Looking For Wendy.

Visualise a man walking into a good ladies clothes shop in Napier's Emerson Street.  Perhaps I should have said a good clothes shop for ladies.  I can't actually vouch for the goodness of the ladies who shop there although I'm sure they are beyond reproach.

Anyway, after that digression, I will continue.

I walked into the shop and was immediately asked if I was looking for my wife.  Not my wife, no.  I looked round.  There were two customers visible.  Neither of them was Wendy.  "Is there a customer in the changing rooms?"  Affirmative.  Lady with blond hair.  Promising.    Manageress to invisible person:  "Are you expecting your, er,  husband?"  Voice from the invisible blond "Is he good looking?"  Pokes her head round the curtain.  "Yes, he'll do."  Raucous laughter from the assembled multitude (ok the assembled five ladies present).   The previously invisible blond put her spectacles on.  I beat a retreat.

A Night Out

Wendy and Martin went out to the annual dentists' get together at a fashionable winery on Friday.  It may be midsummer and I may be typing this in 27 ℃ (81℉) but they got dressed up in their Scottish garb for the occasion:

An Unexpected Evening

Wendy popped down with the mail earlier on this evening – well before the 6 o’clock news.  The children had been taken to gym and dinner would not be until Martin collected the children on his way home from work by which time Wendy would have the dinner ready.  Well that was the plan!  But you know what plans are like.  And some of the best moments are the impromptu ones.

We started talking about the invitation in the post from our friend in Glasgow who married a couple of weeks ago.  The invitation is to her summer party in Glasgow to celebrate her birthday and her marriage.  It was the catalyst for Wendy’s impending visit to Scotland with Catriona and Fraser: a visit to which I am looking forward with anticipation.

Anyway after a glass of wine and some conversation about local matters we turned to the trip to Scotland and what she would do and which other countries she would take the children to see.  One topic let to another.  One glass led to another.  One hour led to another.  Martin arrived home. A phone call from the House to say dinner was in the oven.  More chat.  Eventually the family called and Wendy and Misty wandered up the drive to dinner and home.  I made my dinner.

Evenings do not come much better than that.

Together

We went for a walk last evening.

Wendy and Martin walked on ahead of me

Comfortable

A Last Night Out

On my last night in Napier The Family took meout to dinner at a Thai restaurant in Taradale. Being an Edwards I wanted a photographic record. Wendy was not so keen:

They may live to regret those faces

Jigsaw

Wendy doesn't like jigsaws. Imagine my surprise, therfore, when, one morning a few days ago, I walked into the house and there was a 1000 piecer on the table. Why? So that the children (just to remind readers in the Northern hemisphere that it is the middle of the school summer holidays here in New Zealand) had yet one more thing to keep them amused. With fabulous weather (usually), a 5 acre garden full of fields and hills and trees, a garden pool (I was going to say for the younger members but it seems that even teenagers can enjoy it) and access to a veritable library of books, why is it that children seem, out of preference, just to sit in front of a computer or TV playing games or watching The Disney Channel. And, when they can't do that, announce that they are bored. Now when I were a lad... (said with a Lancashire accent for effect).

Anyway the point of this (says he sitting in front of his computer chatting when he could be out for a cycle or a walk or.....) was that (it seems like) each time I've been up to the house since, Wendy has been trying to finish the jigsaw in which the children have expressed little or no interest after announcing after the first five minutes of its arrival that it was too hard (and, presumably, therefore qualified for the description of being too boring. Or was it vice versa?). Is this the Wendy, hater of jigsaws and other time-wasting things, (so subjective, see What Is Worth Your Time) that I know and love? So, of course, every time I've been up to the house I've sat down with her and got a few more pieces done in what, from the picture, would look to be an easy task but has, in fact, proved to be anything but that.

Thus it was last night. Thus it was that I arrived back after midnight two and a half hours and a glass and a half of red later. Thus it was that I missed a phone call from a dear friend in Scotland. And thus it was that, having read it and opened the comments page, I decided not to comment on And Then There Were None on the blog of L'Archiduchesse until the morning. It is now the morning.

"So what", you might well ask, "has been the point of this ramble?" The point is that when I read Scriptor Senex's comments on And Then There Were None they could have been my very own words. Well perhaps not exactly. After all brevity is not one of my vices. A non sequitur? Oui mais c'est ma vie.

Power Walking

Un Beau Sourire

Another Moa

With 5 acres to attend to you need a fairly substantial piece of equipment. It mightn't match the Big Boys' Toy that I have to mow the croquet lawns but it's a darn site more fun and a darn site less nerve-racking and there is no-one to tell you that you haven't got your lines straight. Not that it would be wise to tell Wendy that anyway!