This is our news going back from March 2007 to April 2004
=======================
Tuesday
20th March 2007
I hope
you are all well, and for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, enjoying the
autumn.
Jan is
off into hospital on April 5th to have his tonsils out. He is taking a bit over
a week off work, ending with us being - Jan's recovery permitting - up in Wllg
to see Tanja, Charles & Lars before they head back to Oz on March 10th
& 11th.
Underwater
Hockey, Jan's study and my triathlon training is still keeping us busy. At
least the triathlon is on in less than two weeks time, so that will be one
pressure gone very shortly.
Jan has
had the results back of his first Stategic Management assignment, where he was
marked at 100% and his paper was used as the model answer (which is pretty darn
good!). He is currently working on his next assignment; the strategic analysis
of a provincial white ware & electrical goods retailer/servicer. And I am
finding it all very interesting too.
I am
keeping busy with work - with largely strategic management clients! I have a
board planning day coming up with a local Iwi Trust which will be very
interesting; working with the board members, and with the Komatua and Kuia who
will probably also attend. Quite a different challenge when working with a new
client (for those non-Kiwis reading, Komatua are the male tribal elders and
Kuia are the female elders - usually respectfully called 'Uncle' and 'Auntie'.
They have no official standing, but their age entitles them to a place in
planning and discussions, and they can have a lot of power and influence).
We did a
garden make-over at Magda's place this last weekend, getting rid of weeds,
putting down weedmatting and bark, and planting out some Kanuka and Marble Leaf
cuttings from the land. It all looks much better - though it took the three of
us six hours!
Also, for
those of you who know Julie Crosswell, she is getting married on the 10th of
June to a fellow fire fighter, Stirling (Stirl) x. They have been seeing each
other for about eighteen months and are very similar in nature. I think they
will make a good team.
Next
Saturday we have are taking a walk into the Abel Tasman to help celebrate Frits
Hofman's 50th birthday. Then, after the Triathlon the Sunday after, Karen, Jan &
I are heading up Mount Arthur on Tuesday the 3rd. We are hoping that the snow
will hold off until after then - but if not, we will just bail when we hit the
snowline. And as I mentioned earlier, all going well with Jan's surgery, we are
up in Wllg on 10 & 11 April. Then our next trip away will be sometime in
May to Hanmer for a luxury weekend, which we won at the Orbit Quiz night last
December (we are looking forward to redeeming that!). Then on June 15-17 we are
in Chch for the for UWH Secondary School Regional Champs.
After
that, I would imagine Jan will have an exam for his course, and then have to
start planning what to do next.
Look
after yourselves, everyone. Alles liebe :-)
=======================
Tuesday
27th February 2007
May you
all be rested, well and fit :-)
Jan has
been to an ENT specialist today about getting his tonsils out as he has had
on-going minor to major sore throats for about 18 months. The general consensus
is that he should get them removed, so we are looking at him getting the
surgery done. That means organising some holiday leave to recuperate. Not
exactly Club Med, though, is it!
Well, be
haven't managed to get rid of Underwater Hockey as the club members who
promised to come & help haven't eventuated... and you feel quite a level of
responsibility toward the kids who are playing. So life is frantic at the
moment. That, work, the land, Jan's study and my triathlon training is ensuring
that we are as busy as one-armed paperhangers at the moment.
Jan is
enjoying the course - Strategic Management - so far. Going back to school
certainly makes you look at a lot of things in a slightly different way, which
Jan is enjoying. His management questions have been really good at
refreshing my memory too, and I have already learned a new management theory
tool!
However,
despite being busy, we did manage to get to the Suter's Degustation Dinner - a
fundraiser dinner and auction for the Bishop Suter Art Gallery - last Friday
night at Seifried's Vineyard. It was a fabulous evening out. All the Nelson
congnoscenti were there, and Jan & I had organised a group of us to take a
table. We had a wonderful night & Jan managed to win some flash chef's
knives at auction.
We helped
Karen T celebrate her birthday in Wllg a couple of weeks ago, catching up for
some exercise and plenty of conversation. We attempted to drink a bottle of
bubbly between us, but frankly, we lacked application - much of it went down
the drain! We also caught up with Tina & Jeremy briefly for breakfast,
which was great.
We are up
in Wllg next on 10 & 11 April to see Jan's sister Tanja, Charles and Lars
while they are here from Oz. Jan has bailed on the UWH Pro Reffing in Wllg in
early March as there is just too much on.
However,
we still have a long-promised walk up Mount Arthur and a quick tramp into
Awaroa in the Abel Tasman for Frits Hofman's birthday (April 24-25) to look
forward to.
Look
after yourselves, everyone. Alles liebe :-)
=======================
Wednesday
7th February 2007
I hope
all you Kiwis had a happy Waitangi Day!
And we
hope you are all in good health. My Uncle Eddie is at home at last, and appears
to be on the mend. I haven't heard how my UK cousin Susan is going, but
hopefully no news is good news.
We have
still been busy-busy. Jan has been at TradeMe again (for all of you
international people, this is a VERY well used second-hand NZ trading site) and
has bought a safe - a mere 600kgs of it - in Chch. On Nelson Anniversary
weekend we drove down to Chch to pick it up. At least we had an uneventful trip
there & back, but the short duration of our trip meant that we only caught
up with Megs (by picking her up & taking her to the airport on our way into
Chch) and Jenny (whom we had a delivery from Nelson for). We stayed at Megs'
place overnight & babysat Jimmy. Or perhaps, as a 50kg Rottweiler, he
babysat us! Coco liked him, anyway, but Jim thought she was the dust beneath
his chariot wheels.
I am
still not eating wheat (proving very easy) and trying to keep up with my
triathlon training (very hard). Karen wants to enter the Triathlon run, not the
walk. So last weekend I walked the triathlon run circuit and cycled the bike
circuit and now don't feel quite so worried. Jan has been incredibly helpful,
continuously making no end of suggestions and giving me instructions on how to
change nearly every aspect of my run, my cycling style and my drowning style.
Luckily I have been able to tune 90% of the suggestions out before I get the
urge to get the knife out of the drawer :-)
Last
weekend Jan was up in Wllg for the Rugby Sevens. He had a great time but came
home utterly exhausted. Pat & Marjie were here from Thursday night to
yesterday for Pat's brother Matt's wedding, so I babysat Pat & Marjie's two
older short people on Saturday night while they went to the reception and I am
exhausted too! Yesterday we took Pat & Marjie to the land and showed them
what had been accomplished so far, before they headed off home with their
family.
The Adam
Chamber Music Festival is great - we have been to four concerts so far, with
the last two to go this week. The standard is very high, and some of the pieces
have just been fantastic. I have been really taken with work from a New Zealand
composer called John Psathas, but Jan finds it too modern for his taste.
Coming up
this weekend, 10-11 Feb, we are both going to Wllg to help Karen T celebrate
her birthday. On March 9 Jan is back in Wllg for some UWH Pro Reffing (which
may well only be for the day), then we are up in Wllg again on 10 & 11
April to see Jan's sister Tanja, Charles and Lars while they are here from Oz.
Then we
are going to be slowing down for the next few months... aside from a
long-promised walk up Mount Arthur and a quick tramp into Awaroa in the Abel
Tasman for Frits Hofman's birthday!
Look
after yourselves, everyone. Alles liebe :-)
=======================
Tuesday
16th January 2007
Hi and
Happy New Year!
I hope
the silly season has been kind to you all.
My Uncle
Eddie is still struggling - he was transferred to Princess Margaret hospital on
Monday last week, he's been under 24 hour monitoring and has had to have an
endoscopy amongst other things and may well be having a CT scan this week. He's
not likely to be out for at least another week or so. Very hard on my Aunt
Diana - our fingers are crossed for a speedy and less troublesome recovery.
Well, our
lives have been full of much smaller things. Jan has put all the cables for his
new overhead projector into cable trunking (plastic box stuff that screws onto
the wall to hide the cables). I have painted it all to match the walls and the
timber ceiling beams so you would hardly know that it was there. We have
watched a few relatively recent movies, including 'Munich', which was much
slower and l-o-n-g-e-r than I had anticipated.
Also we
have finished our bench seat, and I think it does the trick perfectly (mind
you, we haven't quite completed the polyeurethaning yet - the pins to hold it
together haven't been done). Check out our photo :-)
Jan's
arthritis has been fairly stable lately, but he hasn't been sleeping very well.
He has just been to the Doctor about it. She has suggested that he keep a pad
& pen by the bed to write things down when he wakes up in the night
thinking about work (very perceptive of her to know that is likely to be his
problem!). I also think that the heat at night is affecting him - it is making
me sleep far more lightly than I normally do. I have been keeping well, and
have not been eating wheat for a bit over a month. I was finding that the more
wheat products I ate, the hungrier I got, so I finally decided just to stop
eating it altogether. I am feeling much better for it.
A couple
of the Streats guys, Mike and Jax, came up to stay on 3 January, and then
kindly took us out to dinner at the Green Room to say thank you (and very nice it
was too - and they have lots of wheat-free menu options, which is great).
Karen
Trotter has lost loads of weight and has got really fit going to the gym and by
having a personal trainer to keep her working hard. She has been boxing, which
she reckons has made a huge difference to her fitness and weight loss. I was
talking to her last time we saw her about a low-key women's triathlon which is
run each year here in Nelson (run, cycle, swim). I told her that I had been
thinking about doing the triathlon as a walk, cycle and swim; with another
friend of mine, who has since piked out. However, Karen emailed me last week
& suggested that she came down to Nelson for a few days & we did it
together, but enter the run, not the walk.
Unfortunately,
we only have ten weeks to prepare, which is a bit tight when you are me and
aren't fit! While I started running in the mornings again before Christmas, I
am only at the 'not quite dying' stage on my circuit of 2.5k. Now I have the
added pressure of getting up to doing a competent 5k with enough energy left
over to complete a 14k cycle; all in only ten weeks. So I still think I should
do the walk, cycle and swim... but we don't have to put the entries in yet, so
we can put the decision off for now.
Jan &
I went out on Saturday in the pouring rain for a hour on the bikes to trial the
14k road cycle. It is do-able, not comfortable, but do-able (without the run
first and the swim after!). There will be lots of work between now & April
to prepare properly, on the road running, cycling and walking... & in the
pool.
This
weekend we are tree-felling at Montrose Drive; we have a couple of troublesome
eucalypts that are going to be chopped down, the logs made into firewood, and
the gaps replaced with some native hebes. Then we will chuck the leafy
greenwaste on the trailer and take it with us to the land on Sunday when we
head over there to do some more gorse control.
Starting
at the end of this month we have the Adam Chamber Music Festival, and we have
booked tickets for four concerts, which will be brilliant. We are also supposed
to be catching up with Warren, Tracey & baby Erica sometime this month, but
we haven't heard from them yet to tee up a time.
On Nelson
Anniversary weekend (28-29 Jan) we are driving down to Chch on the Sunday to
pick up yet another of Jan's TradeMe purchases - a 600kg safe! The
weekend after that, Feb 2-3, Jan is coming up to Wllg for the Rugby Sevens with
some Nelson Pine people. Then the following weekend, 10-11 Feb, we are both
coming to Wllg to help Karen T celebrate her birthday. Then we get a couple of
weeks at home before we are off to Coco's first dog show on March 3-4 and on
March 9 Jan is back in Wllg for some UWH Pro Reffing (which may well only be
for the day).
Hmm. I
thought we were supposed to be slowing down?!
Look
after yourselves, everyone. Alles liebe :-)
=======================
Wednesday
27th December 2006
Hi All,
My Uncle
Eddie has had a trying time of late, having had a tumour discovered on his
liver. He has had several surgeries and looks like he will make a good recovery
now after some more investigation on Boxing Day. Also my cousin Susan in the UK
has had breast cancer surgery this month, and undergoes chemo for the next six
months. I can only send them our very best wishes and let them know our
thoughts are with them both.
Uncle
Norman was surprised on Christmas morning by an alarm going off in his
pacemaker/defibrillator. He called the hospital for an ambulance to pick him
up. Unfortunately, when they got him to hospital, there were no cardiologists
on duty, so the one person who is expert in reading his device was dragged out
of her Christmas celebration to find that the device had just been set too
sensitively on the last check, and there was nothing wrong with him after all
other than a bit too much fluid on his chest (which has corrected itself).
Whew. So
we picked him up from his adventures at the hospital at lunchtime. and we had a
lovely, relaxing and sunny Christmas day at Montrose Drive. Jan & I got a
pair of walkie talkies for $9.93 from my brother - now we need to see if they
might actually work at the land (but probably not, for a tenner).
Last year
Jan's grandmother, Oma Lieselotte, sent us some Christmas linen - a tea towel,
pot mit, a heat protector and some napkins; they were all used on our table for
Christmas day. Eberhard, can you please show Omie the photo?
Our
calendar is fairly full with work at the land, trying to ignore the garden at
Montrose Drive and playing with the new overhead projector (although Jan does
the playing - I think I might get shot if I touched the data projector without
permission!). We watched 'Borat' tonight & it is an absolute scream. Talk
about utterly non-PC. I heard that the students who were filmed in the
campervan were trying to sue for mis-representation...
Jan &
I are working through this Christmas, but the pace is quite sedate. Rather
enjoyable actually - like working on a Sunday morning!
Our trip
away to Wellington to celebrate Tina's birthday was really great - we had a great
time and managed to stay up until midnight (hah!). Tina had arranged to have
Sebastian act as a barman and had another lady come & help with setting up,
passing around food, answering the door, cleaning up etc. That was really good
planning as it meant that Tina & Jeremy were free to talk to people and
mingle. Karen came along too so she, Jan & I had a really good catch up. We
also managed to catch up at Clarks in the Library with Doug & Morv, Guy,
Sam & Moose, and Karen.
Our next
event will be a couple of the Streats guys coming to stay on 3 January, and
catching up with Warren, Tracey & baby Erica, Sam & Moose & their
family, and Yi & Paula sometime in the New Year.
And
speaking of Yi & Paula - happy anniversary you guys!!
Look
after yourselves, everyone. Alles liebe :-)
=======================
Wednesday
6th December 2006
Hi All,
We are
well, and have just seen Brigitte & John off to Ngakuta Bay to celebrate
John's mother's 94th Birthday.
They came
down on Sunday & since then we have gone out to the land for a picnic to
show them the changes since they went last, called in at the Riverside Cafe to
have coffee in the garden, went out to the Green Room for dinner, had dinner
with my folks at Smugglers and watched a couple of Miss Marple movies. A very
relaxing time.
We had a
quiet time in Auckland. Amazingly we went to no art galleries or museums, but
we did do lots of walking and window shopping and caught up with Janet &
Robert, which was lovely. We also went to Waiheke on the ferry to have a look
as neither of us had been before.
The round
of Christmas functions have started; we have already been to two, with a third
on tonight. The first one was great fun - a local Travel Agent holds a
fund-raising Quiz Night each year for the hospice, and Nelson Pine enter a team
each year. I have been lucky enough to be a ring-in each year on the team. This
year the theme was the Twelve Days of Christmas, so we bought recorders from
the $2 shop and all learned "The Little Drummer Boy" (most entertaining
teaching a load of 40+ blokes to play a tune on the recorder, I can tell
you!!). I would also like to point out that the $2 shop is probably not the
best place to purchase musical instruments from - from flat to sharp in half an
octave!
The
second function was a formal dinner, and that was very nice as well. Last night
we had my German Class' Weihnachten celebration, to which we took German dishes
and a $5 present for one of the others. Brigitte very kindly made us a lovely
potato salad to take, and Jan took some bratwurst and sauerkraut. Not exactly
Christmas fare, but brussels sprouts are out of season and I don't know where
to buy a goose!
Tonight
we have three Christmas functions on one night, so that is going to be
interesting (and I turned down a fourth)! A bit of a gallop :-)
Having
looked at all sorts of small cars, we have bought a new one - a Diahatsu
Sirion. Small, compact, good visibility, great town car, but not such good fuel
economy as we were promised, unfortunately.
The local
farmer has been grazing his rams in the orchard at the land, but has taken them
out again now as the feed has dried off. It is amazing how much gorse that has
exposed, so Jan & I aim to get out there this weekend with the grubber and
see how much gorse we can hack out of two hectares before our arms fall off!
Our next
trip away is to Wellington to celebrate Tina's birthday with her - and catch up
with any of you who are about & can do lunch on Saturday the 16th (weather
dependent: either at Doug's or at Clarks in the Library).
Then we
are looking forward to a a quiet Christmas BBQ at our place, which will
be very relaxing.
Look
after yourselves, everyone. Alles liebe :-)
=======================
Wednesday
15th November 2006
Hi All,
We had a
big fright recently with Jan's niece Melissa coming down with bacterial
Meningitis & being hospitalised in critical condition. Luckily she has
recovered, and we understand that the long term effects should be minimal.
Phew. A very tough time for Jörg, Cherry and Tamara.
In
addition, Hui-Ping's father, who, with her mother, has been staying with
Hui-Ping this year with a view to becoming resident, died after a short and
intense illness this past week in Wellington. I understand that Hui-Ping &
her mum are flying to Taiwan on Friday for a funeral there. Our thoughts are
with them.
So, with
all that in mind, I hope that the rest of you are all keeping well and making
the most of life & health that you have.
As usual
we have been quite busy in the last few weeks. Jan & I went with Murray
& Julie to see Al Gore's movie 'An Inconvenient Truth', which is OK
viewing, but I would have to say that I would prefer a far less sentimental and
more scientific approach. In fact, I feel that the BBC Horizon programme on
global dimming/warming was infinitely more alarming (and definitely worth a
watch, if you can get a copy, called "Global Dimming"). But the whole
global warming thing is something we should all be doing things about - go to
http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/whatyoucando/ to see what you can do.
