1. Walked to town for an appointment at 9.30 with Work and Income. I arrived early, but on Wednesdays they don't open till 9.30 so had to shelter from the light rain with several other people who'd arrived early. Had to explain to the person I see each time that W&I had got it wrong. He agreed, and sorted it out (I hope), but still didn't answer my question as to why, if I'm forced to send in an annual review, W&I then chooses to ignore the figures and bases their information on the previous year's figures! I said someone needed a slap on the hand. He didn't disagree. After two months my wife and I still haven't discovered what's going to be deducted each fortnight from our pensions to compensate for the fact that we earned too much money last year over our allowed $100 per week. That's $100 between us, not each.
2. It hadn't been raining when I walked down. It was definitely raining when I came out of the office and I had to run (yes, run) from verandah to verandah, and finally popped into a two-dollar shop where I bought a $6.90 umbrella. Apparently inflation now means that a $2 shop is actually a $6.90 shop. Still, it kept me drier, and at $6.90 some poor person somewhere in the world is getting a fraction more income per day than if the umbrellas were $2.
3. Caught the bus home again. Fortunately the timetables have changed and so the Kenmure bus that would normally precede my own Balaclava bus by a couple of minutes, preceded it by ten, and I was able to get home earlier. As it happened there were two Kenmure buses at the stop at the same time. Don't ask. 4. Came home, had a coffee, and then straight into a practice for the up and coming National Brass Band Competitions to be held in New Plymouth in a couple of weeks. The cornet player is shouting me the trip to New Plymouth (as he shouted me a trip to Australia last year). Plainly I'm still capable of playing a few notes on the piano in the right order.
5. The cornet player and his wife, after the practice, dropped me back down to town, this time with my old umbrella, which is about twice as big as the $6.90 one I bought earlier, and actually keeps the rain off more than just my head. (Not that I was ungrateful for the smaller umbrella.) I then went to a meeting with the group of people who were on the CAIRA Supervision course with me a couple of years ago. We meet roughly once a month for about an hour to catch up on how we're doing in our pastoral supervision of various people. Ate a savoury scone and drank coffee. Discussed re-registering (which is due) and Interactive Drawing Therapy, which one of our group had learned about at a course. Sounds like an interesting approach, and he's going to give us a chance to experiment with it next time we meet.
6. Had some time to spare (you know, that spare time retired people have oodles of) and so went and had a coffee with another member of the group. Realised this was the third coffee in a row. We are former work collegues, so caught up a bit on who's now doing what, and on our respective families.
7. Sorted out various books on the Kindle into folders while travelling home on the bus (again). This time a Balaclava, which picked me up outside the coffee shop and dropped me outside my house. So convenient!
8. Home. Perhaps time for a short kip once I've posted this....
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