I very rarely ever ...

I have been warned by David that that phrase will be used frequently from now on! Why? you ask. Because on Friday night when Sandra and Barry were staying here, I had bravely (and foolishly) asserted that I never knock over a wine glass. Less than half an hour later I did just that. A bit of a pain, because I lost about half a flute of fizzy wine, and I managed to splatter the board and some of the cards in B&S's game of Sequence. Of far less importance was drowning David's little ramekin of hummus with Lindauer.

So I said, as I raced around getting a tea-towel, the paper towels and the dishcloth, "I very rarely if ever do that." Howls of laughter from the other three.

And after a short interval, I knocked my glass again. You will be pleased to know I did not spill any fizzy that time because I caught the glass. However there was a loud repetitive chorus from the cheap seats of "I rarely ever do that"... Bastards 😂😂😂

The game of Sequence post-breakfast on Saturday obviously, given there were mugs on the table... David and Sandra won that series of best of three; Barry and I won the previous evening, even though I sploshed wine everywhere!

After they left on Saturday, I went down to Paraparaumu and bought the Sequence game. We haven't yet played it but perhaps later today.

Last week we bought a small piece of scaffolding so that David can confidently wash the roof of the motorhome. Surprisingly there were no mutual tantrums as we constructed it - usually we have a different view of how things should be put together. Actually, it is more that we disagree on how to move things into place. Given I am so short, I am always looking for the way that doesn't mean I have to over-extend. Taller people can be SO unthinking, I find ...

You can see how short I really am in one of the photos below. I can stand up under the scaffold platform and not touch the under side of it.

Climbing up - won't catch me doing that as it feels really unsteady to me

Happily washing the roof

Richard, our recently acquired gardener, has been doing a sterling job removing weeds, removing and pruning back excess growth - this is Waikanae and everything grows madly. Especially as we have had lots of rain and lots of warmth in the last couple of months. I found Richard by stopping and asking two lawnmowing contractors who happened to be chatting by the side of the road a couple of months ago as I walked past. One said he had a guy who did gardening and put Richard in touch with me - a serendipitous matching, as he doesn't have a huge number of clients and can come really often to get things sorted. It's great! Today he has spread 8 x 40litres of compost around the garden after hoeing and sprinkling with calcium to break up the clay. I have been tasked with buying 6 more bags to complete the task ... Maybe it would have been cheaper to get a trailer load delivered, but what the hay!

We have been watching the events in the USA over the last few weeks - watching is a bit of an understatement frankly, because we have been obsessed by it all. The insurrection was scary and only got more so as more video and photos were found and made public. It seems clear that these people all thought that the dumpster would give them pardons, either pre-emptively or after being charged - either that or they really are very stupid to be plastering their faces and messages all over social media. I am following the FBI affadavits that are being shown on the George Washington University website: extremism.gwu.edu

It is such a relief that he is gone. I am not sure how far back in the woodwork his supporters will go or how many of them have changed their views. Not many, I fear, as a significant portion of the 75 million white people in the US who voted for him again obviously feel a huge sense of grievance about people of colour and immigrants having the same rights as them, and people with a social conscience are blamed for encouraging that and disrupting their entitled world view.

This did make me laugh out loud. Good on you, Nigella!

We are SO pleased to be living in NZ. I do notice though that, in NZ, we have more than the required number of supporters for the dumpster who also appear to subscribe to all the conspiracy theories going.

 

Very British humour ...

And this from the US, I think, given they cannot spell...

I wonder what the cat was purchasing ...

And much as we would love to be planning this year's cruising on the English canals, we are happily staying put and having another winter here. We can do without being constantly worried about whether we will get infected with COVID-19 going to the supermarket or being moored where people walk close by the boat.

Perhaps we will do a bit of motorhoming down in the South Island and go to snowy places for a change! In the meantime though we are planning a summer trip down south and then an early autumn trip up to the Far North - when it cools down a bit. I don't like the heat much, and that could be a problem down south as Richard tells us it's regularly 30 degrees in Christchurch at the moment - aaarrrggghhh!!!