Coco has
graduated from Puppy Plunket & is now waiting to go to Junior School. She
is a handful - and is so quick at seek & destroy on things that you don't
quite expect her to go for - like telephone headsets and full boxes of tissues
(Q: how many tissues can a wee puppy gobble down at one time? A: as many as
there are in the box!). However, she also tries very hard to please, so once
you can catch her doing something you don't want her doing, she doesn't do it
again. But the trick is in the catching...
Wendy was
in Nelson this weekend just gone. We caught up with her, and Andrew, Jennie
& Ella at the market & had breakfast & a walk around, which was
great. Max also rocked up to join us with Rueben (Jaewyn's son) on an
Uncle/Nephew day out. Wendy is thoroughly enjoying her job - she still calls it
her dream job so she must love it - and looks really well. She has been doing a
fair bit of travelling though & is looking forward to getting some more
time with Jerry at home.
Jan &
I have been to the Chamber of Commerce Business Awards again (crikey, the year
comes around quickly!) and Jan yet again got to present the Nelson Pine Medium
Manufacturing Award on stage... and his photo was in the Nelson Mail. He is
famous!
We have
finished the fence around the orchard at the land. The wires have been run
& strained, tread-ins done, the electric unit is connected, the earths in,
the trough is done, the old oil drums are around the trees, the gates have been
temporarily hung... but Jan tested the fence and feels that there is not enough
current to keep the sheep in. So I guess we need to get a larger electric fence
unit. Don't you hate these jobs that just keep on & on?
Jan has
been to the specialist this week and has been told to slow down. We need to
take weekends OFF. I have been saying for ages that our weekends need to be for
recreation, not work, but David Porter is saying that they need to be entirely
for rest. I am not sure that Jan would be able to cope with that. But maybe we
can aim for one day of absolute downtime each weekend.
We are
just about to put together our plan of what we want to achieve for the coming
year, so our list of jobs will get calendared in that to make sure that we have
plenty of time to do everything that we need to do.
However,
at least Jan has taken some time out to start the model helicopter that he
bought many months ago, and has had some problems with it. He is yet to do a
proper test flight as some linkages appear out of balance & he has no
desire to crash it on the maiden flight :-)
At the
end of this week we head off to Auckland to celebrate our wedding anniversary,
then we head off to Wellington on December 16th to celebrate Tina's birthday
with her - and catch up with any wellie-ites who are about & can do lunch
on that day (weather dependent: either at Doug's or at Clarks in the Library).
Then we
are looking forward to a Nelson Christmas - probably a BBQ at our place, which
will hopefully be very relaxing.
Look
after yourselves, everyone. Alles liebe :-)
=======================
Thursday
26th October 2006
Hi All,
Hope you
are all keeping well. It is warming up here by leaps & bounds, but we would
like some more rain (having had the dryest September on record).
Coco is
growing even faster, is lanky, bite-y and thoroughly entertaining. Fliss
continues to be very patient with her.
We had
Karen T to stay over Labour weekend, which was great. Unfortunately her flight
home was delayed by bad weather in Wllg so she couldn't leave. We had to resort
to drinking yet another bottle of wine and catching a couple of movies! We also
carted her to the land, and made her do fencing stuff (slave labour!). Ran
wires, put in a trough etc etc. We also put the old oil drums around the trees
to prevent ingestion by sheep!
Speaking
of sheep, we are hoping that they will soon be on the job in the orchard for
gorse control. We are going to the land tonight to finish off the fence; just a
matter of slapping on some more insulators, running a bit more electric wire,
putting in the cables under the gates, installing the electric fence unit, the
battery, the solar recharger, putting waratahs into the drums around the trees
to hold them in place & putting the gates on. Hmm... so with that list, I
guess we will be finishing it all on Saturday!
We were
down in Chch, staying at Megs for Saturday and Sunday of Labour weekend. We all
(Jan, me, Karen T, Fliss & Coco) had a great time & caught up with
Jenny, Pat, Marjie & Bertie as well as with Megs & Jimmy. Coco didn't
disgrace herself too often, thank goodness. We went to Yi's birthday party as
hippies because we couldn't find any suitable "space" gear here in
Nelson... so we kaftaned about, waving lemon tea doobies and wearing
Birkenstocks. Ahh, people from the provinces are so pathetic, aren't they?!
Never invite them to a fancy dress theme party because they will never follow
instructions!
At last!
We have trimmed our hedges! But we still have to finish our bench seat, finish
painting the hall, build some shelves in the kitchen, find some new light
fittings & shades for the kitchen, refloor the kitchen and laundry, regib
& plaster one wall in the laundry and paint the laundry. Then we need to
get an bulldozer in at the land to tidy up the skidder site and the wetland
road and close in the 4th bay in the shed (that'll be a biggie). Hmm. I think
the list is getting longer again!
Jan's
refs course in Rotorua went well, although he still has some work that he needs
to do from it; which he hasn't gotten around to yet.
A big
congrats to Warren & Tracey on the birth of their daughter, Erica Rose.
Well done guys!
Well, our
only engagements for the rest of the year are in November we head off to
Auckland for a week for our wedding anniversary & a Nelson Christmas.
So,
Nelsons, Davidson-Schüttes & Kuwilskys: what is happening with regard to a
certain person's 40th birthday in early December?!!!!!
=======================
Tuesday
3rd October 2006
Hi All,
Hope you
are all keeping well - it is spring down at our end of the world and we are
enjoying the warmer temperatures and the start of daylight savings.
Coco is
growing, biting, playing, running, teething, snoring and eating her way into
our lives. Fliss thinks having a little puppy around is great for the extra
food opportunities, but is horrible for the ankle-biting. However, she is very,
very patient with the puppy.
We had
Paul & Bridget here to stay a few weeks ago. They coped beautifully with
the puppy (being cat people). We took them out to the land and we moved the
long drop from the far side of the building site to beside the shed (for our
convenience!). We had lots of lovely food while these guys were here - dinner
out at the Green Room, picnic at the land, a waffle breakfast cooked by Jan and
a lovely dinner of pasta & salad prepared by Paul & Bridget. Excellent.
We love guests who cook!
Speaking
of the Green Room, this a new Nelson restaurant where Ribbets used to be at
Tahunanui, It is owned by Norbert Platzdatsch who used to manage the Rutherford
Hotel. We went for Jan's birthday and were impressed, so took Paul &
Bridget there. A great new place - and busy, which is fabulous!
Well, our
gorse control project at the land is going well. Jan & Richard Barry
(Technical Manager at Nelson Pine, and excellent mechanical-auger-operator!)
put in the gatepost holes at the land a couple of weekends ago, using a
motorised auger. They managed to get 9 & 1/4 fence posts in; the last hole
was just rock after rock after rock... so Jan is threatening to crowbar it out.
Well, it's cheaper than going to the gym for a workout, I guess.
Last
weekend we hammered in all the waratahs, and completed the run of fence across
the building site, but still have to run the two long sides down to the bottom
gate. We have put in all but four of the gate posts - three for the gate at the
bottom of the orchard, which has been really churned up by the tree felling.
This not-quite-yet-in gateway includes the hole which still needs to be
crowbared. We also have another posthole which is not quite deep enough, so we
thought we just might throw a couple of bags of ezycrete in the hole instead of
digging it out some more!
Last year
when we planted some fruit trees in the orchard, we to put some old oil drums
from Nelson Pine, cut down to half height, around the trees to protect them
from being eaten by rabbits. However, we have realised that we will need to get
some full height drums, as the rams will be tall enough to just stand on the
edge of the half-drums to eat the branches. Luckily for us, Nelson Pine is not
able to recycle their oil drums, so we can get some more for nothing. And there
is one of those little 'nibbler' tools in the Nelson Pine workshop that Jan can
use to cut out the drum tops and bottoms.
The
weekend before last we caught up with Robbie & Janet for lunch, which was
great. Robbie gave Jan lots of advice on fencing, which was also very useful.
Fergus has grown so much, and Mac is an amazingly happy, smiley baby. We had a
lovely afternoon, ate too much and wanted to come home & go to sleep! This
was one of those days where you ask yourself "Why don't we do this more
often?".
This
weekend just gone, on our way to the land, we also called out to see the
Ladleys and raid both their tool supply and Donald's fencing knowledge. We have
realised that we have hardly been out to see them of late, either. However,
Jenny is up in a couple of weeks, so we will have a good catch up with everyone
then.
We still
need to borrow the hedge trimmer from my brother, as when I went around - as
arranged - to pick it up, he had gone out! Sometime this week, I hope.
We still
have to trim the hedges, finish our bench seat, finish painting the hall, build
some shelves in the kitchen, find some new light fittings & shades for the
kitchen, refloor the kitchen and laundry, regib & plaster one wall in the
laundry and paint the laundry. Finish the fence at the land, install a trough,
put the new drums around the trees, get an bulldozer in to tidy up the skidder
site and the wetland road, close in the 4th bay in the shed (that'll be a biggie),
and keep the gorse under control. Hmm. I think the list is getting longer
again!
This
weekend Jan is off to Rotorua to do a Level 2 Referees course, and, when Jan
gets back on Sunday night, Pat & Marjie are coming around with Isla and
Mhairi for dinner. Apparently the short people like fruit & jelly. I think
I can have fun with that!
After
Jenny L's visit, next up we have Karen Trotter coming to stay at Labour Weekend
(including a fast trip down to Chch for Yi's 40th - a 'spaced out' dress up
theme no less - on the Saturday, staying with Megs), and in November we head
off to Auckland for a week for our wedding anniversary. Christmas this year is
in Nelson.
Mr Tunley - have you got some photos and a book for me? Please send!!
Karen T - Note the spaced out theme for Labour Weekend. Yi's party is on
the Saturday night now, not on the Sunday. We drive down to Chch on Saturday
morning, leave Sunday lunchtime.
And,
Nelsons, Davidson-Schüttes & Kuwilskys: what is happening with regard to a
certain person's 40th birthday in early December?
=======================
Tuesday
12th September 2006
Well, we
went to look at a puppy and came home with one. We have a new addition to our
family called (and what a mouthful this is) 'Glenmorne Coco Chanel at Klinkehoffen'.
Or Coco in the vernacular.
And boy,
is she a little madam. Cute as a button until you cross her, and then she turns
into Torquemada! She has Jan wrapped around her little paw already :-)
We flew
up to Wllg on Saturday morning, picked up a rental car, drove to Palmerston
North, met Coco, decided we liked her, popped her in the car, drove back to
Wllg, said 'Hi' to Karen T briefly & dropped off a nice bottle of Pinot for
Hui-Ping's birthday, called in at Jeremy & Tina's to attend Otto's 2nd
birthday party, roared off to the airport 20 minutes late, dashed in, checked
Coco on the plane & dropped the rental car and flew off home with about a
minute to spare. Phew.
Otto has
grown heaps, and is very excited about mechanical things in any shape or form.
He got lots of lovely toys for his birthday; a Tonka truck, a wooden fire
truck, books, puzzles, a push-along bike (with helmet) and a lovely hand-made
windmill with blades that can be turned with a handle (from Hartmut, of
course). And Lara did very well at correcting my German!
It was
great to see everyone, even if it was far too brief.
Karen T
looks utterly amazing. She has lost lots of weight, by going to the gym and by
boxing. Nothing like working out your frustrations on an inanimate object, eh?!
With
regard to gorse control at the land, we met Peter Moore (the farmer down the
road) & got his input. He suggested we talk to another neighbour, Ian
Benbow, so we got his input into what fencing, gates & troughs we need, and
we are going to go with a temporary electric system. Ian is going to use our
orchard to graze his rams, which is great, as he is just across the road from
us. He can keep an easy eye on water and the fence, and we get to keep the
gorse down by natural means. We now need to pick up some gates, fence posts and
other supplies on Saturday and get them out there and installed, ready for
putting in the movable electric fence units. And we still need to plant some
more fruit trees, but that will have to wait until we have done the fence.
We also
have Paul Tunley coming from Chch this weekend, and I am volunteering for
Rotary to help at the Nelson Boatshow on Sunday, and we have to UWH on Sunday
night. There goes the weekend! Oh, and we need to trim our hedges at Montrose
Drive - we are borrowing a hedge trimmer from my brother, so that should be a
good play!
Jan's TV
satellite dish & decoder now works very well. We have 8 channels of crap to
watch on TV (how useful!). Also at last we have a new light shade over the
dining table; we finally managed to reach an agreement between aesthetics (me)
and power efficiency (hmmm. Now I wonder who that might be?!).
We still
have to finish our bench seat, but Jan has managed to get some new belts for
the Deutsche belt sander, so we can get back onto it; great now that the
evenings are getting lighter. Then we only need to finish painting the hall,
build some shelves and find some new light fittings & shades for the
kitchen. Doesn't seem so much now that we have a couple of things gone from the
list already :-)
After Mr
Tunley's departure next Monday, we have Karen Trotter coming to stay at Labour
Weekend (and a fast trip down to Chch for Yi's 40th on the Saturday - Megs,
will you be home for THREE visitors and two dogs, as Karen will be with us?),
and in November we head off to Auckland for a week for our wedding anniversary.
Christmas this year is in Nelson, though we were going to try to get to Wllg
for a weekend in early December... hopefully the Nelsons & the
Davidson-Schüttes & the Kuwilskys will let us know when suits them all
best.
=======================
Tuesday
22nd August 2006
Hi All,
Phew - at
least that weekend is over!
We spent
the weekend in Rotorua with the College UWH teams, and had a pretty clear run.
No concussions, no tantrums, no one going missing, no one sneaking off. The
kids played their hearts out & all have said they had a great time. We did
a wee bit of sight-seeing; taking them all to Whakarewarewa on the first day
(now known as Te Puia because it is easier to say!!) where we had a
personalised tour & being just in time to see the geyser go. Both teams
came 7th in their grades, with one of our girls being named, by the Elite
Women's selector, for the Tournament Team; so she is in the top 8 Senior girl
players in the country. Now we are trying to get her organised to apply for the
Under 19 Training Academy.
This
Friday we are organising a Prize Giving for the kids, with everyone getting
recognition for where they have improved most. We are having it early as our
assistant coach is heading off to Australia to live in a couple of weeks (got
made an offer he couldn't refuse). Now there will only be the two of us again
for 17 of them. Never mind - the end of the UWH year is in sight. Roll on
Friday the 22nd of September!
We still
have to get onto our gorse control, but we have talked to a man about fencing
the orchard so we can get one of our neighbouring farmers to put some stock in
to help eat the gorse down. Hopefully we will meet Peter Moore (the farmer down
the road) out there this weekend to get his input into what fencing, gates
& trough system would suit him best for a small mob. We also still need to
plant some trees at the land. And we still haven't got onto triming our hedges
at Montrose Dr, finishing our bench seat, painting the hall, getting Jan's TV
satellite dish & decoder to work, building some shelves or installing some
new light fittings & shades. But hey, what's a few hundred hours of work?!
While
away in Rotorua, half the kids had colds, so now we both have yet another one.
Seeing as we have both been taking multi-vitamins and trying to eat really
well, it is a bit annoying (to say the least). The only saving grace is that
this appears to be a relatively light cold. More irriating than debilitating.
Tomorrow
we have either one or two German Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars coming to stay
for a couple of days; Andrea Stabel and - possibly - Glen someone. I said we
had one spare room, so I don't know if I am getting a couple or a singleton. I
daresay I will find out when they arrive.
Our next
trip away will probably be to Palmerston North as a Boxer breeder has a baby
bitch puppy up there for us to look at sometime over the coming fortnight. Then
we have Karen Trotter coming to stay at Labour Weekend, and in November we head
off to Auckland for a week for our wedding anniversary. Christmas this year is
in Nelson, though we were going to try to get to Wllg for a weekend in early
December... hopefully the Nelsons & the Davidson-Schüttes & the
Kuwilskys will let us know when suits them all best.
Unfortunately,
our local Airline, Origin Pacific, folded a bit over a week ago. I expected,
with no competition, that AirNZ would cut flights & put prices up slowly;
but they have not been at all slow in doing both! Where we used to have 10
direct flights per day to Chch, there are now 3; and costs have increased by
probably 20-50%. Our days of easy, cheap flights appear to be over; which will
mean that we get away to see you all far less often :-(
Oh, well,
perhaps Virgin Blue might come here. Bring on Mr Branson!
Take care
all. Alles liebe & hugs
=======================
Monday
31st July 2006
Yep - you
guessed it; we are still flat out. However, I am keeping my eyes on the end of
the third term. This is the end of the School's underwater hockey year, and the
end of our involvement.
The last
three weeks have been playing catch-ups for work and trying to get some
projects complete (none of which are anywhere near it, but at least we are
trying!)We have got back to some gorse control, but need to plant some trees at
the land, get a fence up so we can run some stock to try & keep the gorse
at bay in the orchard, trim our hedges at Montrose Dr, finish our bench seat,
paint the hall, purchase and install Jan's TV satellite dish & decoder so
we can watch more free-to-air crap, build some shelves and install some new
light fittings & shades.
We have
been out to a few functions, and have had a few late nights which are eating
into our personal harmony as well. Jan still has that cold & has been to
the doctor about it ("it's a virus. That's $50, thanks").
