A very very very delayed post. Get a cup of tea before you start!

Now this post starts way back in early November last year, for heaven's sake! I will post photos separately.

• Early in November, we had 10 days up in Waitara staying at my sister's motorcamp because it was her daughter's 50th birthday and her twin granddaughters' 13th birthdays. Excellent parties for both a week apart although their birthdays are on the same day, and wonderful to spend time with family - and our lovely Kirsty came over from Sydney for the 50th birthday.
• In late November there was the Parkwood Trust Xmas dinner - paid for by the Trust. Yummy food, but guess who really doesn't like aubergine - even though he hasn't tasted it? A very convivial time.
• I turned 74 early in December and I don't remember what we did for my birthday. Oh yes I do! We went out for lunch after the lovely Michelle gave me a haircut.
• Lunch was at the Sprig and Fern in Tawa, and we sat at a table next to a group of Samoan people who were the only brown people in the whole place. As I do, I chatted with them throughout the meal, and when we got up to leave, they had left just before us. When we got to the counter to pay, the server told us the man at the table next to us had paid for our meals. So I raced out and said thank you and why. His reply was that it was only $50 and he would have paid 10 times that amount because of our kindness. And it was only that I conversed with them. People of colour are often ignored or looked right through, even here in NZ - a horrid and racist practice.
• I noticed that the man had a pea'a (I think I've spelled that right - the full tattoo that a Samoan man gets when he becomes an adult. It extends from below the knees to the above the waist and I understand - without having seen it, mind you - that it includes the testicles - ouch!) So I asked who did it, and it turns out that he knows our Joe who lived with us back in Cherswud and is a stretcher for one of the two tattoo families here in the Wellington region.
• David and I had another hug with the man, and walked back to our car in tears, and promptly rang Joe.
• What a lovely birthday present!
• On December 11th our friend Julia arrived from the UK - regular readers may remember Julia as she and her husband Mick were long-time boating friends. Mick died nearly 3 years ago, and in about August this year we were really surprised when Julia agreed in a phone call that she should come to NZ for a holiday.
• I think a big drawcard was Xmas in the summer with no presents
• She travelled business class and has taken to it like a duck to water!
• On December 13th (a Friday, of course) we celebrated being married for 50 years. We had a lovely pot luck late lunch party and it was wonderful to have friends old and new with us on a warm but overcast day - the best kind because no one got sunburnt. 
• On Dec 15th we headed away for a trip north, having picked up a rental station wagon with totally fold down seats for Julia so she could sleep in the back. We provided 4 layers of foam topper pad and a wool duvet as a mattress - think Princess and the pea - and the requisite bedding. David and I had the motorhome and off we went.
  
