About time for another post! We imagine you saying! So here it is.
A pretty busy week, two days of focus groups and a presentation of last week’s research. Jim is sick of what he calls, “the moderator voice”. All put to bed for the next couple of weeks.
If you can, we say work by the beach. It’s always there when you can sneak away. Good for inspiration and blowing off the cobwebs (been pretty windy this past week) and the sound of the waves at night is a guarantee of a good night!
We won’t bore you with the moderator voice and the intense reporting at the dining room table, aka, the office.
On Friday, we watched the movie “Kiwi” on local TV. It’s about a horse that won the 1983 Melbourne Cup and is the story of the family of Nickie Andrews (nee Lupton) who Frances went to High School with. I had no idea that her family raised and trained horses. So many interesting questions left unasked when you are 16 years old!
We had a lovely day on Sunday. We walked by way of a local bakery to in-person church for the first time since last March! It was glorious to sing hymns and to participant in a eucharist service. In a nod to COVID, they offered only communion of one kind (no shared cup) and elbow jostles for passing of the peace. St. Michaels and All Angels Anglican Church is a lovely little church. We were warmly welcomed by a robust crowd, and regretted that we could not stay for a cup of tea after the service. We will return when we are back here in March.
Frances’ niece, Lizzy drove up from Wellington for lunch, a catch up and a walk on the beach. Lizzy walks fast, so it’s good exercise. Just lovely to spend time together and we didn’t get a photo, but it was memorable.
Later that day, our friends Deb and Don stopped in with their plug-in hybrid (Mitsubishi SUV) and their French electric bicycles. Seriously, maybe NZ can give Norway a run for their money! (Inside Super Bowl joke. BTW, we couldn’t watch the Super Bowl but have managed to see the ads.)
We enjoyed another (more leisurely) walk on the beach with Deb and Don (12 km for the day) and then had a great deal of fun figuring out how to charge up their car at the EV charging station on our block. (Seriously, we could easily manage Norway!)
We had dinner at Los Locos, the local Mexican Cantina on the beach. Mexico may revoke their license though. When we arrived, they told us that they were out of guacamole, burritos, fajitas, and beef. So, we asked, what do you have? They rustled up a pretty good kumara (NZ sweet potato) quesadilla, which was more NZ than Mexican. We ran into a guy I’d never met, who was sure he knew me, and talked about Jewish matchmakers with his 34 year old, single not Jewish, daughter. Oh, the spontaneity of it all. This cannot happen with masks and social distancing!
Deb and Don stayed the night in one of our spare rooms and left after breakfast. Leaving me to finish up the promised report. Done!
Tomorrow we will clean up our house and pack. Then we are on the move to Wanaka in the South Island. Watch this space for a new landscape!