I got
offered an Operations Manager's job, paying reasonable dosh, but, looking at
the job description, probably wanting my soul for 60-70 hours a week, and
taking me away from home at lot. I turned them down. So they came back with
offering 30% more dosh & a car. After lots of soul searching, I again
turned it down.
However,
the job offer has forced us to think about what we really want to achieve. As a
result of that thinking, we have decided to build at the land (we had been
wavering a bit). The timeline was always 5 years from land purchase to house,
which takes us to July 2008. Realistically I think we will build over the
summer of 2007-08. That will keep us very busy for the next year, & get us
to focus on getting the projects finished at Montrose Drive in preparation for
sale.
It was
great to see Jenny L this week when she was here visiting her family. We want
to catch up with most of you more regularly, but there are just not enough
hours in the day at the moment, for which we apologise. Megs, Tina, Brigitte;
we intended to call you all on the weekend & it just hasn't happened;
sorry!
Our next
trip away is the UWH Nationals in Rotorua, August 17-20. However, Jan is
currently planning on going off on a boys' fishing trip the weekend before we
take the kids off to Nationals, leaving me to sort out all the last minute
details. Yay.
=======================
Wednesday
11th July 2006
Hi All,
Just a
short note as we are still busy! Since we been back from Christchurch with UWH
we have been flat out organising the National's trip to Rotorua from August 17
to 20. Every night there is something else to do & my list seems to be
getting longer, not shorter! But not for much longer, as we have made the
decision to pull out next year.
However,
we did manage to get away to Wllg to see DJ & Dilani, Guy & Sonia and
Doug & Morv which was fabulous. We didn't think we were going to get there
initally as there was fog at Wllg airport. However, that only delayed us by an
hour & a half.
We went
to see Hui-Ping's new restaurant & bar which was really great. There is
lots of potential, and she knows her market, so it will be really interesting
to see how it all shakes out over the next few months.
We also
got to see Hartmut & Uta - who gave us a fabulous book of desert
photography - and also caught up with Wendy & Gerry, who have a great place
up on top of the Kelson hills looking straight down to Wllg harbour, with an
assorted menageries of two boss cats & one joyously submissive border
collie.
John was
kind enough to put us up for our fleeting calls in & out (!) and we caught
up with Brigitte for five minutes, Jeremy and a sleepy Otto for half an hour as
he took us to the airport and Tina & Lara for five minutes on their way
back into Wllg.
Since
then both of us have had colds & been feeling pretty grungy; but the worst
is past and we now have spring to look forward to! Jan will be off on a boys'
fishing trip sometime shortly & when he does I am planning an intimate
affair with rather a lot of chocolate, a nice fire & some DVDs! We still
need to get stuck into our sadly neglected home & land projects (gorse
control, planting trees, trimming hedges, finishing our bench seat, painting,
purchase and installation of a fancy new satellite dish & decoder thingy to
watch more free-to-air TV crap, shelf-building and new light fittings); but
after we have done the firewood for the UWH fundraising!
We also
have a spare boxer living with us at the moment, Bonnie, whose folks are off in
the US until the beginning of September. She is fitting in so well with Fliss
that we hardly know she is there... aside from the chewing, that is!
=======================
Wednesday
22nd June 2006
Hi All,
Well, we
have still been busy. In Chch the girls' team were top seed going into the
final but were just pipped by a golden goal in overtime - at the prizegiving
the MC said that the final could have easily gone either way at that both of
the finals teams had deservedly qualified for the Nationals. The boys' team
hammered their opposition in the final and they look good to get into the top
three or four teams in the country.
So since
we came back from Christchurch for the South Islands we have been flat out
trying to organise getting the UWH Schools teams to the National competitions
in Rotorua.
We have
got stuck with (a) it being all New Zealand Colleges' 'Sports Week' - the idea
being that all National competitions are held then... so all vans everywhere in
the country are booked out so we are having trouble getting two 12 seater vans
for hire (b) one of the Cook Strait passenger ferries being in dry dock so
there are no night crossings of the Strait, (c) a bad winter that makes driving
very dodgy anyway and we would have to drive one of the worst stretches of road
in the country, (d) Rotorua having a tiny provincial airport with very few
flights, and most of those are aleady booked because (e) the International
Mountainbiking competition being held in Rotorua with an overlap with the UWH
competition.
Man
alive, trying to organise this is driving me bananas. At this stage the most
likely way we can get into Rotorua is to charter a plane at $11,000. Seeing as
the kids have to pay to go, that will mean a cost of about $1100 each (including
flights, vans, accommodation, entries, food and fuel). I think that the cost
will make it too much for them to be able to afford to go; which is a real
shame as the boys in particular look great for a placing at Nationals.
Jenny
Ladley was here last weekend, being famous (in the local council newsletter
& all!) and delivering a speech on Mistletoes out at Dovedale. We caught up
with her for lunch at the Suter Park Café and then we all got a shot of culture
by visiting the Len Lye exhibition; which was really, really interesting.
Ooo and
we have our new mattress! It is lovely :-)
My folks
are still away in Australia - they come back Friday week and are having a great
time, from the brief emails I have had. They are currently in 'BrisVegas'!
Quick reminder
that we are coming up to Wllg on July 1 & 2 to see Hui-Ping's new
restaurant, see Stomp at the St James, hopefully see Wendy & Jerry, stay
with John & then catch up for lunch on Sunday with DJ & Dilani (who are
in Wllg briefly), Doug & Morv, Sam & Moose, Guy & Sonja. Look
forward to seeing you all.
This
weekend Jan is off on a boys' fishing trip & I am planning an intimate
affair with rather a lot of chocolate, a nice fire & some DVDs! We plan on
getting stuck into our sadly neglected home & land projects (gorse control,
planting trees, trimming hedges, finishing our bench seat, painting,
shelf-building and new light fittings) after we get back from Wllg, which will
be great. And busy of course!
And we
may or may not be going to Rotorua from August 17 to 20. Will keep you posted.
=======================
Wednesday
31st May 2006
Hi Guys,
Wow, have
we been busy recently. Hardly any time to take stock and smell the roses,
unfortunately.
Our trees
are down and we now have only devastation remaining. We have also had a huge
delivery of gravel to de-glug our road, and have had a truckload of timber
delivered to a mill for turning into site building materials. So all has been
done, ticked off and we are now ready for the gorse to start growing.
And speaking
of the gorse, we have spent a couple of days out there recently pulling gorse
out. I thought it slowed down in the winter, but ours apparently doesn't!
We have
found the reason for my earlier sore back - our mattress appears to have passed
its use-by date. We slept on the double futon in the spare room to see if I got
better (and I did). Aha! Time for a new mattress! We are currently still
sleeping in the spare room, while awaiting the delivery of our new queen
mattress. And I have advertised the old one in the Buy Sell Swap to see if
someone else wants some backaches!
Schools
UWH is still keeping us busy, busy at the moment - three nights a week of
training and then lots of time chasing up togs, uniforms, funding, payments,
information lists, entry forms, etc etc. I will be heaving a huge sigh of
relief when we get to the end of Term 3 and it is all over again until February
2007 (if we volunteer for next year, that is).
Tessa has
gone flatting & is working fulltime. She has two jobs - one as a supervisor
at a New World supermarket and the other as a Nurse Aide at a resthome, which
appear to be keeping her out of trouble! However, she has plans to start an
exercise science course that starts locally and then transfers to Lincoln; I
hope she manages to get a place on the course and keep at it. Fingers X-ed for
her.
My folks
are away in Australia at present for six weeks or so, touring about and
visiting friends & family. I think they will have a great time. It should
be what retirement is all about!
Again,
Chch people; we are coming down on June 9th-11th to babysit the UWH kids at
their competition. We will be at the QEII Pool on Saturday 10th. If you are
able to swing by & say hello it would be great.
We are
coming up to Wllg on July 1 & 2 to have lunch at Hui-Ping's new restaurant,
see Stomp at the St James, hopefully see Wendy & Jerry, stay with John
& then catch up for lunch on Sunday with DJ & Dilani (who are in Wllg
briefly), Doug & Morv, Sam & Moose, Guy & Sonja. It is amazing that
weekend that Karen T is away in Auckland, Brigitte, Tina & Lara are in
Germany and Jeremy & Otto are in Australia. Never mind, next time.
Aside
from those two weekends away over the winter, we are planning on mucho gorse
control at the land, and taking a week away some time at the Hannah's bach up
at Lake Rotoiti. We also hope we will be having Karen T down to visit us for a
week, which would be fab.
This
weekend we are taking the UWH kids on a window-cleaning expedition (fund
raising), having dinner and a movie with Andrew & Jennie, doing some more
gorse control and picking up a trailer-load of freebee pallets to store all the
milled timber on in the shed (once it comes back from the Mill) and finally
getting back to some projects at home that have been sadly neglected (like our
bench seat). I think that will fill three days about twice over!!
Take care
all & back to you soon. Alles liebe & hugs
=======================
Tuesday
09th May 2006
Hi Guys,
All is
great here. The weather has been quite settled again after some long-overdue
big rains at Easter. We are back watering the plants, which seems odd for May,
when we should be getting our first frosts!
Our trees
are coming out at the moment - the land looks like a bomb-site with dirt, mud,
pine tree root-balls, logs, diggers, bulldozers, trucks and branches
everywhere. Jan marked our back boundary with bright orange hazard tape so the
logging gang doesn't take any of our neighbour's trees by mistake, while I went
to the pegs and yelled out whether he was in line with the last marker or not.
The gorse, fallen trees, bush lawyer, pig fern and regenerating native bush
certainly added to the complexity of the job for Jan; and doing all this in the
rain was not the most exciting work either of us have had to do lately!
But
apparently the first timber cheque is due to arrive today, and that IS actually
exciting :-)
I hurt my
lower back on Friday; I awoke with it sore, then went off to play 1/2 an hour
of tennis, which made it much worse; oops! This injury comes hard on the heels
of a weird back-of-knee/thigh strain which had me limping - and very peeved -
for a month. At least both felt more muscular than anything else, so I have
been conscious of keeping sensibly active.
Jan &
I had planned on walking up Mount Arthur on this Saturday just gone, as Jan has
talked about going for the last three years, and as no snow has yet fallen we
thought that we could take advantage and finally go. However, it seemed a bit
foolhardy to go climbing with a sore back. So, as walking on the flat seemed to
free me up, instead of Mount Arthur on Saturday morning we took Fliss for a
walk along the waterfront into town and to the Saturday market, bought bread
& cheese for lunch, had a coffee at a street-café and walked home. It is
great to take the time out to enjoy those simple things in life; a walk to the
market, enjoying the sun, the sea, & personally selecting a delicious lunch
from the food stalls. Once we got home, Jan & Fliss had a sleep in the sun
and I went to start getting my tax accounts organised. However, by the evening
my lower back was driving me bonkers again so I had to pull out of going to
catch up with Wendy Saunders & Gerry who were here for the weekend (a real
shame, but at least we caught up on the phone instead).
On Sunday
morning I felt much better, so I finished my tax, and we went to the
supermarket & to play a bit more tennis. Well, after slugging a tennis ball
around, my back stiffened up no end, and Jan pulled a tendon in his foot!
So I have
avoided tennis and have walked yesterday and today, which is still seeming to
free it up. Jan, however, is finding that walking is aggravating his foot, but
he is coping. What a pair of old crocks we are :-)
We got
our new Agee Preserver cranked up a couple of weeks ago and have bottled two
loads thus far. We will do some more, but hopefully will leave it until the
weekend after next.
Next
weekend we are going to the land to support-mark all the wooden boundary pegs
with steel waratahs which we will paint bright pink for easy visibility. We
will also have lunch with Murray & Julie before they head off to Europe on
their cycling tour; and maybe Sunday, injuries allowing, we might get up Mount
Arthur before the first snows hit.
To all
you Chch people; we are coming down in a month on June 9th-11th, to babysit the
UWH kids at their competition. We will be at the QEII Pool on Saturday. If you
are able to swing by & say hello it would be great; unfortunately I don't
think we will be able to get away on Saturday or Friday nights to meet up with
any of you (we can't really abandon our 17 teenagers to the perils of Chch!).
However, if we get extra parent volunteers coming down, we might be able to
organise ourselves a night off and have a get-together at our motorcamp.
Will keep
you posted.
Alles
liebe & hugs
=======================
Wednesday
19th Apr 2006
Hi Guys,
Andreas
has gone back to Germany after a fortnight's stay. The time, as always, was too
short. We had some good nights while he was here, but one of the exceptional
ones was a Kiwi Movie Night with all the international contractors at Richard's
place. We watched Stickmen over a few beers and fish & chips.
Currently
we are having a brief break from the apple production line. We currently have
frozen apple puree, frozen apple juice and dehydrated apple chips. Coming up
will be bottled apple puree once we get our new Agee Preserver cranked up.
We have
just had a lovely trip to the Hawkes Bay to visit Warren & Tracey, Sam
& Josie (and pick up the Agee Preserver). They have a great place up there
in Havelock North & we had a very lazy time. As we took Fliss north with
us, we took all the dogs for walks, did some shopping, lunched out, breakfasted
out and indulged ourselves.
Jan &
I also had a great time roaring around Napier/Hastings/Havelock North to try
& find some public tennis courts (there aren't any, although the Council
think there are, having directed me to some locked club courts. There are lots
of club courts) before descending on Havelock North High School and playing
there. That school is so well set up, it is amazing.
Bertie
arrived at Napier Airport on Saturday morning & so all five of us went out
wine tasting etc and having a great time. Actually, our wine tasting efforts
were fairly feeble. I think we only did four vineyards!
We called
in overnight on the way north at Tina & Jeremy's in Wllg, had a fish &
chip dinner with Doug, Morv, Mike, Birthe, Sam & Moose (and assorted short
people). And coincidence of coincidences; Karen couldn't come because she was
hosting a Tupperware evening that night, and Sonya couldn't come because she
was facilitating a party... yes, the same one. And neither of them realised!
We caught
up with John & Brigitte as they were kind enough to have us to stay
overnight. Unfortunately we didn't get to catch up with Hartmut & Uta as
Uta was giving a Eurythmy performance, but never mind, next time.
We also
got breakfasted in style at Hui-Ping's in Paraparaumu. She went in late to work
in order to feed us (read "took the morning off"!). She has a great
spot out near the beach.
So, as we
have picked up our Agee Preserver from Hawkes Bay, I am waiting for Herr
Kuwilsky to start making noises about bottling! I am sure that at some point in
the very near future he will want to get on with it. But, as the trees at the
land are supposedly being felled at present, I know we have an outstanding job
over there - that of marking our back boundary with tape so the logging gang
doesn't take any of our neighbour's trees by mistake.
So, want
to take any bets on who's going to get the wet job of clambering through the
gorse bushes?!
Alles
liebe & hugs
=======================
Tuesday
27th Mar 2006
Hi Guys,
One of my
Uncles (Ian) died on Saturday, and our family is trying to get in touch with
old friends and family members before the funeral tomorrow. Also, my Uncle
Eddie is in hospital in Christchurch, having just had surgery to remove a
tumour in his chest (thankfully benign). All a bit grim - and not a great
reason to get the family together. Weddings and naming ceremonies are a far
better reason for the gathering of the clans.
The
funeral is at 2pm on Wednesday March 29th at Marsden House on Nile Street.
?
Well, we
had our first rain in weeks yesterday, on the same day that Andreas arrived
back in New Zealand. What a warm welcome we put on for our visitors!
As a
newly caught Rotarian, I hosted a billet this weekend as well for a Rotary
fellowship group, the International Fellowship of Cricketing Rotarians (!). We
had a really nice guy to stay from Wellington called Paul Gini. The aim of the
trip was a North vs South Island Cricket match which is apparently held each
year. Thank goodness that the Tropical Cyclone in the Tasman Sea held off until
they had all left for home.
At Rotary
there are a number of rotating tasks: "Soapbox" where you talk about
something of interest for five minutes, being the greeter for all the arrivals,
"Parting Thought" where you are supposed to say something
inspirational to close the meeting, and organising a main speaker, acting as
"Speaker's Host". On Friday just gone I had to do the
"Soapbox" speech. I found out on Thursday morning completely by
chance that I had to do this - whew! - so had to then cast around for something
to talk about - thank goodness for news sites on the internet. Also, as there
was a group of people who were coming from a US Rotary club (Missouri) who were
going to talk about serious matters, I was able to keep things very light &
funny, based on some silly internet headlines and some research just completed.
It must have gone over well though as half the time I couldn't hear myself for
people laughing, and the visiting Americans thought the Club had wonderful
energy.
Jenny L
was here again briefly the week before last, and I caught up with Fleur & Neil
by chance in the street the other day. They are heading away at Easter for a
couple of weeks and are looking for someone who might want to stay at their
place for Easter. Get in touch with me if you are planning on heading to the
Bay.
Our
friendly local orchardist has indeed donated heaps of apples and nashi pears.
We have processed about 25 litres of juice, and probably 15 kilos of puree so
the freezer is completely full already. Currently we are dehydrating apple
slices in a borrowed dehydrator (brilliant machine borrowed from Donald
Ladley). We made a wonderful new purchase this year, an apple
peeler/corer/slicer. Plug your apple on a set of little prongs, turn the
handle, apple peels, slices and de-cores. Now in 15 minues we have filled our
preserving pan with sliced, peeled and cored apple, where it used to take us a
couple of hours. It is a WONDERFUL wee mechanical gadget, and has been made the
same way for a couple of hundred years (there is an identical one on display in
the kitchen a local historic house, Broadgreen House). Jan is very happy - all
that efficiency without any electricity consumption!