• We made our way to Ngongotaha just north of Rotorua, with stops for a night at Turangi NZMCA park, then at Orakei Korako.
• I took great delight in stopping at the rest area at the top of the Desert Road to tell Julia that we were standing in a spot that is higher than any point in the UK ... And by the way, there's the mountains 👏😆😍
• We had a lovely trip on The Lady of the Lake launch below the Huka Falls and all the way up close to them - not as dramatic as the Huka Jet, but we had a fair amount of time circling around getting closer and closer to the falls. It was pretty spectacular. 
• Then a quick walk down to be in time to see the dam opening at Aratiatia Rapids - bloody hell, the amount of water released into the canyon is amazing to watch - another spectacular sight as the empty canyon fills rapidly.
• We got to Orakei Korako mid afternoon and just blobbed - you can park up overnight for free. It was so peaceful. And Julia loved it because it had toilets she could use without coming into our motorhome.
• In the morning, Julia and I had coffee at the cafe and then we all did the trip across the river to the thermal area, and walked the whole thing. It is rather amazing and so very well pathed and signposted. Definitely our favourite thermal area and the one we recommend.
• Then it was on to Ngongotaha NZMCA where Julia and I stayed. We dropped David at the bus station in Rotorua and he travelled up to stay overnight with Barry and Pauline in Papamoa and then into Tauranga the next day to visit Gordon his old boss. He came back the next day on the bus and we made him catch a local bus back to Ngongotaha - Julia is the bus guru, and even though she was on foreign territory, she was confident that the app gave him excellent information. The boffin wasn't so convinced but when I shouted over the phone, he succumbed. Getting into Rotorua in rush hour traffic would have been nightmarish - far better for him to trust us... And the bus dropped him exactly where we said it would, and Julia had gone over to meet it and lead him back to our campsite. She is a champion.
• While he was away, Julia and I did a drive out to Lake Tikitapu (Blue Lake) and did the walk around it - it was lovely and peaceful - lapping water, birds, breeze in the trees, no traffic. We met some U3A people coming towards us, and as Julia is involved in lots of U3A activities in the UK, of course they all had a long chat.
• Lovely breakfast at a cafe David and I'd found on a previous trip, Cafe Dynasti - great food. We had nibbles for dinner while binge watching Ted Lasso.
• When we had David back, we headed over towards Waitomo. We'd intended for David and Julia to do a cave trip (I don't do undergraound), but when we stopped at some point on the way to ask Julia a question, I checked the opening times and found it was about $165 per person for a two cave trip - I've just looked at the website and I reckon off season is significantly cheaper, dammit! So we decided we would rather head to Tongaporutu and have an extra night there for free - and because it's my favourite place...
• I think we stopped to top up with groceries at Te Kuiti, and then Tongaporutu here we come! 
• I've posted lots of photos of Tongaporutu before so all readers know how obsessed I am... JUlia loved it too - the beach, the mud, the walk along the river where we stopped to catch up with Gordon and Lee and then called in on James and Joan and showed Julia our two former baches.
• Then after 2 nights we headed to Waitara to the holiday park that my sister and her son and daughter in law run. Such a lot of fun. And Julia was instantly accepted into the family - for Dee and I she became our tall sister. Although Julia did wind Dee up and so got lots of candy canes thrown at her. What started it was that she kept stepping into and out of the office to make the buzzer go on and off ...
• And home for Christmas with Bruce and Gary and friends. Julia and I made a mushroom galette (yummy) with mushroom sauce (yummy) and individual nutroasts (also yummy). We probably made something for dessert, but I can't remember - whatever it was it all caused me to gain lots of weight. I blame Julia.

Sydney with the Parkwood Seekers

 Before Easter we had a week in Sydney: Monday to Thursday with a small group of Parkwood Seekers, then Friday on our own, followed by part of Saturday and Sunday with the lovely Kirsty.

It was our first Parkwood Seekers venture apart from one recent theatre trip during which David fell asleep - in the second row... I know the cast could see him. Little did they know that when lights go out in a theatre, movie or a stage play, David goes out like the lights!

However the trip to Sydney was fabulous. Shona, who is the Seekers' organiser, coordinator and travel guide, is amazing and such a lot of fun. She arranges all the outings, events and meals that are just great.

So our schedule was full. Shona and her husband Mike, whose job was to drop us at the airport, collected us all late morning from outside our villas. And as we headed off down towards the motorway, Shona handed us the detailed itinerary. All looked fabulous except for a jaunt up the CentrePoint tower with lunch in the revolving restaurant. AAARRRGGGHHH!!! I told Shona she had just raised my anxiety levels and that I would stay with my feet on the ground and find something else to occupy my time rather than do that. Jan said she wasn't keen on doing it either. So rather than let us separate from the group, Shona said we would find something that suited all of us.

The flight over to Sydney was awful - very bumpy and David and I were not sitting together so I couldn't clutch his hand. Fortunately he was sitting directly behind me so I could reach down beside my seat and hold his leg. Would not have been possible if we weren't both in window seats. I did have my lorazepam with me BUT of course it was in my bag in the overhead locker so effectively out of reach, esp as the person beside me slept from pretty much the moment he put his seatbelt on. Such sangfroid!

