A Week's Worth

It's been a week. A busy week. One day at a time. At home I have so many jobs and I'm running out of steam so I make peach chutney. Stuff keeps coming back to the house and I don't make any progress unpacking. Just a general tidy up. I invite the family to lunch on Thursday...Alex, Theo, Sophia, Despina, Costa. There is an open home next door so we go over for a look and I take pictures from the upstairs windows. Right into my back yard. 

In the weekend I go to Suzanne and Jacqui's mother's funeral. Their second parent gone. The Christchurch Symphony Orchestra gives an outdoor concert and I wonder at the number of people  cramming into Victoria Square during a pandemic. One we have dodged. New Zealand is in the throes of buying a vaccination- we should be last on the list. On Sunday I visit my cousin Kate at her new house. A big move at the end of thirty years of marriage. She's adjusting happily and secure in her own space now. I also visit Nicki who is having problems with the laying of the wood at her two builds. Nightmare. Armana does the service at the Spiritualist church and brings in both my parents. Not surprising...a leap of faith but I make the jump. I call my cousin Woody in England. He perks up when he hears I'm going to school tomorrow. It's desperate over there, 1,200 dying a day and they've been off school for months. Says he and Sally had Covid in the first wave. The weirdest thing was losing their senses of smell and taste. Both have come back but his smell is different, stronger. His school lost a staff member  in her 40's to Covid last week. I hang up feeling sad. 

I'm supposed to meet Pete on Monday but he doesn't turn up. He's nearly finished the walk in wardrobe which doesn't require a lot more work. I just need to get it in the house as I'm still living out of boxes. Day to day, I find what I need and throw it on. Still haven't got any mirrors up but there's a small, old wooden one with a shelf underneath. We watch TV from the floor, pirating the Netflix account of one of Kahu's mates. Greg rings on Monday to say he's been fishing and can bring back a dresser. I put it in the garage till we can deal with the borer which set in after I moved it from Ruth's house to my old house. 

Back at school, I feel like a fish out of water. Will see how it pans out. I try to organise two new, for me, senior courses. Support would be good but I have to make do and wing it. I swear that's why I built a house. I'm used to feeling my way; it's what we do in teaching all the time. Life skills for the teachers- self resourcing. Kahu is grumpy and impatient. A combination of not feeding himself properly and late nights at work.

The beach is my salvation but the wind blows constantly. I relax into the waves... water temperature is pleasant, sand invades my bed. It's six years since Kahu started high school.