Also,
Warren & Trace have purchased an Agee Preserver for us in Hawke Bay which
we will pick up when we are up there at Easter.
So,
speaking of Easter, we are coming North & staying the night of Tuesday 11th
April in Wllg. It would be really great if we could organise a Wllg
get-together that night with as many of you as are about then. We get in early
evening, so could even do a snack somewhere before dinner... I am not sure if
Clark's at the Library are open in the evenings, but that was great venue as
you were all able to bring the kids. Anyway, come back to us & let us know.
=======================
Tuesday
7th Mar 2006
Hi Guys,
It's
getting darker in the mornings and daylight savings comes off in a week or so.
While it's still too hot to leave Fliss in the car, the temperatures are
definitely getting cooler. I guess that all means that we are heading
winter-ward!
Speaking
of Fliss, she appears to be coping with life on her own. She has been reluctant
to play with other dogs, which has been a bit of a worry, but we were out at
the Ladley's last night and she started playing with one of their Jack
Russells. Relief - normal service has been resumed!
Mind you,
we have been taking her for lots of walks down to our local park. Our time at
the park goes something like this; we take the frisbee or the ball. Fliss looks
all excited. We throw the frisbee or the ball. Fliss looks at us as though we
are bananas. We run after the ball or the frisbee and bring it back. Fliss gets
all excited. We throw the frisbee or the ball. Fliss looks at us as though we
are bananas. We run after the ball... get the picture?!
Jan is
feeling fairly good at present. He biked to work yesterday and on our dog
'walks' in the evenings he often takes his bike and I walk. That works out well
on the hills; he can put as much extra effort in as he feels like. Murray has
also got the part for his wind surfer and Jan is going around on Saturday
morning to give him a hand to put it all back together again. Jan is VERY keen
to get back on the water again!
We have
loaded all our wines into our new wine rack (and it works splendidly - just
like a bought one!). A couple of weekends ago Gary Rae kindly came out to the
land and helped Jan split all the pine rounds that we had stored in the shed
(cut from the wind throw pines). It was a brilliant day's work by the two of
them. Then in the evening we hurtled off to a Housewarming BBQ at Andrew &
Jennie's. On the Sunday we had a housewarming BBQ at Bob's place (Juliet from
UWH).
Then last
weekend we were invited to the opening of Bob's sister's native plant nursery
out in the Moutere. And yes, we bought some plants! Got a really nice bronze
cabbage tree and a hebe hybrid - Wiri Prince - that we hadn't seen before and
is just lovely.
Last week
I was officially 'invested' at Rotary; the Whakatu Branch. Many people have
tried to get me involved in Rotary over the years, but I have not been keen; mainly
due to the timing of the meetings and the formality of proceedings. However,
this Rotary club is a bit different. They have breakfast meetings on a Friday
morning, the club is run on very informal lines, and I know so many of the club
members that it seemed silly in the end not to join them. I can get quite a few
business meetings set up without having to pick up the phone :-)
Over the
past few weeks we have had a few visitors. It was lovely having Brigitte &
John here, but far too short. We have seen Jenny L briefly on a couple of trips
to Nelson, which has been lovely. Fleur & Neil called in for one night, and
Birthe & Mike stopped in overnight on their way back to Wellington on their
holiday (and told us that, once they sell their house, they are planning on
living in Denmark for a couple of years; a big change for them).
We still
haven't seen Andreas, as the trip was postponed again. Hopefully the American
contingent will complete their fault-finding on the equipment in question and
he will be here shortly. Fingers Xed!
Underwater
Hockey is in full swing again for the colleges, and we need to start funding
applications for gear and the trips away. And over the next few weeks our big
projects at home will be finishing off our macrocarpa bench seat and getting
some apples stewed and juiced for winter. Our friendly local orchardist has
been kind enough to allow us to get seconds again this winter. So production
begins this Saturday at our place. Anyone keen to volunteer a peeler?
Dii -
glad to hear you are coping and keep writing. Great to hear from you.
=======================
Tuesday
14th Feb 2006
Hi Guys,
Hope you
are all OK & coping with whatever the weather is throwing at you in your
area at the moment.
We have
had a pretty full on few weeks; but our major reportable news is that we had
Drew put down this Saturday just gone. And it was just at the last possible
moment that we could have done it too, as she stopped eating the night before,
and didn't eat breakfast on the day, despite the drugs she was on to control
nausea and pain. She is now at rest under a Southern Rata at the land behind
the shed, which should eventually shade our water tank.
Fliss was
fine with the whole thing while Drew went to the big sleep at home, was wrapped
up and put in the car, but when Jan put Drew in the hole, she got all anxious
and jumped in with her (we had a good cry at her anxiety too). We let her walk
around in the hole for a bit, then she got out and seems to have got over it.
We thought that Fliss would look for Drew when we got home from the Moutere,
and she was fine. She was very quiet though until this morning, when she
suddenly appeared to have returned to her old self. We have had to play two
lots of ball chasing games this morning before I could start work.
The trees
are going well at the land - we have two walnuts & four peach trees that
seem to be coping OK. Jan has got all keen at home on growing avocado &
plum trees from pits; we will have to see how his experiments work - he might
have a new career!
When we
were in Germany, Eberhard showed Jan & I his wine cellar, which gave us
some inspiration for our cellar at home. I contacted an engineer who came
around, measured up & designed a unit to fit onto one wall of our cellar;
so tonight we have just become the proud owners of a new 400 bottle wine rack.
Phew! Now we only have to take all our wine out of the spare room &
organise the whole thing...
Jan &
Murray have been out wind surfing just up the road from our place (and just
down the road from Murray & Julie's). They had a great time & are
looking forward to having a few more sessions. Of course, that will be after
Murray gets the board repaired... they managed to split the rubber foot for the
mast in half & Murray is trying to get a new one.
We have
been out to Donald & Bunty's place in 88 Valley a couple of times recently
& they have had their share of problems too; however, as with us, things
are now settling down. Here's hoping for a clear run for a few months!!
We have
Brigitte & John arriving on Thursday this week for four days, and then I
think we are expecting Birthe & Mike for a couple of days next week. This
weekend coming we have a friend's 50th birthday party to go to & I think
that will be enough to keep us busy until the next time I haul out the keyboard
to get in touch with you all.
Hopefully
Andreas will be coming to Nelson shortly for a week; his Waitangi Day arrival
got postponed at the last minute, which was a shame. It will be great to see
him again - and hopefully he will get here this time!
Dii -
best wishes to you with all that is going on in your life at the moment; I hope
all goes well and please keep in touch.
A big
happy birthday to Steph and Karen Trotter today; I hope you both had a
WONDERFUL day :-)
=======================
Tuesday
24th Jan 2006
Hi Guys,
Well, the
year has zipped off at five gazillion miles an hour, hasn't it!
Aside
from doing firewood and gorse control at the land, we haven't done so very
much. We have caught up with Andrew & Jennie & their folks for a quick
evening, been to the movies to see Narnia (don't bother going - there is too
much CGI showing off by the director in it, which gets in the way of what
should be a nice story), had a nice lunch at Vesper's (new restaurant in
Brightwater) with Janet & Robert who are currently down from Auckland, then
had a dinner at Hopgoods with them & Murray & Julie (Mmmm!), and had a
lovely lunch with the Nayland Old Girls at the Mapua Boathouse.
We have
also started making a bench seat for the back side of our dining table. The
bench is looking very sharp, made out of macrocarpa in a rather monastic style.
I have lots of sanding to do, and I have to source some big cast iron
pins/spikes to hold the cross-brace for the legs in place.
Sadly,
Jan's Great Aunt Clara in Germany has died. She had some stomach surgery and
didn't really recover after the operation. I met her last August and really
liked her - she was very fiesty and liked her gin!
Drew is
still going - she is now building up fluid in her abdominal cavity; and
eventually all her organs will be compromised. We have her on diuretics to see
if this will help (and still no pain, so that's great). The vet has given her
one to two months, so we will see how we go.
All the
rest of us are very well. Tessa has decided to go back to school this year,
which is excellent news. Fingers Xed!
This
weekend we are heading to Kaiteriteri for a barbeque and to the land to salvage
some more of the wind-throw timber for firewood before the loggers get into it.
Waitangi weekend a crowd of us are heading over to the land with chainsaws and
a log splitter to load up trailer after trailer of wood...
And
Andreas is due here in Nelson on Waitangi Day (February 6th) for a week. It
will be great to see him again.
Well, I
think that's it for now. Take care, all!
=======================
Thursday
06th Jan 2006
Hi Guys,
In the
dawn of this New Year, we would like to wish you all a wonderful 2006; may it
be a year that gives you all new opportunities, productivity and success.
Hui-Ping
came down to Nelson again for the New Year, and came to our New Year barbeque.
We were really lucky with our guests as we also had Warren & Tracy here, on
their way back to the Hawkes Bay from Xmas with Warren's folks in Waimate;
Jenny L and Megs who were both up spending Xmas with their families; Bertie,
who came to have Xmas with Megs' family in Nelson; Ella and Andrew & Jennie
(who all live in sunny Nelson). And half a dozen assorted overseas hangers-on
of Megs who came along for the ride. The weather was too hot, but Jan &
Warren strung one of our trailer covers over the pergola which kept the sun off
us, while we quaffed local organic beers and lemonade.
Everyone
else went on to a party at Max & Karen's, but we turned into grannies and
went to bed at about 11.15. We were lying in bed talking, speculating about
what various friends and family members would be doing to celebrate, when
Andreas rang from Germany to wish us a happy New Year. Most kind of him to
remember us!
On
December 28th, we went to the wedding of a confirmed bachelor and a party girl;
Ieuan (ex-colleague of Jan's from Streats) and Paula got married at Brancott
Estate Winery in Blenheim. It was a great day, fabulous weather, and we all
looked like a flock of peacocks with everyone all gussied up.
We went
up to Wllg on Christmas Eve & had a great celebration at Tina &
Jeremy's place with everyone. On Xmas day, some of our friends were generous
enough to allow our intrusion on their family celebrations, and we caught up
with Doug & Morv and Guy & Sonia; Helen B; and then had Christmas lunch
with Karen & Hui-Ping. I flew back on Christmas evening so as not to leave
my Mother looking after Drew for too long.
On
December 17th we went over to Aorere to help Merrill & Colin celebrate their
10th Anniversary at Stonehouse, and caught up with Fleur & Neil at
Rangihaeata, who were kind enough to have us stay, dogs & all. We had a
great time cruising around the Bay, and while the weather wasn't that kind to
us, the hospitality certainly was! We had lunch on Saturday at "The Naked
Possum" which is out past Rockville on the way to the Kaituna Track; what
a fantastic place. We bought some Southern Ratas - our first donation to
Project Crimson - for planting either at the land or at home ...can't decide!!
(for all you overseas readers, Project Crimson is about reforesting our native
New Zealand shorelines with Ratas in the South Island, and Pohutukawas in the
North. These trees flower at Christmas with gorgeous red flowers - see our
website picture).
We have
been over to the land a couple of times to do a bit more firewood and check on
the trees (we have four lovely Black Boy peach trees and two strapping
walnuts). We haven't yet moved the outhouse, so that remains on the list, but I
have got back onto the gorse again. While it has grown a lot, it is not as bad
as I expected, so that's good.
Jan &
I called in to Waimea Nurseries to talk to them about suitable fruit & nut
trees for our home orchard. We have taken their catalogue & now have to
decide exactly what other trees we want to plant in the gully. I would like
avocadoes, lemons, lemonades, tangeloes, mandarins, limes, cherries,
nectarines, apricots, almonds, plums and eating grapes. Jan has not yet
disclosed his wish-list (it's still percolating!).
Uncle
Norman is looking really well. His hip must have been giving him an awful lot
of pain before the operation, as his face is showing so much more colour now.
While his recovery will take time, each day looks (from my external view) like
it is bringing an improvement.
Drew is
still keeping on. She is getting thin, but is still in no pain & is really
enjoying life. However, we were planning on going for a week to Brisbane in
February to celebrate Steph's birthday with her, but as Drew's care is becoming
more intensive, don't want to have to leave her with my Mother for a whole week
(she would do it, but it is quite a lot of work, and doesn't feel fair). We
can't put her in the Kennels - no kennel would accept the responsibility. So we
will only travel where she can come with us until she is ready for the long
sleep.
Alles
liebe & hugs
=======================
Tuesday
13th Dec 2005
Hi Guys,
Well, as
usual, we have been quite busy.
We have
painted the downstairs bedroom, bought some new curtains and sorted through our
books, furniture and soft furnishings so when all you people start arriving in
the New Year, it will be a comfortable home away from home.
We have
both been to a quiz night as members of the Nelson Pine "Pine Trees"
team; and let me tell you that if you think that Jan's competitive, he has
NOTHING on the Chief Engineer from Nelson Pine, Lew Solomon. We were all
allocated areas to study, assigned areas of expertise, etc etc... bit of a
forced route-march, really. However, I managed to answer some questions so I
didn't face the firing squad!
Tiffany
Venz is off to Europe. Jan & I went to her farewell party a couple of
weekends ago at Founders. We were feeling a bit granny-ish when we arrived and
had thought that we might go home early, but Tiff had a great crowd there &
we ended up staying for five or six hours... Jan was drinking radlers (shandy)
all night, made with the Founders beer, which is very fine stuff, I can tell
you. Their ginger beer is pretty nice too.
And
speaking of local produce, we have a new local Nelson restaurant called
Hopgood's. It specialises in local foods and beverages, and is absolutely
fabulous. This is the first restaurant here to aim for totally local supply.
One of the Boards I am on went there for our annual Board dinner; and Jan &
I had a whale of a time. Not only was the food superb, but the environment was
really relaxed. Hopgood's have even managed to find a local bubbly which is
very palatable indeed (Golden Bay's Petros).
We caught
up with Adam Saleem and Hui-Ping who were both in Nelson a couple of weekends
ago for brunch, with Jan & myself, Murray & Julie T & Magda. We had
a two hour catch-up which was supposed to be followed by wind-surfing for the
boys last weekend except Murray was ill so they had to cancel (Jan was very
disappointed).
Another
piece of news is that Julie T has passed her PCE2 exam for her Chartered
Accountancy qualification. She will be very happy to have this long year of
very hard work behind her!
We have
also been to the Chamber of Commerce's Christmas party out at the new Monaco
Hotel. This was a great event, held in a permanent marquée that the Hotel have
set up in their 'village green'. It's a lovely place.
On
Saturday night we were invited to a Christmas Party at Gary & Nicki's
place. We went, expecting to have a few of our common friends turn up, but none
of them did, so we made some more while we were there instead :-). We spent a
chunk of time talking to John & Melissa Van Gosliga who own a hair salon
which featured briefly on a recent doco about the weather. For the few seconds
that they were on screen, it took about 4 hours of production time at their
premises, talking about humidity and having a bad hair day! Jan also took the
opportunity to have a good talk to Ross Alexander who is the Sealord's
Engineering Manager (and a lovely bloke). I hadn't met Ross' wife Bronwyn
before, so it was nice to meet & talk with her.
We got
over to the land on Sunday to do a bit more firewood and check on the trees
(which are growing really well). We also moved the caravan into the shed to
keep it out of the worst of the weather. Next time we go we need to move the
outhouse, do some wood splitting and get back onto the gorse again, but that
will have to wait until next year. We have something on each weekend for the
next three weeks, so will have to wait to get back to the grubbing...
Uncle
Norman is doing really well after his surgery now. Initially he had memory
problems; he couldn't remember where he was or why he was there for a few days
until the anaesthetic wore off fully. However, the nurses had him on his feet
from day one and as a result he is now at home once more. His independence has
been dented slightly by having to accept meals-on-wheels, but he has consoled
himself with the thought that he only has to accept this outside help for a few
weeks (crikey, can I have meals-on-wheels?!).
Jan, my
Mother & I went to 'Wichteln' on December 6th for our conversational German
class. We all had to take some German food with us so I made Jan's mother's
Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte recipe (and it got hoovered by the attendees in
double-quick time).
Our
German classes have ended for the year, but my Mother is keen to keep meeting
twice a week to go over what we have done this year as our tutor wants us to go
into the Advanced class next year. I will need to learn a lot of grammar before
then.
And Drew
is still keeping on keeping on. She is still relatively normal, in no pain
& is enjoying life. You should see her leaping around like a loony when we
pick up the car keys... nothing like the excitement of "going in the
car"!
Alles
liebe & hugs
=======================
Tuesday
22nd Nov 2005
Hi Guys,
Well,
things have been very busy at our end.
At last
the stairwell has been plastered, sanded and repainted. I have rehung our
pictures and things look normal once more (at last!). Alongside all the
insurance work, we had one of the walls in the downstairs bedroom insulated and
re-lined, and the plasterer has finished that and sanded it back. I am half-way
through putting on the sealer coat, prior to the top coats going on.
I have
bought some test pots of paint and we have chosen a nice warm yellow (Resene
Sweet Corn). So this weekend we will go and buy a few litres of paint & we
will get started. After that, it's just a matter of new curtains, getting our
double bed back from Max & Karen & then we will be ready for visitors
once again (just in time for summer!).
It was
our first wedding anniversary on the weekend just gone, and we went away to a
friend's bach at Lake Rotoiti, which is about an hour south of Nelson. Jan had
never been there, so it was really nice to show him around the Lake - I have
lots of very happy memories of time spent there. We had a lovely weekend, and
did some useful work as well - planning what we would like to achieve for the
coming year as well as reviewing what we have managed to get done during the
past year. That was a very good process to go through, didn't take us long
& now we know where we are going for the next twelve months.