And to make matters worse, Qantas' idea of a vegetarian meal was hideous. Rice with unidentifiable black specks and some tofu cut and pressed to make it look like chicken in a nondescript and tasteless sauce. Another AAARRRGGGHHH!!! And because they equate vegetarian with vegan, there weren't any crackers and cheese, dammit. The dessert was OK but given I can't remember what it was it doesn't count as one of nature's best!

So the flat out taxi ride from the airport to the hotel was a doddle after the turbulent flight - and you know I hate being a passenger, eh?

Lovely rooms at the Swissotel in Market St in the centre of the city - and what was right outside our window? The Centrepoint Tower...

Tuesday was a very full day as we had a coach trip, along with about 30 other people, up into the Blue Mountains. First stop was Featherdale, a bird and animal sanctuary. An amazing and well kept place. Australia has some weird native birds and animals. The cassowary is a very grumpy looking bird and apparently very vicious. And I can see why the Tasmanian devil got its name - the teeth and the snarl looked pretty frightening. There are a number of animals that look like small versions of a kangaroo. One such is the quokka - and strangely enough the question what is a quokka came up in our Parkwood Quiz last Friday, as a multiple choice question: currency, animal or something I don't remember. I knew it was an animal but could not remember why I knew ...

Onwards to the Blue Mountains, lunch stop at Leura - David and I opted for the Thai place only to find it's not open Monday or Tuesday, dammit. Still, we found a very nice place to eat and were back on the bus in time.

The Blue Mountains are spectacular - David and I had a weekend in Leura with Kirsty a few years ago, stayed at an Airbnb and hired a car, drove around, went to Wentworth Falls and afternoon tea at a fancy hotel, and bush/riverside walk, an art gallery, an art deco house, saw stuff - we had barely scratched the surface that time though. And to be fair I don't think we did much more this time, but it was different stuff. The views are stunning. I did not venture on to the cablecar, the gondola or the vertical railway. David went on the vertical railway as did all of the others I think.

The coach driver dropped us off at a ferry stop the other side of the harbour and we caught a ferry direcxtly back to Circular Quay. I think that evening we had dinner at a beautiful wee restaurant called Deux Freres. The food was amazing. And as became the pattern for the trip, when I wanted to see the dessert menu everyone said 'oh no, we don't need dessert' and then promptly ordered one... The creme brulee was very yummy!

Wednesday was the Not up Centrepoint Tower Day, and instead we went for a walk around Barangaroo Point with lunch out as the culmination.

We found a large seat that had been made from concrete with Oyster shells embedded in it, then cut and polished. It was an amazing piece of waterside furniture. We all sat on it and Shona took our photo, but we wanted her in the photo too, so I asked some passersby if they could take some. What a lovely couple, Michael and Adesola, who had just that morning landed in Sydney from their flight from the US. They had five days in Sydney and then were heading to New Zealand. It really does pay to chat to people - amazing what you find out and so lovely to make connections with people.

And lunch - what a fabulous place we found. A really beautiful Italian restaurant with fabulous prices but we didn't care! The food was just amazing. David and someone else had a pesto and pasta dish, and the pesto was made in a huge pestle right beside the table. Do you know how beautifully aromatic basil is? I had aubergine parmagiana - I've never had it before and it was so gorgeous. I am going to have to make it and let David heat up some chilli beans from a can for himself ...

And of course no one apart from me wanted dessert until the menus were put in front of them...

That evening we went to see Guys and Dolls which was staged outdoors across one of the bays from the Opera House. The stage was built out over the water, and the seating was tiered up the slope of the hill. The staging was amazing as was the choreography and costuming, the orchestra was great, and most of the singing was very good. But the story - what a crock! Still and all, a fun experience, although we did get a bit cold. I had taken a dress to wear to that event but decided against it - very good plan!

