Monday 28 November 2016

Rick Answers

I love this meme posted by Lilli. One Rick has to answer instead of me lol and I thought it would be fun to find out what his answers would be.

A quick update first though. After having been back at work and in the building for a week we have now been evacuated again until repair work has been completed, which we have been told will be at least two weeks. We have staff meetings on Wednesday to provide more detail and are waiting to find out what plans will be put in place until we are back in the building, such as working out of another office etc.

While the time off is nice, it's also a bit unsettling and strange at the same time.

Ok, now on with the meme :)

What is something I always say?
I'm fat ... true

What makes me happy?
Order. Everything clean and in its place and everything going to plan ... true again

What makes me sad?
Disorder ... yep lol

How tall am I?
Not very ... funny guy

What is my favourite thing to do?
Visit a nice cafe and go for a car ride.

What do I do when you are not around?
Clean ... see the first two lol

If I become famous what would it be for?
Something humanitarian ... hmm, not sure about this one

What makes you proud of me?
Being you ... aww sweet :)

What is my favourite food?
Chocolate ... right again

What is my favourite restaurant?
One of our local cafes

Where is my favourite place to visit?
Hanmer Springs. An alpine resort with thermal pools on the South Island ... oh yes, always love it there

If I could go anywhere where would it be?
England, my birth country ... I would definitely love to visit and see my birth country

How do I annoy you?
See numbers 1 and 2 above lol ... he is so patient and understanding though

What's my favourite  film?
Top Gun ... and Shakespeare in Love, Love Actually to name a couple

You get a phone call that I'm in trouble. Who will I be with?
A friend.

Thank you Lilli :)

Monday 14 November 2016

Thank You Blogland!

As most of you know we were struck with a severe magnitude 7.5 eahquake in the early hours of Monday morning. Since then I have received numerous emails from blog friends checking in and sending positive thoughts, best wishes and prayers.  Dear sweet Jan also put up a post.  I cried, in a good way :) when I read it.

I just want to say a huge thank you to Jan and to all of you who have been in contact.  I am deeply humbled, overwhelmed and once again reminded just how wonderful this community is.  I can't express how much it means to have your support at a time like this.

Things are slowly returning to normal...well semi normal but are not being helped now by torrential rain and strong winds to hamper the clean up process and disrupt transport again. Weather and slip related this time.

Fortunately, I  don't have to go anywhere today as work is once again closed to enable clean up.  We should be back to normal transmission tomorrow, depending on weather and transport I guess.

Rick and I are ok and fortunately haven't suffered any damage at home, but is has been a very scary couple of days and I am still feeling a little unsettled in the knowledge that the after shocks are continuing. Fortunately for me I haven't felt any in a while now...touch wood! They were pretty constant immediately following the main shock.

Thank you so much blogland. You are awesome ! :)

Sunday 6 November 2016

Hello blogland!

Hello everyone !  You can pick yourselves up off the floor now, yes it's me lol.

Gosh, it's been so long, waay too long! I'm sorry I have been awol, I have continued to read and comment though. Some of you have been asking and gently prodding me to post...Thank you :) I suppose some might say I should be spanked for neglecting the blog. Sadly, there is little chance of that happening.

I don't have much excuse except life taking over and the fact that writing posts on a tablet is just painful. That, coupled with not knowing what to say given the lack of ttwd here, which has been the case for some time now.

Where to start? I  can't believe how quickly this year is flying by! As some of you know, the year began with Rick recovering from major heart surgery then as soon as he recovered I ended up very ill from a viral infection which took almost two months to recover.

We can't believe it is almost a year since Rick's surgery. Wow! He is doing fantastic and although he has basically recovered the body is continuing to heal and he still has some discomfort. Did I mention his impressive scars? Oh and he occasionally sets off shop metal detectors. Fun!

There have been changes for both of us on the work front too with more to come. With everything that's gone on this year we are both more than happy at the moment to just 'be' and enjoy each other. There have been the odd "do you want it back?", "I don't know, do you?" conversations though. We have continued to have some light spanky action for fun on occasion. I could definitely do with more of that! But, you know, I'm really not sure about the rest, I'm conflicted. Part of me thinks I want it back and part of me doesn't. Perhaps because it has been so long.

In other news, long time readers may recall that Rick is a huge Bruce Springsteen fan and that we were able to see him here in gud ole NZ a couple of years ago. It was something we never thought would happen and a dream come true. The fantastic news is that he and the band are coming back our way next February. Woohoo! The only thing is, there will be two concerts in two different cities and neither of them our city. One of them happens to be Rick's home city though which is cool. We are going to go to both and have our tickets because, wrll, did I mention Rick is a huge fan? lol. It's going to be manic traveling to two different cities within a few days of each other but well worth it.

On the family front Mum and Dad are continuing to cope extremely well with Mum's dementia. I honestly don't know sometimes how Dad does it day in day out. It can be hard and draining some times just visiting. It's funny, each visit is different. Good days and not so good days. Mum had her birthday fairly recently and it wasn't a good day for her. Dad commented as such and she replied it's the shock of turning 76 lol. Maybe it wasn't such a bad day after all!

We are now in spring here. Well supposedly. The weather is quite fickle with overall mild temperatures but showrrs and rain off and on and awful winds.

We wait with baited breath for the outcome of the US Presidential election this week which will be Wednesday here.

I see Love our Lurkers day is coming up. I guess you could say anyone who has visited here over the last few months is a lurker, since there hasn't been anything to comment on. I always enjoy this event. Not sure yet if I will post, but will definitely enjoy visiting everyone.




Hope you are all doing well.