Jan's
ex-work colleague from Streats, Ieuan Attewell, is getting married this New
Year, so he held a blokes gathering in Queenstown a couple of weekends ago. Jan
went down to help him celebrate. They went gliding, lugeing (luging?) and
generally didn't get into too much trouble. Jan also managed to do a
loop-de-loop in the glider that he was most impressed with (I have posted the
mpeg clip to the website - click on the photo of Jan in the glider to download
the mpg to your PC to play it). Jan was jolly tired when he got home though, as
he shared a room with Mark Heath - and apparently Heathy snores! I did ask Jan
why he didn't put his earplugs in, and he said that it hadn't even occurred to
him...
The
weekend before that, we had the Chamber of Commerce Business Awards - a black
tie dinner. This was a great evening out as well. Our social calendar is
hotting up at the moment; we have a Quiz Night tomorrow night, a friend around
to dinner on Thursday night, the Board dinner for the Business Development
Company next Wednesday night, charter fishing AND a bon voyage party on
Saturday, the Chamber of Commerce Xmas Party on the Monday after, German
Wichteln on Tuesday and friend's Xmas party on the Saturday...
All in
all, we haven't gotten over to the land in a while. So we are hoping that we
can get some of the painting ticked off at home this Saturday and get over to
the land on Sunday. But we will see how things go & decide on the day.
Adam
Saleem is in Nelson for a few weeks so it will be good to catch up with him for
a bit of a chat on how things have been for him in the past year - particularly
since he was in the Maldives during the Boxing Day Tsunami.
Tessa is
half-way through her exams. Hopefully she will do OK, but no-one will really
know until the results come out in January, as usual!
My Uncle
Norman is going back into hospital once more; they have found room on the list
to do his hip replacement. So, poor man, having just recovered from his
successful pacemaker wiring surgery, just after having recovered from his
successful pacemaker replacement surgery, he gets to hopefully recover well
from his hip surgery! Fingers crossed anyway. He goes in on the 28th of
November.
Hartmut's
wife Uta is going well post-pneumonia, so that's brilliant. They are heading
away to Australia for a nice warm Christmas, which will hopefully do them both
a lot of good.
Everyone
in the family is keeping busy. My Mother & I are going to conversational
German classes together, and she is doing very well. The German grammar etc
that she did at school has stayed with her and that knowledge makes it much
easier for her to form sentences. I really need a good grounding in grammar as
well, but the classes we can take here don't address that (and if I have to do
it on my own, I lack the discipline to do it). I am far better at getting the
work done if I can do it interactively. But I will continue trying... every new
word or concept I can add helps.
Well, our
old dog, Drew is still surprising the vets. She still appears relatively
normal, still isn't in any pain & is enjoying life. We will continue to
play things by ear... but perhaps we won't be losing her too soon. So while we
are going to get another puppy, we will leave getting another until Drew goes.
Three dogs would be too many for us.
Replies
in brief:
Pat & Marjie: wow, Isla & Mhairi have grown so much! And glad to
hear that they are both well again. Hope to see you sometime soon
Warren & Trace: looking forward to seeing you at New Year
Jenny, Megs & Bertie: a get-together while we are all in Nelson close
to New Year? We will be in Nelson from the 29th onward & it looks as though
Warren & Trace might get over our way as well
Justine: Happy birthday, baby! Hope you had a lovely day :-)
Steph: Will check out the motel etc & get back to you on what we
think
Andreas & Katrin: Vielen Dank - die Pullmol Dosen sicher angekommen
Eberhard & Uta: We have bought ourselves a wedding present using your
$; sechs schöne Arzberg teetassen und untertassen, und eine Edelstahl
thermosteekanne. Herzlichen Dank! Hope both Oma Lieselotte & Oma Friedel
are still keeping well
Well, I
had better get to bed. Take care all.
=======================
Wednesday
2nd Nov 2005
Hi Guys,
Hope you
are all coping with the ramp up to the Silly Season!
We
flambéed our gorse piles at the land, with our fire permit in one hand and our
hose in the other; a very successful burn, if I might say so myself. Since then
we have been at the land every weekend, grubbing, slashing, brush cutting and
spraying. I think that at last the rate of gorse growth is slowing, and we
might be able to take things a bit easier shortly... but I do enjoy, after a
week of driving a desk, being able to wander about at the land with my grubber,
dealing physical death & destruction to gorse seedlings!
We have
the plasterer here today, doing a superb job of getting the walls ready for
repainting. He is amazingly economical in his work; that ease of motion is a
wonderful gift (he probably wouldn't like grubbing though!). Then, though the
hall will be painted, Jan & I will be painting the - now vacant -
downstairs bedroom.
And why
is the downstairs bedroom vacant, I hear you all ask? Because Tessa is now
living with my brother Mike. We decided, after finding out that she had been
absent from school for 45 classes while we were in Europe (two weeks of school,
nearly!), that she didn't really want to be at school. And as a result, we felt
that she could leave school after her exams & get (a) a job and (b) a flat.
However, my brother Mike & his partner Donna put up their hands to take her
at their place to carry on through to the seventh form, next year. So rather
than leave her in limbo at our place, we officially moved her to Mike's place
two weeks ago.
It feels
like a failure in many ways, and I have to remind myself that we have helped
her to achieve some things that she wouldn't have achieved otherwise - she has
passed NCEA Level 1 & 2, which means that she could go to a Polytech, get
into the Armed Forces or be accepted for a Trade right now; and she has
represented her school twice in regional competitions and twice in National
competitions, and represented the South Island twice in National competitions.
She has her learner's driver's licence, has sat a baby-sitting course and has
done a referees course. She is also likely to hear in the next couple of days
if she has been awarded her sports "Colours" at Nelson College for
her commitment to Underwater Hockey. All achievements that are not to be sneezed
at.
My Uncle
Norman is back from Wellington after a successful surgery, and recovering
slowly at home. The surgeons had told him that his recovery would take a good
six weeks, and to take things easy. He seems to be following the advice he has
been given, so that's good. Hartmut's wife Uta is also recovering well
from pneumonia - and without antibiotics - so that's good too. Everyone else
seems to be in pretty robust health at the moment - long may it continue!
Drew -
our older dog - is surprising the vets, as they thought that she would have
gone downhill quite quickly. She appears relatively normal, despite her blood
work being pretty bad. She still isn't in any pain & is obviously enjoying
life. We will continue to play things by ear. But we have made the decision to
place an order with a boxer breeder for another puppy, so I guess that means
that we won't be moving off-shore in the next decade.
Right,
well I had better carry on with my work.
=======================
Wednesday
12th Oct 2005
Hi Guys,
Hope all
is well with you & your families.
Plumbing
is all nearly up to snuff once more: we have replaced all the piping downstream
of the leak, but have yet to replace the laundry piping (waiting for the
plumber). The builder has been & cut a hole in the laundry floor so that
the plumber can do the replacement... so for the moment we there is a only set
of fold-out steps preventing a midnight plunge into the unknown when letting
the dogs out! However, the wall linings are back on downstairs and we are now
only awaiting the gib-stoppers and the painters to get that back to normal.
Underwater
Hockey has finished for the year so we now have our weekends to ourselves
again. So just when we have some time to relax, Jan has got immensely keen on
gorse control. We have been out at the land every weekend hacking away at the
new growth & making piles which Jan plans to flambé. He has applied for and
received his fire permit so the ceremonial burning is going to take place this
weekend. I had better go & buy some marshmallows!
My Uncle
Norman is in Wellington Hospital today having surgery to properly fit his
replacement pacemaker/defibrulator. Hopefully the surgery will go well and he
will be able to come home soon. My Mother is there with him - staying with Tina
& Jeremy - and making sure that he doesn't upset the nurses too much :-)
Our dog
Drew is not so well - the vet suspects early stages of liver failure. We are
treating her with drugs at the moment & will see how she goes. She isn't in
any pain at present & I guess we will deal with that when it arises. She
will be twelve in January though, so she is already a pretty good age.
Tessa has
passed her Level 2 NCEA (Year 12), so all that she gains in the external exams
are a bonus from this point. She did miss a couple of units in her mock exams
(cells in Biology and algebra in Maths) so she knows what she needs to work on.
Her Maths teacher this year is very good, running a weekly lunchtime tutorial
for those who need extra work.
We had a
great weekend in Christchurch at Meg's place & caught up with nearly
everyone. I am currently investigating a couple of places big enough to fit all
of us for the 2006 mid-winter Christmas so will get back to you when I have
some details.
DJ & Dilani: Jan called around at Tosswill Road on Saturday night on
the offchance and managed to pick up the postcard - thanks. And please change
your address books to read "32 Montrose Drive, Atawhai, Nelson"!
Eric: I have compiled some CDs for you & they will be posted in a
couple of days. Enjoy!
Eberhard & Uta: Is Oma Friedel is doing OK?
Oli: Have you received back-ups in the post? If they play OK, we will
write some more, so let us know
Right,
well I had better get on with some work.
=======================
Monday
19th Sep 2005
Hi Guys,
We are
all relatively well here, in Kiwiland again with noses back to the grindstone!
Jan &
I have been trying hard to get into the swing of things - we arrived home to
find the plumbing had sprung a leak while we were away... Jan spent the first
three hours back in Nelson ripping the gibraltar board off the walls and
tracking the leaks.
We think
we have it all under control now (two weeks later!) after three plumbers
visits; having the drying company in with all their industrial drying equipment,
blowers and dehumidifiers; and having had the insurance assessor through. Phew.
Now that the walls are dry enough to re-line, we now only have to wait for the
builders, the plaster, and the painters! Oh - and the next lot of plumbers, who
are going to replace the last of the old plastic pipe while the wall linings
are off so that this can't happen again...
Our trip
was fine - no accidents, losses, missed flights or other disasters. London was
great fun thanks to Justine & Gareth's personalised tours - and going to
the Globe to see Pericles was fabulous! However, I got a cold on day five in
the UK that had me laid up at DJ & Dilani's place in bed (how much of
Oxford did I see? None. And what a horrible grumpy guest for Murray & Leigh
& DJ & Dilani to have to put up with!). I was toast. And I still have
the cold & sore throat.
So
enthusiasm was not high for anything much in Germany because of the cold. But
we had a schedule to keep to - according to my husband! - so we did all that we
were supposed to. We met all the relatives who were about in Germany, which was
great. I now have the faces and personalities to go with the names that have
become so familiar. And we got fed like pâté geese - wow, these German
relatives of Jan's certainly know how to have their cake and eat it too!
Unfortunately,
my ability to speak German is still abysmal (never mind, the conversational
classes start again soon). Not that it really mattered as everyone was very
good at ensuring I understood what was going on.
The time
that we had at the lake house at Edersee was far too short - we effectively
only had three days as we went to Besse, Celle and Kassel during our
"week" at the lake. Next time (yes, we are planning a next time
already) we will aim for 10 uninterrupted days at Edersee - providing the
Schütte's bookings allow.
Singapore
on the way home was great because (a) we had a four hour stop-over and used the
time to swim in the Transit Hotel pool and (b) we flew the leg from Singapore
to Auckland Business Class. They had a yummy dessert wine on the plane - a
Montana Virtu Noble Semillion which was just lovely.
The main
highlights for me were Pericles; the Langen Foundation's Museum Insel Hombroich
near Neuss (a German textile magnate's art, music, poetry and architecture collection
set in about 20 Ha); and getting upgraded to Business Class!
Re Tessa
- she has just completed Year 12 mock exams. We will see how she goes in those
to see what she needs to concentrate on for the remaining two months of the
school year. And the Girls' & Boys' UWH teams both placed 8th in the
competition - two placings worse than last year. However, they are both young
teams, and next year should be much better.
Beth & Rob: Congrats on the land purchase! Alles Gut Glückwünsche!
Justine & Gareth: Hope all is going well on the new job front. Thanks
for the guided tours and the special places of interest
Susie & Peter: Thanks for having us - really great to meet Jo &
Steve. Next time for a bit of sailing, perhaps?!
DJ & Dilani, Murray & Leigh: We will come back & visit Oxford
again. This time JAN can get sick & I will come & see everything!
Simone & Michael: Thanks for picking us up, and the inhalator! I
bought one at the Apoteke and it is now safely in our bathroom ready for the next
time!
Andreas & Katrin: Thanks for all that you organised for us with the
rental car & getting us to Frankfurt! And the pump spray bottle was
fantastic on the plane. I sprayed my face throughout the flight and it was just
what I needed
Eric: I have decided to compile & write some CDs for you. I hope to
do that in the next couple of weeks - hope that's OK!
Eberhard & Uta: Danke, Danke, Danke for your hospitality, your cake
and your driving! There is nothing like having a rental car & not having to
drive it! Lovely photo of Oma Lieselotte with both of us - thanks for posting
it (and please give her our best wishes). Hope Oma Friedel is doing OK - and
can you please give her our regards when you see her
Oli: Thanks for your time, the interesting range of entertainment and the
back-ups... there will be a few back-ups coming to you in the post shortly!
Thomas: A thousand thanks for the use of your lake house - it was
fabulous - next time we would like a bit longer! :-)
Gerhard: Sorry our time together was so short - hope you enjoyed your
viticultural holiday
Ruth: lovely to meet both you & Peter. And thank you once again for
your kind gifts
Dieter & Gudrun: Great to meet you both and hope you enjoy your trip
to China - what an experience that will be!
Anne & Herbert: Great to meet you, fantastic lunch (recipe remembered
& will be tried here in NZ shortly!) & lovely afternoon in the garden.
Tessa's tongue stud is gone & we hope to see her health improve soon
Heidi: Time was too short but we hope you had a wonderful time in San
Torini
Right,
well I had better get on with things. Thanks to all of you who have emailed us
your news :-)
=======================
Tuesday
19th July 2005
Hi Guys,
We are
all well here.
Jan &
I have been busy trying to organise the UWH kids trip away to Auckland, getting
coaching cover and trying to ensure there are enough supplies in the house so
that everything goes smoothly while we are away.
We went
out to the Ladley's on the weekend & got more firewood - some for
fundraising for the UWH Nationals trip, some to top up our supplies as my
mother finds our house cold. So, seeing as my mother will be here for three of
the five weeks that we are away, we thought we were best to ensure that there's
plenty of fuel for the fire.
Jan is
also working hard, to get all his projects and maintenance work handed over for
baby-sitting while we are away in Europe. He is not taking a phone or laptop
away with him to Europe (yay!), though he is planning on spending a day at
Dieffenbacher - machinery supplier - in Eppingen while we are there.
I have
been investigating global texting on my cellphone, and finally decided not to
bother, and go phone-less. However, if anyone needs to get hold of us urgently,
both our mothers will have our itinerary & contact numbers.
Tessa has
been working flat out at Briscoes for the holidays to save money. She needs to
earn some cash because she has applied for a place at the Underwater Hockey
Under 19 Training Academy, which will cost $2,500 all up if she gets in. We
have said we are very happy for her to try for a place, and it will be good for
her skill development in the game. However, to be allowed to go, she has been
told that she needs to (a) ensure that she passes all NCEA credits - if she
fails one, she is not allowed to go and (b) that she contributes some of the
cost. So she is working hard. Good on her.
And our
Europe itinerary for July-August is:
1 - 7 Aug: UK (Auckland-Singapore-Frankfurt-London-Chelmsford-London-Oxford-Devon-London)
7 - 31 Aug: Germany
(Frankfurt-Langern-Eppingen-Ulm-Krefeld-Hannover-Gießen-Treysa-Edersee-Treysa-Gießen-Frankfurt-Singapore-Auckland).
And our
trip to Germany & the UK's not far off now - less than a fortnight to go.
So I guess that means that I had better get on with organising my work, so that
I am ready to go too!!
=======================
Tuesday
28th June 2005
Hi Guys,
A very
short catch up this time.
We had a
great - if cold - weekend in Wllg, with a lovely lunch on Saturday, Opera
Saturday night and a great brunch at Tina's on Sunday morning. Otto & Lara
have grown heaps - with Otto now being in tooth-birthing mode.
We got
back to Nelson on lovely warm Sunday afternoon, and clicked straight into
organisation mode for the Schools' UWH Nationals and the players who want to
try to get into the U19 Academy. I am currently writing letters for team
Nationals sponsorship and support letters for the players wanting to attend
Academy.
The rest
of our time this month will be spent in organising fundraising, running &
organising ref's & coaching courses, meeting with parents & players,
getting chaperones, planning travel routes, confirming accommodation, rental
vans & flights and trying for some funding from the dried-up Pub Charities.
Jan's
arthritis appears to be on hold at the moment - no improvement, no
deterioration. I am still working on rehabbing my shoulder - the exercises
continue and improvement is being felt (I have had my mutilation with Anne
Macann already this week). Apparently, according to Anne, we are the only
animal whose balance is governed by our necks as well as our inner ears. So the
fact that my tennis has improved is understandable, but is all the more
interesting as I am right-handed and the problem resides in my left shoulder.
And our
Europe itinerary at this stage for July-August is:
1 - 7 Aug: UK
(Auckland-Singapore-Frankfurt-London-Chelmsford-London-Oxford-London)
7 - 31 Aug: Germany
(Frankfurt-Langern-Eppingen-Ulm-Krefeld-Hannover-Gießen-Treysa-Edersee-Treysa-Gießen-Frankfurt-Singapore-Auckland).
NB: this
could all change yet again!
