Good and bad

Our day was in two parts.

A lovely day dawned with the view over the beach as good as ever. We had arranged yesterday to meet Sarah and Sarah over at Mapua for a chat and coffee. We got all the morning stuff done and arrived right on time at this cute little café and took a seat outside and chatted. It is a very community minded café with locals coming and going with their dogs – probably out for a walk.

We had a great catch up with them and I think we solved all of the world’s problems. Suddenly it was 12 and we needed to move on – when we got a text from Jamie to say that Lorraine was back in hospital. We asked him to keep in touch, and we headed off to do some washing at a laundromat.

At the laundromat we checked out the setup and got going. There were several combinations of a washing machine on the ground with a similar size dryer above each. The instructions said it was $6 a wash – coins only. So, Robyn sorted the washing into the machine, and I put 3 x$2 coins into the slot.
“Someone” then pressed the start button and the dryer started to spin. Try as we may to cancel the dryer or start the washing machine, we could not get the washing machine going! – so we decided to feed the machine with another $6 worth of coins, but there was only $5 left in my wallet – so the other “someone” drove down to the dairy to get more coins.

After that excitement we went into Mapua central and ordered lunch while the washing got done. We had a super lunch – Trevor had a salmon omelette with a small salad; Robyn had smashed avocado with herb salad and freshly made seed and nut slices.
Robyn had a walk around the shops and went back to get out washing which was done and no one had stolen it!

Our house is up a level on the main road between Tahunanui and the City – the road was so busy we had to drive very nearly in to Nelson city to turn around and then drive back to the gate entrance.

We had just parked the car when we got a phone call from Nan with the bad news about Lorraine. It clearly shook Nan and of course it shocked us too – we got inside and began to think about what we should do.

The short of it is we will leave tomorrow for Ashburton – to support Nan and help with whatever needs doing. We have cancelled everything for the next week – ferry, accommodation etc – and informed our family and friends.Read more