I can't remember what we did on Thursday during the day but I know I found a Skechers' shop and bought a couple of pairs of shoes for me and a pair of sandals for Joy here at Parkwood - she had tried on my pair but couldn't get them at our local shop as they'd sold out. That evening we had a cruise and dinner on a sailing ship - there was almost no wind so it was very calm and the sunset was spectacular through the Harbour Bridge. We were on the yacht with a bunch of high school students who kept us entertained with climbing the rigging.

We walked back to the hotel and as it was the last night, we had cocktails/mocktails in the bar - Shona made the mistake of having an espresso cocktail ...

Those heading home on Friday were out of the hotel by about 6.15am, while we were still sleeping! We Ubered over to Kirsty's place late in the morning, and then walked to our Airbnb separately - I was having a Thai massage in the same building before we checked in. So good after walking over 47,000 steps since Monday evening!

We have stayed in the Airbnb apartment before but won't again - it's fine, very Russian oligarch style according to Kirsty, but it's not particularly comfortable. And on looking at the website since then, I've found several other options also close to Kirsty's place.

David and I decided on a Thai meal that night - there's a restaurant in the building but we were so tired we got takeaways and went back up to the apartment. 

On Saturday we went into the city by train with Kirsty and had lunch at an Asian place in George St - all the dishes were sharing plates, sort of like Asian tapas, I guess. We looked at what we had ordered and thought there would be heaps of leftovers, but no - as Kirsty said, she had not factored in the garbage truck who was dining with us - not me, by the way! Once again, I tried an aubergine dish - very yum.  David didn't dispose of that one - quelle surprise!

David and Kirsty went up Centrepoint Tower while I went back and had a civilised cup if tea at the Swissotel - it was like coming home!

On the train and bus back to Canterbury Kirsty looked very tired - late night with work colleagues the night before ... So she headed back to her place and we had a quiet night in again. Sunday she came over and we played Case Closed - I'd bought it online and brought it over with us. We solved the case, but I know much of it was guesswork - if that's how the police work, I don't want to know! 

Another early night as we had to be up very early for our flight home. At the airport we checked in early, went through security and then found a place to eat breakfast. Eileen, who had stayed on to visit her daughter, found us there and we realised we were all sitting together in Row 29 - bloody hell! I was prepared this time and took lorazepam as we took off. The captain said it was going to be a smooth flight, but he lied! But the drugs took the edge off my anxiety. And we had changed our meal preference to omnivore, so had the nice vegetarian option - go figure!

Shona was waiting for us at the airport - such excellent service - and drove us back home. Early to bed, yet again!

We are definitely converts to travelling with the Parkwood Seekers. Shona is such a wonderful organiser and camp mother.

Chutney time and David's poorly foot

I have a blogpost prepared about our Parkwood Seekers' trip to Sydney (undertaken before Easter), but it's waiting for the photos and I've had laptop/phone not talking to each other issues - they have been in the too hard basket.

But this morning, I'm making feijoa (1.6kg) and date (400g) chutney - plus it's also got 4 apples, 6 onions (oh how I cried), grated green ginger, a chopped chilli and 2 tbsp of cumin seeds, demerara sugar (no brown sugar in either pantry), and apple cider vinegar.

Once my crying had stopped and the dates & apples were added, in went the sugar and cumin seeds.

And once I'd stirred it, this is what is looked like. Now after 20 minutes or so, the dates are disintegrating and spreading their colour. Smells yum!

It's got a good half- three quarters of an hour to simmer, and then I will jar it. And it has to be left for a week. How will I keep David away from it?

And in other news: David's poorly foot. Some time ago (back in January, so I blame Julia) David tripped up some steps at Coastlands and grazed his lower calf and the top of his foot. All was well, nary a moan, until a few weeks ago before we went to Sydney and he got me to look at his foot. It looked infected and I was sure I could see pus under a scab - why was there a scab three months after the original fall, I ask you?

Long story short, I had a poke with a needle and got some pus out, put a kawakawa leaf on it, a pad over the that and then a couple of lengths of plaster. We thought it would be a good idea to check with the Parkwood nurses. They suggested going to the Weekend Clinic in Paraparaumu where David was give some antibiotics.