Notes:
Big congrats to Adam & Lisa who now have a brand-new baby brother
Toby for Louis
Looking forward to seeing DJ, Dilani, Murray & Leigh in Oxford on Friday
6th August - thanks guys for organising everything & taking time off work
to see us
Thanks Justine for taking a week off work to play with us - we will make
sure that you have plenty of time to play with Gareth too!!
Susan & Peter Robinson - can you get in touch asap please & let
us know if Weds August 3rd will suit you at your place or not??
Well, I
had better get on & do some work. Take care
=======================
Wednesday
15th June 2005
Hi Guys,
Well -
things have been frantic this past four weeks and I haven't had two seconds to
call my own.
Aside
from work, we have had Tessa's 17th birthday party, Jan has been doing a Day
Skipper's course, I have been going to a German conversational group (at which
I hardly say anything because my sentence construction is so painfully slow!),
we been doing some long overdue work & pruning in the garden, have been
organising the two UWH teams to go to Christchurch and taking them down...
Speaking
of the UWH teams - they went to the Regional Champs in Chch, and we expected
both teams to lose quite badly (this was a realistic expectation as there are a
number of new players this year in both the boys' and the girls' teams). And
Jan & I were also hoping that they would lose, because the Nationals are on
in Auckland while we are in Europe.
Well,
both teams qualified, didn't they. Both came second in their competitions. The
boys' team did particularly well as they very nearly won their competition -
the final against James Hargest High School from Invercargill was a draw at
full time; going into extra time for a decider to be scored. Play went back
& forth from goalmouth to goalmouth until the opposition just pipped them
(exciting!). Very, very closely fought. Jan thinks that the Nelson College boys
will beat them at the Nationals as the boys' team's newbies will get better,
but James Hargest are all seasoned players already.
So. Now
we are having to frantically organise everything for the teams for the
Nationals so that everything is ready before we go away. Like finding out who
can afford $600 per person, trying to find sponsorship, organising fundraising
efforts, getting our assistant coaches to get their qualifications so they are
legal to take the teams up, a ref's course (as we have to supply refs for the
games & we are now a ref - Jan - down), parents to go as chaperones, plan
travel routes, book accommodation that is going to be close enough to keep
travel to a minimum, rental vans & flights...
And on
top of that, all the players who qualified for Nationals have been invited to
attend the NZ UWH Academy, and have to put in applications within the next two
weeks. There is a flurry of interest in that, and Tessa is very keen to go (a
cost of $2,500 all up with all the lead-up regional and national events that
she has to attend, complete her ref's course, get her passport, apply, get
accepted, pay for the course). So, so much for things slowing down.
I went to
my doctor early in the year & complained of a stiff shoulder - I couldn't
lift my arm that far up behind my back & my upper arm felt like it was
burning often. He seemed to think that my mobility wasn't that awful & not
to worry about it, but take breaks more regularly from work. So I got a
programme on my PC which very annoyingly locks me out of it every five mins for
ten seconds and every hour for seven minutes. This has helped, but not fixed
the problem.
So I went
to my chiropractor. And while I was getting a bit better, I was still not quite
right. Then I went to see a rehab colleague of mine who is a physio &
acupuncturist. She said that the muscle under my left shoulder blade is causing
the problem and has given my some incredibly painful exercises to do and is
mutilating me every week with the most excruciating probing through my armpit.
I see spots (at least it's not dead people!). And at last it is easing and I am
starting to be able to get my arm up behind my back once more. Interestingly,
my neck is now feeling much better as well. The neck bone is connected to the
shoulder bone... :-)
Work is
also really busy at the moment for both of us. But that's OK - we haven't got
time to worry about what we are going to do on holiday, so perhaps that's a
good thing - we won't be organised at all!
Don't
forget our Wllg midday lunch is on Saturday at the Screaming Turtle Cafe in
Petone, on Jackson Street. Hope to see lots of you there.
And our
Europe itinerary for July-September:
30 July - 7 Aug: UK
(Auckland-LA-Frankfurt-London-Oxford-London-Rayleigh-London)
7 Aug - 1 Sep: Germany (Frankfurt-Langern-Eppingen-Ulm-blank-blank-blank-blank-blank-blank-blank-blank-Frankfurt-San
Francisco-Auckland). Because so many of the people we were going to see are now
going to be away (Gerhard, Eberhard, Rainer & Regina) we now have no idea
where we are going to and have had no time to think about it yet. Maybe this
weekend...
Well, I
had better get on & do some work. Take care
=======================
Tuesday
17th May 2005
Wow, it's
getting cold out now - we have had the fire on this week. I suppose we shouldn't
be too surprised: it is May, after all.
Today is
Tessa's 17th birthday, so we are having a family dinner here at home. That's
kept me very busy today - organising food for 12 while trying to work flat out
(things are crazy at the moment). I keep hoping for two seconds to catch my
breath, but haven't had time to do that in the past couple of weeks. However, I
am sure it will all level off soon, and then I will be complaining about not
having enough on!
Jan
competed in the "Blokes Day Out" Triathlon on Sunday. There is a
Nelson Women's Triathlon each year, and this year the guys decided that they
needed one (and I agree - if you are going to have this type of
gender-exclusive event, then it needs to go both ways. Sauce for the goose
& all that).
So Jan,
Max, Murray & Andrew entered as individuals, but aimed to go together.
However, Murray played "gunna" yet again and scratched on Sunday
morning, so it was just Andrew, Max & Jan who fronted up on Sunday. Max had
entered as a walker to keep Jan company, and they did a very respectable time -
third & fourth in their age group and tenth & thirteen equal overall in
the walking section. And it was a GREAT day out.
And aside
from handling the extra gear, towels and togs, I wielded the camera and
organised the picnic. Karen & Jennie were playing soccer and Jules was in
Wllg doing PAS - her CA coursework, but we picnicked well anyway. Jan & I
were the only ones who went along to the prizegiving, and of course, both Max
& Andrew got called out for great spot prizes which we couldn't collect on
their behalf. And Jan won a towel, anyway.
Jan's
keen to do it again next year, so that's good. And he's not suffering too many
after effects yesterday and today, either.
So what
else is on the boil? Ah, our Wllg trip dates have been confirmed, we are now
coming on June 24, getting in at 7.05pm. For our en masse for midday lunch on
Saturday, we will be at the Screaming Turtle Cafe in Petone, on Jackson Street,
so please feel free to rock up and join us for some good conversation, for as
long as you've got!!
Karen,
Jan & I are seeing Don Giovanni on the Saturday night. We would like to
catch up with family on Sunday morning as we need to be at the airport at 1.30
- Tina, can you organise something?
Aside
from getting 20 Nelson teenagers organised, paid up and geared up for the South
Island Underwater Hockey regional finals in Christchurch (which is like trying
to herd cats anyway), we haven't really been doing that much else.
We did
hear about some people through some friends of friends who were in a very bad
way financially so we went & got them some firewood to help them out a
bit... and Jan has been making some UWH sticks for the kids (thanks for the
loan of the bandsaw, Harmut!) - and look, see, back to UWH again already. And
we have decided that the kids are going to raffle some trailer-loads of
firewood outside Warehouse as a fundraiser to help pay for the trip to
regionals.
Apparently
the pub charities have dried up hugely this year - the excuse is that the
smokers are staying away in droves. Having been out myself a few times this
year now that the smoke isn't rampant, I would take issue with that. I rather
suspect that think the pubs, via the pub charities, are stretching the truth -
or telling porkies - to try & put pressure on the government to revoke the
non-smoking legislation. But hey, that's me!
And we
have given up on that lot of tree-fellers. We have talked to my friend Erik's
father & he is going to see if he can come up with some other options for
us.
And a
reminder re our Europe itinerary for July-September:
30 July - 7 Aug: UK
(Auckland-LA-Frankfurt-London-Oxford-London-Rayleigh-London)
7 Aug - 1 Sep: Germany
(Frankfurt-Langern-Eppingen-Schwarzwald-Ulm-Gießen-Treyse-Edersee-Celle-Treyse-Frankfurt-San
Francisco-Auckland).
Well, I
had better get on & do some work. Take care
=======================
Tuesday
26th April 2005
Hope you
all had a great Anzac weekend - we stewed apples & made green tomato
chutney!
Last
night we also had my old school compadré, Dii Moffatt-Valance, around for
dinner with her family. She has been in Nelson with her husband Andrew and
their two short people, Rose & Carl, for part of the holidays. Nick &
Gary came for dinner as well with their two, and Suze came around for the
conversation & wine. We had a great catch up and a highly entertaining
evening. Here's to many more of the same... it never fails to amaze me how
diverse and interesting our individual paths have been.
We had a
great Saturday night in Chch the weekend before last, catching up with Paul T,
Jenny, Marjie, Bertie and Dan. We also met Susan, Paul's new girlfriend (who is
really nice). Had a cruisy afternoon at Megs when we arrived & after we
picked up the bandsaw that we were getting for Hartmut. On Sunday we had brunch
with Yi & Paula before heading off home. Relatively quiet trip both ways,
aside from Jan getting an $80 speeding ticket on Tahunanui Dr at 6.20 on
Saturday morning on our way out. Ouch.
And the
weekend before that, we went to the land for the weekend. Chainsawed 1/2 a cord
of trees into rounds & stored them in the shed, dug a trench around the
shed to (a) keep the damp from the bottom of the long-run and (b) to drain
rainwater away so it doesn't pool in the shed. We also met the neighbour, Lyn
Redden, at long last. He seems like an OK guy. Grubbed the building site free
of gorse. Sprayed the gorse around the banked edges of the building site. Ran
another 5 kg of grass seed over the top of the basin (Jan bought a new seeder
so I can do it). And the grass that we sowed is coming up - we are patchy
verdant green! Yay! Very exciting.
And we
still haven't seen any tree-fellers yet. Dunno when they are going to get their
act together...
And we
have finally put together our Europe itinerary for July-August:
31 July - 7 Aug: UK
(Auckland-LA-Frankfurt-London-Oxford-London-Rayleigh-London)
7 Aug - 1 Sep: Germany (Frankfurt-Langern-Eppingen-Schwarzwald-Bad
Dürrheim-Ulm-Gießen-Treise-Edersee-Celle-Treise-Frankfurt-San
Francisco-Auckland).
And I have
had an interesting day a couple of weeks ago. I (a) left my backpack behind
when I had lunch with my Mum (b) went back to get it 2 mins later and it had
gone (c) the girl (Susan) who was now in the seat that my Mum & I were
having lunch in had seen who had taken it so (d) the girl in our seat & I
hotfooted it off to the Police Station and (e) while we were waiting for Jan to
come after filling in all the reports saw the guys who had taken it bringing it
in minus the cash and (c) the police put the squeeze on the guys who handed it
in and got the cash back as well!
Amazing
to get away with nothing missing. However, I had already cancelled my credit
cards etc while running to the police station with Susan, using her phone, so i
am still without plastic, but that's no biggie.
I bought
the police a big box of Rosy Glow as a thank you for leaning on the culprits,
and Susan a big Rosy Glow gift pack for being so helpful (well, Jan paid for it
as my plastic was cancelled). So all's well that ends well.
Our Wllg
trip dates have changed. We are now coming on June 24-25-26; we are seeing Don
Giovanni on the Saturday night, will spend time with family on Sunday morning,
but would like to catch up with everyone else en masse for lunch on Saturday...
anyone got any ideas where we can to get together? Let me know.
Well, I
had better get on & do some work. Will catch up with you Wllg people in a
couple of months. Take care
=======================
Tuesday
5th April 2005
Hope you
are all well - we have been pretty fine & dandy of late. And busy!
At Easter
Jan & I finally managed to organise ourselves with a free and fine Saturday
afternoon to take in my birthday present from Jan (2003 birthday, that is); a
horse trek with Stonehurst Farms. We had a great afternoon with Stonehurst (not
to mention sore backsides for the next couple of days). We would firmly
recommend them; they matched the horses to the people really well and were safe
but didn't wrap you in cotton wool. A good day out.
Saturday
evening, Warren & Tracey arrived from Blenheim where they had been
officiating (Trace was best woman) at a wedding. They were only with us for an
overnight stay as they had to be back for a BBQ in Blenheim on the Sunday. So
we organised a dinner out at Spices (that Malaysian restaurant again!) with us,
them, Max & Karen, and Andrew & Jennie Ricciardi. We had a great night
out & then had brunch at ours on Sunday morning.
We were
intending to have an Easter Egg Hunt on the Sunday, but there were some early
morning showers which lasted until about 7am so it was a bit too damp out to
try & find (what would be) dissolving chocolate eggs! But we had a good
morning anyway. And ate too much chocolate.
We took
Warren & Tracey over to the land after brunch so they could see what we
have done since we have had it (they saw it when we first bought it, with no
improvements); and then it was time for them to go back to Blenheim. It was
great to see them - if briefly.
Then on
Easter Monday we went to the land bright & early to check all the survey
points with the surveyor (so the forestry contractor knows where to start the
felling - hopefully before winter). We had a picnic with Max, Karen, Andrew,
Jennie and our surveyor; and ate some of the 'too many' Easter eggs we had
left. I smuggled the last of them into Andrew & Jennie's car - which
hopefully they found before the eggs went runny in the heat!
We have
just had a great weekend with Karen Trotter down here for my birthday.... Jan
& I, after Underwater Hockey on Friday night, managed to have a quiet
dinner for two at Oceano, one of the restaurants in the local Heritage Hotel
(the Rutherford). It was very nice too, I might add. Mmm; risotto with crayfish
and prawns. And I should add that we left Karen at home with the dogs!
Excellent hosts, aren't we!
Then on
Saturday, Jan, Karen & I went on a boutique brewery tour to farewell Jan's
just-ex-boss Rick Herd, followed up by an Indian in the evening at Little India
(not very impressed by the food, but still we all managed to eat too much
anyway!). 'The Natural Brewery Tour' is run by JJs Tours and was really good
fun. Only $65 a head and was light-hearted and informative. I would definitely
go again.
Then on
Sunday we had a lunchtime BBQ at home. Lots of people, lots of talk, lots of
jokes, the sun was full on and it was just a lovely day. We have been living on
the leftovers since... though I might have to cook something tonight as I think
we have only salad left!
This
weekend coming we have a couple of days work at the land planned...
<sigh>. Sowing more grass seed, grubbing some gorse, cutting up some more
rounds of the wind throw pines to store in the shed for next winter's firewood.
Gotta be good for you, eh?!
We will
be coming down to Chch for a quick overnight on the Saturday 16th of April,
dropping Tessa off to a school-friend of hers for the first week of the
holidays and picking up a bandsaw for Hartmut. We will be returning to Nelson
early on Sunday 17th as Jan is coaching UWH on Sunday evening. We are staying
with Megs, but she is out on Saturday night, so... Paul, I want to see your
lobster, baby! So can we organise a pot-luck dinner at your place?
We are
coming to Wllg on June 10-12; we are seeing a show at Te Papa on the Saturday
night, will spend time with family on Sunday morning, but would like to catch
up with everyone else en masse for lunch on Saturday... anyone got any ideas
where we can to get together? Let me know.
After
those two tiny trips, our next time away will be the big one to UK/Germany in
August.
Well, I
had better get on & do some work. Will catch up with you Chch people in a
few days, & Wllg in a couple of months.
=======================
Tuesday
15th March 2005
Hi Guys,
Hope you
are all well - we seem to be managing to keep things together at this end!
However, Jan is finding his arthritis is playing up once more, so I guess we
will start the specialist round again.
We went
& visited the Ladleys out in 88 Valley a couple of weeks ago as Jenny was
up from Chch again. It was great to catch up a bit... but unfortunately we
decided to get some firewood & I managed to get some wood fibres in my eye.
So, after giving up after a good try on washing it out, we went off to
A&E where - after a relatively short wait of a bit over an hour - I managed
to get two bits out of my eye and the two doctors seeing me managed to get one
tiny speck out. I also had a nice millimetre square punch mark on the white of
my eye which has healed up very nicely. You see, you can have lots of
excitement in getting firewood!
Things
are busy at the land at the mo, with (a) being disked & harrowed and (b)
having the trees felled. The forestry contractor rang up at last & said he
could fit in the felling before winter. So Jan thought we might as well get on
with it. The sooner we get it clear, the sooner we can replant with some decent
trees.
We went
to the Rugby on Saturday - the Crusaders playing the Queensland Reds... and it
was a VERY uneven game. I was glad I had taken my book along to keep me amused
:-)
We also
have had a lovely farewell dinner on Saturday night for Timo from Dieffenbacher
in Eppingen who has been at Nelson Pine for three weeks working on projects. We
went to Spices which was really nice - a Malaysian restaurant which is very
pleasant.
We have a
couple of very full on weekends, then some free time later in April. We are
expecting to catch up with Warren & Tracey at Easter and Karen Trotter on
my birthday.... a boutique brewery tour, are out for an Indian, have a quiet
dinner for two, a BBQ; oh, and a few days work at the land... <sigh>
Tessa is
still doing well at school; she has been voted as her class liaison person for
the Student Council and has so far had two merits in her subjects. Her driving
lessons are going well with the instructor, though Jan has not had time to take
her out to practice much as yet.
Once
more, congrats to Hui-Ping who now OWNS a house - check out her purchase by
going to www.open2view.co.nz and searching for reference number 99842.
Well,
that's all for now; I had better get on & do some work. Will catch up with
you all again soon, I hope.
=======================
Tuesday
22nd February 2005
Hi Guys,
Hope you
are all well and enjoying the run up to the change of season (regardless of
your hemisphere).
