Spring in New Zealand

Last time I wrote Blog 26, the daffodils were just coming up and the Magnolia trees were in full bloom. Now we have beautiful shrubs in our garden as we head into summer.

You may have heard that New Zealand lost its fight with the Delta strain of the Covid 19 virus. One person arrived with it and today over 7,000 people have been infected . Parts of the country have been in lockdown with Auckland, as the centre of the epidemic, still locked down after 100 days. Tauranga has had its first cases so we are all being much more cautious. Fortunately our vaccination % is very good which has saved our health system from being over run and has kept deaths to a minimum.

In lockdown our daily routine stays much the same. G I J S in the am and JIGS in the pm. GIJS stands for Gym, Indoor Jobs and Shopping while Jigs is for Jigsaw in the pm after our lunchtime catch up with Covid around the world!!! This daily routine is interspersed with Doctors, Dentists etc and social gatherings with Dave and Vrons, Sue and Rick and Win.

Our Jigsaw choices have developed and we now tackle ones which I don't think we would have been able to complete when we started. Here is an example.

The hope was to educate ourselves about butterflies but they all had Latin names so we are none the wiser!

Another example of damn near impossible was our attempt at Hobbiton.

How many shades of green can you have in a jigsaw?

The only other entertaining feature was the eclipse of the moon the other night. We were fortunate to have a clear night so for those who didn't......

It lasted about two and a quarter hours.

We got our handy man to pressure hose the patio and put out our garden furniture earlier this week and decided that the 3.7 metre shade we bought two years ago needed to be replaced with one we could move as the sun moves across the patio. Trade Me is the equivalent of Ebay and although I have bought some things on TradeMe I have never sold anything. So we put the umbrella on for 50 dollars and waited.

Three days later we had one bid for fifty dollars, 19 watchers and 231 views. Fifteen minutes to go to the end of the Auction and it went mad. Three people continually outbidding each other and eventually we sold it for 405 dollars...... how exciting was that to watch!

Furniture and new brolly in place.

Christmas plans have had to be cancelled because of Covid. Karen Richards was due to arrive from Perth with her travelling companion but our borders are still closed until early next year when quarantine, on arrival, will be allowed in the home. Not sure that will help Jill very much because it is not due to happen until early April when our weather starts to head to Autumn. 

We should be at Dave and Vrons pre Christmas drinks doo today but yesterday Lynn and I got a Covid ping on the app to say that we had been in a place of interest ( New World Gate Pa) at a time when an active Covid case had also been there. We have therefore cancelled Dave and Vrons and all other appointments this week, just to be safe.

 Instead I have spent the morning shopping online and working out what we need for the week. The health advice was to keep eye on symptoms until 11th December but we decided we would self isolate as no one wants people to be walking around if they have been told they have been in a place of interest at the same time as the case. I mean....... what were the chances of that! We shop once a fortnight in a Supermarket and to go on the same day and at the same time as one of the 15  current cases across the Bay of Plenty!!!!!  You couldn't make it up. 

We have survived our self isolation and are back in the real world again.  As the new Covid variant rages around the world our cases remain steady at less than one hundred per day and no new variant yet. We get news from all over the world but lots from the UK and not just Covid and disasters. We had a section of the news focusing on Willard Wigan.................Willard Wigan, MBE is a British sculptor from Ashmore Park Estate, Wednesfield, England, the son of Jamaican immigrants, who makes microscopic art. His sculptures are typically placed in the eye of a needle or on the head of a pin. A single sculpture can be as small as 0.005 mm. 

Amazing work, Snow White and the 7 dwarfs.

This is our latest amazing achievement!

Talking of amazing work we have set up our twig for Christmas.

However it is a token gesture considering our neighbours efforts.

16th December. It is Lynn's birthday not that we are doing anything special. Dave and Vrons are coming tomorrow to see some of Peter Jackson's Beatle film, Get Back, which I have subscribed to Disney + for one month. We will see it in snippets because it is about 6 hours long.

We have had some good catch up calls with folks in England. Facetime is so good when travel is off the menu. Jill and Lynn speak twice a week, which is great.

We have no great plans for Christmas although I have ordered some half crab shells which I am tempted to have as Singapore Chilli Crab on the day...... we will see.

I am seeing the knee specialist on the 20th December so more on that in 2022.  Thank you to all of you who respond to the blogs...... it is always great to hear your news.

Hope you get to see family and friends over the holidays.

Very best wishes,

Love

A n L