Then when we got back from Sydney, it was no better, so it was off to the Wound Clinic - sounds impressive and serious, eh? 

Once again, it seems as though David's extreme healing response (remember the anterior phymosis in his eye back in 2019?) had kicked in, and instead of growing new skin with a healthy blood supply, his foot was growing fibres (fibrinogen - I remember 6th form biology) across the wound. These had formed a hard scab, that I described as a carapace.

After a couple of attempts by chemical means to soften and loosen the carapace over a number of days, one of the Medical Centre nurses very gently pulled off the carapace. Since then we (I) have been dressing it with Inadine patches (iodine infused cloth).

I know the carapace (which has grown back) is smaller, but what's meant to be new skin growing around it looks very white, i.e. no visible blood supply that new skin would get.

I have the backup plan though - I have sharpened the axe and am ready to amputate when/if required. Adair, a very dear zero degrees friend with extensive nursing experience, is happy to come and help me. We have history - many years ago at a dinner party when a few of the other guests were under the influence of inhaled indimica, she and I had offered to perform a vasectomy on one guy who was being rather obnoxious. He thought we were joking until we started to clear the table ...

So watch this space.

Algae is awful!

 My second to last post was about Kevin and Josh cleaning out the ponds in front of our and Janet's places. We all had such high hopes of getting rid of what Janet so delicately calls green snot - the ghastly algae that was really prevalent in our pond but not in Janet's. And we were excited to be able to see the bottom of the ponds and the rocks and the fish and the frogs.

But somehow our dreams were dashed - within a week or so a different kind of algae took over both of our ponds - a dark green almost microscopic algae that just totally discoloured the water so that it was pea-soup green - after about 4 weeks, we couldn't see below the surface of the water and we could barely see the fish when they came up to feed in the mornings.

At first, I relied on Kevin to clean out the newly installed filter/pump. But with all the other gardening work around the village, he was only able to come about once a month. and when I watched him clearing the filters out in situ one day, I could see that it was a hiding to nothing having it be his task.

You can barely see the oxygen weed near the top left of the photo.

 

I also realised that there was no way the filter could get rid of this stuff on its own - it needed chemicals! And it had to be chemicals that did not harm the fish.

So I looked on the net and discovered a place in Napier that advertised Algaefix that purported to be safe for fish; I rang and spoke to Andre a very helpful guy and organsied to purchase said Algaefix and two tubs of Sludge Destroyer to be used when the algae had mostly karked it.

For 3 weeks-ish, I dosed both ponds with Algaefix, and before doing so each time, David and I pulled the pump apart, took the filters off and I carted them into the laundry to clean them out.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been dosing the ponds with the Sludge Destroyer - it's a powdery mix of bacteria (that love to eat dead algae) and barley.

This is what they look like when I take them out of the pump - I think this is dead algae/sludge because it looks a bit browner than the algae and it smells...

 

And this is them after a big squeeze to get the surface muck off, about 5 rinses under the running warm tap, a wash with laundry powder, and a final wash with Handy Andy - a floor cleaner that has some ammonia in it.

An upside down view of the dismantled pump with the newly cleaned filters refitted. The next step is to tip that bit the right way up, then put it back into the bottom 'bucket' of the pump that we have cleaned out and refilled with water. There are 5 or 6 large clips to hold the top bit to the bottom bucket. Today, given David is out, I put the whole thing back together by myself.

I think we are winning slowly - the ponds contain about 20,000 litres of water all up, so there was a shitload of algae in them, and I use that word advisedly! We can now see about 15cm below the surface of the water which is a great improvement. And I am not going to let a microscopic plant beat me! I too have persistence and patience...

Please note that the fish are looking healthy - none of them are floating upside down, and none of them have strange tumours growing out of their sides. I reckon both chemicals we are using really are safe enough for them. And we are better able to see them now.