We
haven't been doing much of late aside from socialising (but doing it damned
well, I say!). We have had Karen down from Wellington for four days, Hui-Ping
here the previous weekend & Wendy Saunders the weekend before that. Ahh -
what a fabulous excuse it was for all those lovely brunches!
I have
been back to my doctor and am indeed on drugs; half a tablet of the least
side-effect ridden medication (Cilazapril, I think it's called). So far things
appear to be just fine & dandy; I have no headaches and have got good
energy levels once more. Yay!
We have
booked our holiday to Germany at last. We are leaving NZ @ 7.45pm on July 30th
- via LA - arriving Frankfurt 31 July @ 10.35am. Leaving Frankfurt for London @
3.25pm, arriving Heathrow Terminal 2 @ 4pm. That's Sunday, July 31st.
We are
planning on being in London for a week, then returning to Frankfurt on Sunday
7th August @ 12.40pm for three & a bit weeks in Germany before flying back
to Kiwiland - via Singapore - on August 30th.
We have
emailed most of you in the UK about our travel plans, but if I have missed
anyone, if you can get up/down/over to London to catch up with us while we are
there, that would be great. We are staying in London for pretty much the whole
week, only going down to Rayleigh to see some of my rellies for an overnight somewhere
around Wednesday August 3rd (we hope).
Jan
hasn't organised what we are going to be doing in Germany, yet. However, once
we have t-ed up our itinerary, we will be in touch with all the German
contingent asap to make sure we can catch up with you all.
Tessa is
going well back at school; she appears to be doing all her homework on time and
has so far managed to get her assignments in a day early. Long may that trend
continue, as the workload will ramp up for her this year. Tomorrow she has her
first driving lesson with a professional instructor, which will be
entertaining; not quite sure who will be more entertained though...
Jan's new
car is continuing to prove much more exciting than his old car. As we are
keeping his old car for Tessa to take to Varsity, to keep it running well he
was going to take it for a run to work each week. Thus far it has only been out
on the weekends when I have reminded him that we need to run it!
And
congrats to Hui-Ping who may just have bought a house in Wllg - check out her
purchase at www.open2view.com/viewimg.php?propid=99842&imgNo=1&referer=
That's
about all for now - catch up with you soon
=======================
Tuesday
3rd February
Hi Guys,
Hope the
second month of the new year finds you all fit & well.
Jan has
been undergoing a new drug trial for his arthritis which, six weeks in, doesn't
really appear to be working particularly. So we will be traipsing off to the
Rheumatologist again to see (a) what to up the dosage to and (b) discuss the
next lot of drugs to try in the event of the next six weeks bringing no change.
I have
been to the doctor as well - but for high blood pressure. The BP readings were
picked up on my annual check up in October, so I have had to go back every
couple of weeks for another check. I had no symptoms initially, but now am
starting to feel like I have a really sore upper neck (atlas & axis) &
think that might be the headaches that the doctor warned me to look out for. I
am going back next week to see him again and will probably have to go on some
sort of medication. I am not at all happy about that... but this is a problem
that both my parents struck in their late thirties; I have tried to ensure that
both my diet and exercise are sound, but that hasn't really made any
difference. Heredity, eh?!
Tessa
starts school tomorrow & has confirmed all her subjects. She has also
passed her learner driver's licence test and will start lessons this term. She
has started to learn Karate, which I think will be good for her, and is
continuing with Underwater Hockey. I think she will find this year pretty full
on, but hopefully, now that she has caught up, the hard yards are behind us
all.
The Adam
Chamber Music Festival has been going for the past two weeks in town, which has
been fabulous. We have been to four concerts so far; 'Viva!' Nelson's
very classy Chamber Orchestra with the members of the NZ String Quartet (Helene
Pohl, Douglass Beilman, Gillian Ansell and Rolf Gjelsten); 'Classy Brass'
presented by NZChamberBrass - just fantastic; 'Packed with Power' which had too
much 'plinky-plink' music for me and nowhere near enough power!; 'Visions of
Foreign Lands' listening to Nabuko Imai on Viola and Deidre Irons on piano. We
still have 'Sizzling Strings' to come on Wednesday, and then Crescendo on
Saturday night with the NZ Sting Quartet, Nabuko Imai, Christoph Richter and
Viva's Martin & Victoria Jaenecke. Should be great.
We have
also been having the Foreign Film Festival on and went to see 'Goodbye Lenin'
this past weekend. This was a fab film and we would both firmly recommend it to
anyone.
Andrew
& Jennie arrived a touch over a week ago from the US of A to live in
Kiwiland - at last! Andrew got a job at Waimea College in the Math Department,
so all is now go. They are staying with Max & Karen while they get
themselves sorted out with buying a house. They have bought a car already so
are mobile. We went to their 'Welcome to Nelson party' at Max & Karen's the
weekend before last and then this weekend just gone we had a picnic at Queen's
Gardens with them on Sunday morning, which was really great. Ella is very cute
- already eight months old. She fed the ducks.
Jan has
bought a new car, which he will pick up on Thursday or Friday this week - a
Subaru Lancaster. Very smart. But I am sure that it won't change Jan's habits
of leaving his fruit peels on the floor and rubbish all over the seats ...
which drives me bananas. Ha ha (that was a very bad pun, sorry). This is a
stationwagon, and has these dinky little grille thingies that you can pull up to
keep stuff in the boot, in the boot. This will be VERY useful for actually
keeping the dogs in the back.
This week
is a short week - yesterday was Nelson's anniversary day. Jan is going to UWH
tonight, then tomorrow we have Sizzling Strings. My cousin is coming for dinner
on Thursday as she is moving to Wellington this weekend. Then we have a nice
Friday night in front of the telly (probably watching Sunday Theatre from a few
weeks ago as the programmes are just rubbish).
A few
quick notes:
Tina & Jeremy / Tanja & Charles: don't worry, we now have a
photo. Jacky sent one up on the DVD
Fleur & Neil: good to hear you & glad that your
family/pregnancy/etc is/are all OK
DJ & Dilani: any news from your family?
Brigitte & John: got your postcards, Vielen Dank!
Hui-Ping: Congrats on the house purchase! Lambretta's is booked for 9.30
Saturday 12th. Julie, Murray, Jan & myself, Andrew, Jennie & Magda have
accepted . Waiting to hear from Max, Karen, Jenny C & Dawn. Table is booked
under "Young"
Warren & Tracey: how was Chch?!
For
wedding photo images, check the archive page at
http://www.samyoung.co.nz/Sam_Young_Family_Image_Archive.htm .
=======================
Monday
10th January 2005
Hi Guys,
Bit of
extra news from the email - Tessa has just found out that she has passed her
Level 1 NCEA with 125 credits - so that was jolly well done. So, now that she
has proved that she can apply her brain to learning her school work as well as
learning the Rode Code (!), she can now go to book her learner driver's licence
test - which, needless to say, she is off to book tomorrow!
We had
Xmas with my family this year - a quiet family brunch that was all over by 1pm.
No fuss, pot luck and $5 presents (chrissie presents are only allowed to cost a
maximum of $5 per person and you have to leave the price sticker on to prove
the cost is $5 or less; children get the full deal but only have to buy $5
presents for everyone else).
In fact,
the low cost puts the fun back into buying for people as you haunt the sales
through the year & find the most entertaining things. Because you are only
spending $5, you can get something that is really frivolous - like the
tiger-striped slinky my brother bought me one year that entertained us all for
the entire day, then was given to another member of my family the next year. We
have a trophy that a family member wins by popular vote; last year my father
won it by giving my brother a clockwork spider from Nelson's Saturday market
& this year he won again by giving Jan a Father Xmas tie which plays Jingle
Bells and has red flashing lights.
Then
Tessa went to her boyfriend Dylan's house after lunch so Jan & I watched a
movie in the avo, ate leftovers and took the dogs for a long, quiet walk along
the Boulder Bank. Bliss!
We caught
up with Jenny out at her folk's place in Wakefield on Boxing Day which was
great (and we got to bore fresh people to death with our wedding photos!).
The
Rosepine Cycle Trial was held on Tuesday 28th of December & was - as far as
cycling goes - pretty limp! Bob, Jan, Gary & cousin Karen all had a crack,
but the rest of us - Sandra, Megs, Bertie, Max, Karen, & Karen's cousin
Scott & his wife Karen - lolled about, ate, drank & talked instead. The
rain held off until about 4, when we were pretty much done anyway, so that was
perfect. Check out the photo...
Norvil
& Rose Gibson are here in Nelson for the holidays & came out to see us
at the land (photo too). We caught up with them for dinner at Lambretta's a few
nights later which was great.
We have
also caught up with Robert & Janet for lunch at the Grape Escape - also
boring them to death with photos. I had bought their boys a book for Christmas
but my reading skills were obviously far to amateur as they drifted off after
about a paragraph!
At NY,
Jan & I were even more crusty as we went to bed at 11pm... then were woken
from a nice deep sleep at 12.15 by Andreas & Katrin calling from Germany to
wish us a "Frohes Neues Jahr"!
I bought
the director's cut of LOTR & we have watched all the movies using Nelson
Pine's data projector (flashing the film up onto a big sheet on the wall),
which was fab. Jan is nearly keen enough to buy one for home as we have
borrowed it every weekend & the sheet on the wall now appears to be a
permanent fixture... except for the $2k cost, of course!
On NY Day
we watched the Return of the King with Tessa & her friend Katy, Max, Karen,
Megs, Bertie & Jenny... a four-hour movie marathon starting at 3! Overall I
would say that the director's cut LOTR was much better than the pleb version,
though I still take violent exception to PJ's portrayal of Faramir.
While we
are trying to have a quiet start to the year as well, not doing too much, of
course we had friends arriving from Chch here this weekend, then tonight we
have dinner with Murray, Julie, Janet & Robert, then Underwater Hockey on
Tuesday night...
We did
firewood at the land last weekend - chopped up a trailer load of wind-throw for
Audrey (our celebrant), delivered it to her place and stacked it in her
woodshed as an additional thank you for marrying us. This weekend we wanted to
go & do some firewood for Donald & Bunty as a thank you for letting us
have so much firewood from their place - but again the rain caught us out. So
we will try for this weekend coming. We also want to go to the land this coming
weekend to do some weed control - the rain has meant that we have not
been able to do any for months... and the weeds are as high as an elephant's
eye...<feel free to sing along, those of you who know "Oklahoma">
A few
quick notes:
Tina & Jeremy / Tanja & Charles: do any of you have a photo of
Brigitte & John speaking at the reception? We don't have a photo
Andrew & Jennie: thanks for the NY card & looking forward to
seeing you REALLY soon
Adam Saleem: glad to hear you & your family are OK
DJ & Dilani: any news from your family?
Brigitte & John: hope Germany is being kind to you both, despite viel
Schnee
For
wedding photo images, check the archive page at
http://www.samyoung.co.nz/Sam_Young_Family_Image_Archive.htm .
=======================
Tuesday
21st December 2004
Hi Guys,
Wow - all
has been pretty busy still. Looking forward to having a break at Xmas and
chilling out a bit.
We are
having a family brunch at our place this year and then that is IT for
celebrations. Nothing else special for the whole weekend. And we have the
director's cut of LOTR 1, 2 & 3 out. Ahhh... I feel a DVD session coming
on.
Oh,
except for the "Rosepine Cycle Tour" on Tuesday 28th - weather
willing. This will be a BBQ, mountain bike and wine-drinking event at the land
for anyone who is keen. I think we will have Max & Karen, Robbie &
Janet, Ian & Linda, Tessa & her friends Katy & Dylan there, at
least. Bring your own mountain bike, BBQ food, wine, folding chairs, and your
sense of humour for a really fun day! And if you happen to have a folding
table, please bring that too :-)
We have
had the wedding photos back from Jack and they are AWESOME. You will note that
I have taken down most of the images that were on the website & put up some
of hers instead. I have put together our albums already, so for any of you who
are in Nelson over the summer, swing by & see us for a private viewing!
Thanks
much to all of you who have sent us your photos and jpgs. If anyone has any
scans that they haven't yet sent through, please feel free to get 'em to us. We
now have an ADSL connection so whack 'em all onto an email.
Also, if
any of you want CDs written of all the images, send us 4 blank CDs & I will
write them for you; I have 1.84 gig of photos image files so there are rather a
lot :-). However, for those of you who only want the edited highlights, send us
one CD & I will pull together some of the "best" images &
send it back.
We are
planning some more weed control at Roses Road during the Xmas - New Year time,
as well as finishing off the irrigation system for our avocado trees.
A few
quick notes:
Tina & Jeremy / Tanja & Charles: Do any of you have a photo of
Brigitte & John speaking at the reception? We are missing that shot
Paul: Where are you? We STILL owe you some dosh for booze. Let us know $
Jenny: Let us know when we can come out & visit you & your
folkies, bringing things to look at with us & we can exchange $ & goods
(nudge, nudge, wink, wink)
Megs: Please send Jimmy up to stay. Would love to have him
=======================
Tuesday
30th November
Hi Guys,
Just a
quick note as I have actually caught up with a few of you lately!! Hmm. I
wonder why that would be?!
Good
weekend the weekend before last (according to many of you) and both Jan & I
had a damn good time as well. I would like to say a very hearty
"thanks" to all of you who managed to make it to our wedding - and
particularly to those of you who came from overseas, and those of you who travelled
with short people in tow! It was a fab day & I surprised myself by NOT
crying during the ceremony... and Jan was surprised at how nervous he was on
the day. I was surprised too as I had thought that he was going to be a
complete legend by displaying no nerves whatsoever.
A big
thank you also needs to go to Warren and Justine for being excellent best
people (and that's why they were our 'best' people, of course!). Thanks too to
Tracey & Gareth for looking after Jan & I so well on the day;
photographing, videoing, provedoring and driving. And to Paul for providing
Elvis. "Thang yew verrah mushh.."
We have
been to another theme party this weekend - a "B" party at Angus &
Belinda's place. We went as a Bride & Bridegroom!! I know it's cheating,
but I figured that we need a low-rent weekend and Belinda & some of Jan's
other work colleagues certainly enjoyed having a good look at our couture :-)
Tessa has
gone to Wllg to stay with Tina & Jeremy for a few weeks. She should have a
good time up there with them, be able to help out with Otto & Lara and have
the chance to meet Melissa (Jan's brother Jörg's daughter).
We are
planning on doing some weed control work at Roses Road this weekend coming. We
might even get all enthusiastic & stay overnight. So here's hoping that the
weather will be with us yet again.
A few
quick notes:
Brigitte & John: hope you have a wonderful time in Germany! Frohe
Weihnachten :-)
Jenny: thanks very much for posting the fabric samples, that's brilliant
& will look forward to getting them. Fingers X-ed for something suitable in
that lot.
Adam & Lisa: congrats on the bump. Hope for your sake it's a solo
bump not a duo... but hey, a bump's a bump!
Neil M: Happy birthday for yesterday!!
Neil L: Thanks much for coming over - didn't realise that you were only
here for such a short time tho. Would have liked to have caught up. Never mind,
next time.
Paul: We owe you some dosh for booze. Let us know $
Wendy: did you manage to sort out some accommodation in the Hutt for
January? If not, email these guys;
Doug & Morv - dougnmorv@paradise.net.nz
Sonia & Guy - guymcindoe@paradise.net.nz
We don't
get the wedding shots for a few weeks as our photographer is flat out going to
weddings at the mo. However, Gareth, Wendy & Dawn took some shots which I
have posted here. We have also got the disposable camera shots developed (some
of which were utterly appalling - you drunken bums!).
Please
send me copies of your photos!!! As you send your images through I will post
the best ones on the archive page at
http://www.samyoung.co.nz/Sam_Young_Family_Image_Archive.htm. Bit please send
them one at a time though as we are still on dial-up here. Thanks!!
=======================
Tuesday
9th November
Hi Guys,
Have
heard from a few of you recently and hear that most of you are fit and well,
which is great. I am making a habit of this, but again, just a quick note as
things are continuing to be busy!
We got
the water tank in at Roses Road this weekend just gone, with the able
assistance of Max & Karen; so at last we are in a position to start
trapping some water. And our arms are about three inches longer from all the
clay digging and back-filling, shovelling and barrowing of sand and hauling of
the tank... gotta be good for us, right?!
The
forestry contractor, John Hornby, thinks that he may have a buyer for our 40+
downed trees, which would be good. There's a farmer who is wanting some trees
for retaining some earthworks he is doing. Sad to think that after thirty years
the dropped pines are only good for driving into the ground as retaining posts,
but at least they can be used.
We are
going to have the rest of the stand logged in Feb & then will replant in
winter 2005 - probably in Lusitanica (sp?) - so that will be good. Then we
don't have to worry about playing with trees for another thirty years (barring
freak storms). I don't think it will be our problem in thirty years though.
We went
to a theme party the weekend before last - a "Titanic" party run by
the local dive club. There were engineers, a captain, officers, a Chinese
coolie, steerage (third class) passengers... Jan & I went as first class
passengers; Jan borrowed Max's tails & I wore one of my good frocks. A bit
of entertainment (see photo).
Got
another good panoramic shot of Nelson - this time from Princes Drive, near the
lookout (see photo).
Tessa has
now finished formal school for the year. At the senior prize-giving last week
she was awarded two certificates; one for representing the school at Underwater
Hockey, and the other for coming first in Computing, which was pretty awesome
(and she got some book vouchers). She is now on study leave, getting ready for
her external exams. She has her first - Math this Thursday. Fingers-Xed for a
good result.
