Just so you know ,,,

... we are home and we are fine.

We are coming out of (hopefully) an obsession with all things US political - we have to be coming out of it, or otherwise the depression it engenders in us would sink us without trace. There'd merely be a large puddle of tears remaining.

So, we are home in Waikanae and it was lovely to come back to our nice wee house.

We have had Rob around doing some gardening and that encouraged me to buy lettuce plants (baby cos and some floppy leafed things) and some tomato plants. I have also valiantly (because I absolutely HATE doing weeding) cleared around the lemon tree. I was inspired to do so, in spite of it being an anathema to me, by the fact that there are about 8 lemons on it - the first ones we have had. So I thought I'd better treat the tree with love and care.

Not much going on socially at the moment, although we have been to Grahame and Joy's for dinner (yummy beef stroganoff [by Joy] and lemon curd bread and butter pudding [by me]).

On Friday I am cooking dinner for 15 people - Bruce and Gary are returning from the UK that day, so the dinner is to celebrate their return, as well as ours. It is also meant to celebrate Clair's return from her mammoth solo cycle trip down the west coast of the US from Alaska to Mexico, but having travelled unscathed, she has returned to Paraparaumu and caught a cold! And the woman has a conscience and won't come out socialising if she is bug-ridden. A good and noble sentiment, but we will miss her!

It's spring here at the moment and the weather is very spring-like - when we got home on 5 October, we had several days of beautifully sunny and warm weather. Then it cooled off. On Friday last week we had a southerly storm - consolations to adhere to:

1. it was worse in Wellington
2. it was not Florence or Michael the hurricanes which have battered the east coast of the US - all because god isn't happy with gays apparently, according to some mad preachers over there ...
3. it was not the heavy storm and rainfall with fatalities in the south of Framce
4. we were warm and dry in the house - not on the boat, and not in the motorhome.

One morning David told me it had been 1 degree C outside and he'd had to close the bedroom windows I tend to leave open ...

Yesterday David and I along with our friend Jane went to see the movie (documentary) called RBG - about Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the Supreme Court Justice in the US. She is an amazing woman. Let's hope for two things for a start:

1. the Democrats win back a majority in Congress and the Senate come 6 November (if the repugs gerrymandering and voter suppression haven't squelched any chances of that), and
2. RBG survives and keeps being an amazing Justice until after that time so she cannot be replaced by any rightwing repug nominee.

Today I went off to the supermarket to shop for the Friday dinner. So far I have made the chilli.

I have also commenced making Derek's limoncello - it is the absolute BEST. I have peeled 25 lemons into 1.5 litres of vodka and set it in the laundry pantry to steep/macerate/whatever for a fortnight. I will be counting the days until I can complete the process and then do the requisite taste testing. Stand aside, team! That is my job and mine alone!