 

Absence explained

 It's months since I posted; and to be frank, I had pretty much decided to close the blog down. There were a couple of reasons for that:

• unbeknownst to me, I was suffering a bit with long covid - tiredness after any exercise and a general sense of ennui. Not surprising having had covid 3 times (once on arrival in the UK in April 2023, and twice last year). I had put the symptoms down to ageing, especially since we had moved into the retirement village and I thought it was likely to be the effect of leaving the wider community behind and being ensconced ever so comfortably here in Parkwood;
  
• I often felt that I was writing/talking into the abyss - I'd had very few comments on the posts in the last while, and as I was no longer writing about our narrowboating adventures, I thought it was likely people had given up reading. After all, bletherings about life in a retirement village or cleaning the ponds or baking sourdough are hardly captivating reading - in spite of my occasionally quirky takes on some of the activities...

So I decided to let it go. I did think about starting up a new blog which would not be subject to the false advertising of having nb Waka Huia in the title. But I could not find a way to start a new blog! Every time I tried, it just brought this one up.

I was all set to call it quits until a friend in the USA emailed to say she missed my regular updates of our lives here. So Judy, you have spurred me back into action.

Also our friend Sarah, who is writing a book about dealing with the various systems when living with a partner with dementia, encouraged me to keep going.

So here I am: explaining myself!

I am going to keep writing and posting, and if you are a reader, please leave comments for me. I really do appreciate reading them and responding to them as well.

Just so you know what will be coming up in future posts that cover the last 5 months, here is a list:

• 50 years of marriage celebrated;
• a 7 week action-packed, hilarity-filled visit from our friend Julia, and the travels we undertook together
• that will be a number of posts, I think;
• a visit from fellow boating bloggers, Lisa and David of nb What a Lark;
  
• David and the Parkwood ukelele group;
  
• an upcoming trip to Sydney with other Parkwood people;
• probably a bit about the ongoing fun with the Aquamove groups;
• and very possibly I will stray into the occasional political rant ...
  

Stay tuned and get your commenting underway!

Pond cleaning

On Wednesday a couple of weeks ago, when David went out to make a cup of tea at about 8am, he saw that Kevin was already starting work, getting set up for the big pond clearing that he and Josh had as their task for the day.

 

And the big pumpout begins - the algae and sludge were so thick that the filter on the end of the hose got inextricably clogged and Josh had to cit it off. Later I used my weeding hook to clear it out - took ages!

There is more water in that pond that we expected. Josh had the hose out across the lawn between our place and Susan's. What a weedy mess that left! Then he moved the hose to the gutter and it half flooded the road!

 

Kevin doing a brush down of the pond bottom while the remainder of the water was pumped out.

 

In that sludge you can see the larger of our two frogs.

Ready and waiting to go back in the pond...

 

And back he goes.

 

The bottom is clear and clean, and now it is being refilled. It took over two hours with the hose running constantly.

 

Now they have started on cleaning Janet's pond. She calls hers Lake Superior because it's larger than ours. We call ours Top Lake because it's higher...

Lake Superior has the pump in it which needed to be relocated to down in the sump so it was clearing more gunk each time it was on.

For some reason, the gardening shed doesn't have a supply of butterfly/fish nets - who'd have thought? So I headed up to a local shop that sells all sorts of cheap and random items at really reasonable prices. I bought 3 nets. I didn't need one because I was official photographer. Janet joined Kevin and Josh in capturing fish before they got sucked up into the pump - would have been messy! Janet and I have kept one net and donated the others to the gardeners.

The frog is happy again. Isn't he a beaut?

Kevin digging out the water-lilies in Lake Superior's sump. Heaps of grunge in the bottom of that!

While the clean up took the whole day, there were still tasks to complete: 

• tidying up the pump and pipe work - done
  
• installing the fountain - done
  
• completing the wiring - done
  
• trimming rocks between the ponds to ensure there was not too much water in one pond and not enough in the other - done
• PROJECT COMPLETE - apart from Kevin bringing some white water lilies from other ponds around Parkwood for both of our ponds...
  

