more and deeper stakes to support the two trees. The approaching weather system gave us a lovely sunset on Tuesday evening: Nicky has started physio treatment this week for the sprained muscle in her left thigh. She had two appointments which both went well, and has been given a range of exercises to do at home. It has already started to improve the situation but after distributing some leaflet to neighbours letterboxes yesterday she was in a lot of pain. Jacqui came over on Tuesday morning to do a hat fitting with Nicky (birthday gift) and stayed most of the morning having a c...

 We went to Bulls on Wednesday, and it was the highlight of the week. It’s only a wee place, population of a little over 2000, but famous in Aotearoa. I remember reading about it during one of our flights when we were coming to NZ in 2007. It was either in a book which Nicky had given me or an inflight magazine. The fact that we would end living near-by didn’t cross my mind. The fame isn’t because it is one of the main junctions between State Highways 1 and 3, but because of the way the locals use the name of the town to name things, as you can see from this sign: There were two reasons why Bulls was our destination. The first was that like many other people we discovered during Covid that not using the car was problematic, flat batteries being a common experience. Most of our driving round Whanagnui are short trips into town and back which probably average about 12kms each. Bulls is about a 45 km, 35 minute drive from home, so a “good run out”. The second reason was to go for lunc...

 It has been one of Nicky’s busier weeks. Church cleaning on Monday was followed by lunch with Louise at The Yellow House cafe. Nicky finishes her term on Vestry next week so it was the last time that she would be producing the Pastoral Care report with Louise. I went into town with her to get a card and gift for Mike as he was 70 at the weekend. Planting tomato and basil seedlings occupied her in the afternoon, while I extracted some more weeds. I was pleased to be feeling back to normal after my shingles vaccination last week. While I did the supermarket shopping on Tuesday morning Nicky cleaned and vacuumed at home. I met Sam (the contracted skipper on the paddle steamer) while shopping. The first thing he said to me was “please come back!” Apparently they have no Bosun at the moment and he is finding that difficult. Nicky had House Group in the afternoon and I gave some more weeds the Dalek treatment in very breezy conditions. Nicky had her book club meeting on Wednesday mornin...

 The MetService have lost the plot this week, with each day’s forecast   proving to being a work of fiction. We have been using the much more accurate (but shorter term) technique for weather prediction: looking out of the window. Nicky started her week in the usual fashion with cleaning at church with Dale, though I think more nattering occurred than cleaning. Due to the school holidays there was no Home Group, but a number of the ladies including Nicky went to the cinema to see Downton Abbey: the grand finale. It was thoroughly enjoyed, again. She had a good session with Dr Rose on Thursday before staffing the Aramoho Library, and enjoyed the Fashion Talk at the Whanganui Museum on Friday lunchtime. This time an 1880’s wedding ensemble worn during the marriage of local farmers at the Episcopalian Matarawa church. A forerunner to the current St John’s. It was sewn in self striped cream silk, with a brushed cotton lining to the jacket, and a cotton muslin lining and pocket to ...

  The most noticeable thing about being back home this week has been doing a great deal less talking. We throughly enjoyed our trip to Auckland last week and catching up with everybody whom we met, but we did do a lot of talking. The experience and the driving was quite tiring, so we enjoyed our pace of life returning to “sedate Whanagnui”. Our first priority on Monday was getting through the laundry. I started on this while Nicky went off to clean the church and have her postponed hair cut. The weather assisted with getting the laundry dry so Nicky was able to get on with the ironing upon her return. Pat had given us some jigsaws, one of which I fancied doing, so it was started in the afternoon. Restocking the pantry and fridge was first on my list for Tuesday morning. Nicky continued coping with the laundry, but the weather wasn’t   co-operative. After attending Home Group in the afternoon she had a bit of time at home before going to the cinema to see ‘Downton Abbey: the Gr...

 Good evening Dear Reader. We have been away on our jollies this week, up in Auckland. Claire was a member of an organising committee for this years’ NZLLA (NZ Law Librarians Association) Conference which was in Auckland. Nicky and I decided we would pop up to Auckland to see her and Nicky’s family as we hadn’t been up to Auckland since I had started working on the paddle steamer over three years ago. We drove up on Tuesday, surprised by the lack of traffic on the roads for the majority of the journey. We arrived at Paul and Jenny’s a little after 5pm and had a good catch-up and lovely dinner. Claire’s flight arrived in Auckland at 11.15am on Wednesday so we drove out to the airport to meet her (and a colleague) and take them to their accommodation in the CBD. After Claire had checked in, we went to the Art Gallery for a very enjoyable lunch, and then to see the Century of Modern Art exhibition. This was a bit of a curates egg, but we all enjoyed the Van Gogh and Monet paintings, i...

 It is 18 years ago today that we arrived in Aotearoa after our long farewell to England and our trip across the USA. We started off in Auckland where most of Nicky’s family live. Claire now lives in Dunedin with Ryan, and Nicky and I have retired to the North Island Riviera of Whanganui. I think we all feel that we did the right thing in moving here. Since we moved to Whanagnui there has been a walnut tree in the paddock behind us, either dead or close to it. This week it was finally taken down. This is what it looked like two years ago: The toi toi still remains and is looking good: Nicky’s health has slowly improved through the week, but she is not right yet. Her stamina is still to return and the cough is lingering. Apparently this is par for the course with this bug. She has done some sewing but didn’t start returning to her regular activities until Thursday when she staffed the Aramoho Library. If she had been with us at the quiz we might have come 3rd instead of 4th again, t...