 

Originally the plan was to use that green ceramic globe behind Kevin as part of the fountain. However, the diameter of the hole through it and its base was too narrow for the hose. Kevin fashioned a limiter (or whatever it's called in plumbing terms) to make the hose thinner, however the pressure with a narrower hose was too strong and the water spouted up about a metre. Not what we or he wanted. So instead, he found some large and small rocks and fed the pipe up through them. We love it!

 Janet donated us some fish from her copious supply, and we are going to buy more for our Top Lake. And we are going to buy a pool vacuum head and hose as well as a hand pump to start and maintain the siphon - so we can keep the bottom of the ponds clean without having to ask Kevin to clear the filter every week or so.

I've still got it!

I stepped on the scales this morning before getting in the shower and was horrified to learn I have gained even more weight. So I decided that the container of icecream I had bought on Tuesday night and eaten some of that evening and yesterday just had to go.

So once ready to head over to the pool to take my first session of Aquamove for the day, I got the offending (but essentially innocent) icecream from the freezer and headed over to the Maintenance guys to get them to put it in their freezer so one of them could take it home at the end of the day. 

Just before I got to the workshop I said hello to Gendy and our friend Peter who were getting ready to drive the Parkwood van this morning (taking non-driving residents to and from the shops at Waikanae). Peter called out that he would see me at 12.45pm. 'Yes?" I said questioningly. 'For lunch,' he said. 'But that's next Thursday,' I said. 'No, it's today,' he asserted. 'Are you sure?' I said.

Yes, he was sure that he and our mutual friend Murray were coming to lunch today. I wasn't sure. In fact I was sure it was next Thursday, but not to worry. 

So I turned around and took the icecream home and put it back in the freezer, told David his schedule was being changed, we were having two guests for lunch, pointed to the delicious dal left over from last night  - a recipe that serves 6 (why don't I modify amounts? For just this eventuality, obviously!), informed him I would make individual apple tartlets when I got back from the Aquamove sessions, and headed off having asked David to set the table in my absence.  

Fast forward to my arriving home and the following things occurred between 12.15 and 1pm:

• I discovered/remembered we had two bunches of asparagus in the fridge so I decided they would be the starter, and prepped them, and preheated a pan of water
  
• I put two mugs of rice in the pyrex bowl and got David to do the 4 mugs of water, the salt and the butter, and put it into the microwave to cook while I prepped the banana, threaded coconut and lime juice side dish
• David spooned 3 chutneys/relishes into little dishes
• I prepped the apple tartlets (a sheet of puff pastry from the freezer, cut it into 4, scored each piece with a sharp knife about a cm from each side, spread each piece with raspberry jam, peeled and sliced the braeburns from the fridge, placed the slices on the jam and sprinkled them with a mix of white sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon that I keep in the jar to use on banana and blueberry muffins) and got them into the oven to cook
• I reheated the dal
• I put some chilli flakes in one wee dish and a mix of chilli flakes, cayenne and salt (received a few weeks ago as part of a Wonky Box as a flavour sachet for avocado which I jarred and kept - near the 2 sugar/cinnamon mix...)

• Peter arrived early and we chatted, Peter poured the drinks and we waited for Murray. Who didn't arrive. So Peter called him. He was still at home because the lunch was scheduled for next week... 😜😛😛
•  So I put the asparagus on to cook.

The three of us sat down to eat at 1.05pm.

See, I've still got it - a 3 course meal in 45 minutes with 3.5 hours' warning 2.75 hours of which was taken up by Aquamove sessions...

And the lovely thing is, Peter and Murray and another friend (Tom) are coming for lunch next Thursday. Peter says they would love the dal, so I will make that again next Wednesday and once more be prepared ... Peter is going to bring the asparagus, and I've found another apple dessert to try!

 

Seeing these women in the pool at Aquamove today made me smile. I really enjoy taking these sessions.