Wendy
Saunders is on the move again - she is moving to Wllg as a Natural Hazards
Planner with the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences. If any of you
have a spare room up the Hutt way for a couple of weeks while she finds a flat,
contact her on wendy.saunders@opus.co.nz
Hopefully
we will be talking in person to quite a few of you in a bit less than two weeks
:-). Right. Gotta get on with organising!
=======================
Tuesday
26th October 2004
Hi Guys,
Hope you
are all keeping fit and well.
This is a
very quick note as things have been pretty busy over the past few weeks &
look like continuing that way until towards the end of Nov!
We were
at Roses Road on the weekend preparing the site for our 25,000 litre water tank
to go in. We really want to get that in place as soon as possible or we are
going to miss the end of the spring rains - and so not have any water for
summer and still have to cart 20 litre containers every two days to water the
avocado trees that we foolishly put in last year.
And let
me tell you that levelling clay is very hard work, even with the digger that
Jan so prudently hired. And then it rained overnight on Saturday so we had a
nice mud puddle that we were unable to do anything else with until it dries
out. Hopefully this week will be fine & we can get it finished.
In the
storms that we had recently - which you may have seen on TV with the Takaka
Hill & Collingwood main roads being closed - we have had a lot of our 30
year old pines drop, which is a real shame. Nothing much that we can do about
it though, except call the forestry contractor & see if he can take them
all out now - or if they are now unsalvageable and so we might as well leave
them (certainly can't pull them out for firewood as there are too many other
trees in the way and we would have enough burning power for a century with that
lot!).
Tessa
will be starting her external exams in a couple of weeks and she is studying
hard, which is brilliant (yay!). Max Riley has been working really well with
her & she is continuing to work well with him. Math should be a breeze for
her now.
Jan's
blokes celebration in Chch went well - no-one lost an eye! 15 blokies went out
& had a great day playing paint ball, before charging off to the rugby,
then having an obligatory curry before hitting the town. Unfortunately, they
are all so crusty that they walked their legs off looking for a bar with no
cigarette smoke (didn't find one, of course), and got in at about 1.30am.
Megs
organised a very nice dinner for Bertie & I at the Bodhi Tree which was
brilliant too. Margie came which was fantastic, it was nice to see Colleen
again and I met another friend of Bertie's, Jenny (from Auckland), and also
Liz, who was an ex-flatmate of Jan's as well (got good goss there!).
Right.
Gotta do some work & some event organising! Back at you as soon as I get
some time :-)
=======================
Tuesday
28th September 2004
Hi Guys,
Hope you
are all well.
This is
just a quick note to catch you guys up on what we have been doing with
ourselves over the past few weeks...
From 10th
September we have had the Arts Festival "week" here in Nelson. Of
course, this lasts for two weeks! Jan, Tessa & I have caught several good
shows:
Killer Comedy - standup comedy by Terry Williams. Interesting concept
& quite good
The Truth About Love - comedy theatre & song by Pinky Agnew &
Lorae Parry (all you Kiwis will remember them as the pair who played Jenny
Shipley & Helen Clark on TV). This was good
SkinTight - a fantastic duo play with Danielle Cormack & Jed Brophy.
A 'must see' if you get the chance
Manic Opera - comedy songfest from Jenifer Calthrop, Fiona Moir &
Anahera Higgins; superb as ever. If these women are ever performing anywhere
near you, go & see them - they are fab.
Wearable Arts - just absolutely bloody fantastic - as usual - & I am
glad that we went to see it for the 'last time' in Nelson
Tessa has
just completed her internal exams, which has pointed up some strengths (yay!)
and some weaknesses. So she is working on some remedial Maths, Science &
Geography through these holidays. Having just been to Auckland for her Father's
wedding (second marriage, needless to say!), she is back to the grindstone,
working through some Math work that Max Riley has set her. She gets on very
well with Max & tries hard, so that's a plus. She also has some English
literature assignments due at the end of the first week back at school, so
needs to prepare this work as well. No rest for the wicked, eh?!
Then of
course we were in Wllg this last weekend. We had a lovely time overall - pizza
on Friday night at Tina & Jeremy's, caught up with Hartmut & Uta on
Saturday morning, had a BBQ at Doug & Morv's on Saturday afternoon, had
dinner out with John & Brigitte on Saturday night at Angkor (Cambodian Restaurant
on Dixon Street - very nice), went to the Opera where we met - by chance -
Hui-Ping and Merrill & Colin and wound up with Sunday brunch with John,
Brigitte, Jeremy, Tina, Otto & Lara.
It was
great to catch up with everyone at Doug & Morv's on Saturday; Sam &
Moose, Guy, Karen, Hui-Ping and all the associated short people. And congrats
are due to Guy & Sonia who have just added another wee girl to their
family: Grace Elizabeth McIndoe.
Unfortunately,
the Opera - Carmen - was disappointing... Escamillo didn't appear able to sing
and Carmen herself lacked passion. And if there is one thing that Carmen should
have in bucket loads, it's passion; being a siren with everyone whose lives she
touches turning to custard, having such power over men that they practically
climb over themselves like mad dogs to get at her. If the lead role is
performed that way, then the story makes sense. But, sadly it was not performed
that way, this time, so the story didn't make sense :-( . Never mind -
technically it was fine, the sets were interesting and the orchestra was great.
And, surprisingly, Jan enjoyed himself.
Don't
forget that we will be seeing you Cantabrians on 8th-10th October to (a) do a
final clothes fit and (b) have some pre-wedding celebrations for Jan &
myself on Saturday the 9th. Talk to Megs (minwood@kathmandu.co.nz) or warren
(warren.b@inet.net.nz).
Right.
Gotta do some work! Talk again soon
=======================
Tuesday
7th September 2004
Hi Guys,
We are
coping with life here - Jan has been back to the pool for Underwater Hockey -
mostly coaching, but has managed to get his fins on, so the new drug regime is
having some effect (yay!), I have been doing my usual - tennis once a week
& walking four days a week. Tessa is over her cold and the virus that she
has had & is feeling fit enough to bike to school again.
Tessa was
feeling quite low for a while so we had some bloods done. They have come back
as all OK. However, they also show that she has had positive contact with
glandular fever recently; but she does not have the virus (phew). She is flat
out doing her mock exams at present - here's hoping they give her a good guide
as to what she needs to study for the externals in November.
But she
is going to be having a good break away after our Nov event; she is going in
Wllg for three weeks and staying with Tina & Jeremy. Their number two
infant is expected shortly, so Tessa can help out. Jörg & Cherry's oldest
daughter, Melissa, is going down to Wllg as well, so hopefully the two of them
will have a great time. They will also have a 'Math & Science' time as they
will both be doing a couple of hours study each morning to catch up ready for
next year - I am sure the two of them will be thrilled about that!
We
finally took up my Xmas pressie from Jan the weekend before last - we
flew to
Karamea via our land. Had a wonderful time & took lots of photos on the
way. We flew straight over Mount Arthur both ways which was BLANKETED with
snow. Check out the photos in our photo gallery.
When we
got to Karamea, we had lunch at the Karamea pub; the publican - who had just
won the Monteiths "Wild Foods" national competition in Auckland on
Weds nite - came & picked us up from the Airstrip. I had a whitebait
sandwich & salad, Jan had fish & chips. Lovely!
But.
Unfortunately the developing company has mucked up the D&P work on our land
photos so we have sent them back to be redone (thank goodness we took 3 cameras
with us - the digital photos are fine but the film cameras were both bad;
proved that it wasn't operator error!).
Jan's is
still only making noises about buying a weight bench to use his weights on. I
guess that I need to buy a copy of the Buy Sell Swap and buy a blasted weight
bench for him, the slacker.
Very
exciting re the shed. We have post holes. We have posts. We have framing (see
photo). We should have some cladding as I think it was delivered yesterday. So
by the weekend we should have a shed! Whooohoo!
It was
Jan's birthday on Monday so we celebrated it last Saturday night - we went out
to dinner at "Flavour" over in Mapua. We both had garlic prawns &
they were lovely. Sigh. Nice place & we spent the night talking about
building the house over in the Moutere. After November we are going to get
started on the plans.
We have
also had Hui-Ping here for a few days - she is holidaying in Nelson &
skiing at Rainbow for then days. She managed to jammily have her birthday here
at the same time, so we had a breakfast for her here today. And Jan stumped up
with his famous waffles yet again, while I incinerated the bacon :-)
Andreas
asked me why I am always talking about eating in my emails. Hmm. It's a kind of
social thing, I think - we get together & eat together. That and the fact
that I LOVE good food!!
Jan,
Tessa & I are going to see Super Size Me tonight at the movies with Max
& Karen, their flatmate Jeff, and our two-day-a-week flatmate, Merrill. Am
really looking forward to that.
See you
Wllgns on September 24th at Doug's (contact them at dougnmorv@paradise.net.nz
for details) for that lunchtime BBQ on Saturday 25th.
And see
you Cantabrians on 8th October to (a) do a final clothes fit and (b) have some
pre-wedding celebrations for Jan & myself on Saturday the 9th. Talk to Megs
(minwood@kathmandu.co.nz) or warren (warren.b@inet.net.nz).
Right.
Just going to have coffee with Magda & Julie C in town now so gotta dash.
Talk again soon
=======================
Monday
23rd August 2004
Hi Guys,
Hope you
are all keeping healthy and living life to the max. I feel a dose of spring
coming on!
We have
been out & about a bit lately - we went over to see Fleur & Neil in
Takaka for the day a few weeks ago; managing to coincide with Fleur's birthday
pretty well. A good excuse to have some bubbly and a good catch up. They all
appear pretty well (aside from the normal crapped-out backs, of course!).
I had to
go down to Chch for a course in the first week of August & Megs kindly put
me up for - what must have seemed like, to her - millions of years! We had some
good walks and Megs fed me so beautifully that she is damn lucky that I wanted
to go home at all! Jan drove down on the Friday night & we - Jan, Warren
& I had more measuring for wedding glad rags, booked some suits and bought
underwear for me (was told by the dressmaker to go and "buy a proper
bra". Poop. What's wrong with comfy stretchy ones, is what I want to
know!).
And of
course, we caught up with Warren & Trace & doglets at Megs as we were
all in Chch celebrating Paul T's birthday at Café Valentino (yummy food. Go
there & eat). A great night & Paul ensured the evening was thoroughly
well lubricated by bringing along a specially selected wine for each of his
guests. Hic.
And on
Sunday morning the braver amongst us went to The Globe for breakfast. Very
nice. I also caught up with my sister Barb for lunch, on a bucketing down
Thursday lunchtime at Vivace. She is working for a telemarketing outfit on the
phones, and has been asked if she is interested in doing some more training, so
that she can take some of the training courses. I think that is a "pick
me!" question.
Tessa &
I went to Wllg for UWH, and fitted in a lot on Thursday morning. After dropping
her bags off at her motel, we headed down to Cuba Mall & had breakfast at
Dixon Street Deli; met Tina at the City Council; had a good look around the
City Gallery; went for a quick scout around Te Papa, then met Jeremy, Lara
& an international visitor, Lea for a coffee in the Britten Lounge. Then I
popped Tessa in a taxi to meet her team-mates at her motel, and even managed to
squeeze in lunch with Karen T before I flew home. A very full-on day.
Tessa's
team came 6th at the Nationals. They improved on last year's standings (9th) so
that was good.
Two of
the girls in her UWH team apparently have glandular fever, and we have just had
blood tests done for Tessa as well. As she will be very busy over the next
couple of weeks - she has mock exams starting on Sept 9th - I hope that she
proves clear. Finger's X-ed that she is OK.
We
finally managed to catch up with Robbie & Janet in Tapawera this past
Saturday night. Janet cooked a lovely chicken potato bake and will hopefully
send me the recipe! I have suggested a swap - with my lemon cheesecake one - so
hopefully she will share. Fergus has grown heaps, and Janet is onto a really
great thing - the Tapawera Toy Library. Man, they have some neat toys to hire
out for kids. Jan had a nice time "working" with Robbie, worming and
vaccinating sheep. He said that he nearly got run over several times. Dangerous
things, sheep, when you aren't looking...
Jan's not
doing well in using his Rebel Sports sale weights yet. But, after a session
tonight, he is starting to make noises about buying a weight bench to use them
on. So I guess we will buy a copy of the Buy Sell Swap this weekend :-)
The holes
have been drilled for the shed posts today, so Jan is going over tomorrow after
work to get some photos of the posts going in. It will be very exciting. I also
get the exciting job of hunting down a deal for the 25,000 litre water tank.
We are in
Wllg next on September 24th which will whizz by in zip time. We aim to catch up
with all you Wllgnians at Doug's for that lunchtime BBQ on Saturday 25th. I
think we will assume that still a go, unless we hear otherwise.
For you
Cantabrians, our next trip to Chch will be on 9th October to (a) do a final
clothes fit and (b) have a blokes celebration for Jan on Saturday (Warren will
be emailing the more blokey amongst you on this mailing list shortly, telling
you the deal, if he hasn't already).
Right.
That's us for now. I know I have left out lots but I need to go to bed!
=======================
Tuesday
27th July 2004
Hi Guys,
Hope you
are all keeping fit & healthy and getting out there, living life to the
full.
We have
finally got the firewood thing done. Yay! We went out to the Ladley's and
Donald - the younger - gave us a great hand by fronting up with the tractor and
log splitter. What an amazing thing that is! We cut and stacked the trailer in
zip time, followed by creating a wall of wood stacked with its back to the
southerly to dry out for a week. Then we went back with the trailer last
Saturday avo & loaded it up. Jan had to have another crack with his
chainsaw and so cut some more logs, which we have stacked up ready to split at
the end of winter - this time, for winter 2005, we will load up in spring 2004.
We have
been to several Winter Festival performances here - Deirdre Irons with the
Nelson Symphony Orchestra (Deirdre was fab, but NSO was slightly cat-gut at
times), Tim Beveridge (great performer - a Sinatra-alike, tho, so not quite our
cup of chai), "Phantom of the Opera" as a silent movie accompanied by
a soprano and live organ music (fantastic, would go again) and "Strike in
Motion" percussion group (fantastic too, would go again. Would also buy
their CD if they made one). We missed a few things, due to timing, that we
would have liked to have seen - Trio Con Brio (classical/jazz trio) and
Goldenhorse (pop band); but you get that. And we enjoyed everything that we
went to.
Jan's
arthritis is easing off a little, but he is still very stiff. However, after
doing a bit of reading, we felt that a free weight programme would be a good
idea, so we went to the Rebel Sports sale and got some weights at a good price.
Now all Jan has to do is start using them!
His work
is going well, he is enjoying the challenge, but is still finding it hard to do
the ongoing work. I could imagine that making the transition from project to
"chronic" (!) work would be hard. I know that I would hate it.
A couple
of Saturdays ago we went scalloping in Tasman Bay with Angus (one of Jan's
compadrés from work) and his wife, Belinda, in their lovely launch J&J.
Even though the weather was fairly crap, ghastly grey overcast, we had a great
day & got our quota of scallops (we also took some scallops out to the
Ladley's to thank them for their generous contribution to our firewood
supply!). I also collected lots of empty shells during the trawls and have
rinsed those as well as cleaning out the shucked shells ready for a project
later in the year. Zero waste!
And
speaking of a project later in the year, I needed some golden sand for a
publication I was working on. I went to every tourist shop in town looking for
some golden sand, and I couldn't buy any for love nor money (what is it with
tourists who no longer want to purchase exorbitantly priced tacky plastic
containers full of sand?!). In the end, we were reduced to driving to
Kaiteriteri to get some sand & take it home, dry it and photograph it
<sigh>. While at Kaiteriteri we noted a duck sitting on the sand calling
out to his mate across the inlet. It looked close enough to touch but when I
took the photo, it looks miles away (we have great zoom on our eyes!). I tried
to get closer, but it always waddled away (I must have looked like a dangerous
duck-eater. Oops, I am!).
I have committed
a gaffe. I have incorrectly advised a number of you of Karen Trotter's OLD
telephone number. Sorry, her new number is +64 4 934 3131. Her email address is
still the same (karen.trotter@horwath.co.nz).
Tessa is
finding herself very busy with assignments and UWH practice (in the lead-up to
the nationals next month). She has just got the marks back on her big
history assignment & got 2 Merit grades so that's brilliant too.
Additionally, her soccer team have won their last few games by a reasonably broad
margin, so she is feeling pretty positive about her involvement. She also has a
boyfriend - seems nice enough. We will see how long that lasts!
This last
weekend has been the weekend of the pot-luck dinner; Friday just gone we had
the Ladleys around for a pot-luck dinner - and Jenny as she was up from Chch -
we had a great time and it is so nice to return the Ladley's very generous
hospitality. Then on Saturday night we had a family pot-luck "Midwinter
Solstice" dinner (my Mother won't do Mid-winter Christmas as she says its
NOT Christmas!) with my parents, my Uncle Norman and my cousin Karen. Though my
Mother was a bit of a hypocrite as she provided Christmas crackers, which we
enjoyed immensely (and I managed to prevent myself asking "Are these Mid-Winter
Solstice crackers then?").
We had
hoped to catch up with Robbie & Janet in Tapawera this past Sunday, but
unfortunately they were busy so we will have to put that on hold for now.
However, this coming Saturday we are hoping to catch up with Fleur & Neil
in Rangihaeata for the day - providing that (a) the weather is fine enough for
a trip over the hill and (b) they are home!
The shed
plans are in at the council, so we are waiting on RMA approval - ten days
apparently - before the builder can get underway. However, Jan tells me that
the shed materials haven't arrived yet, either :-(
For you
Cantabrians, a reminder that we are coming to Chch on 7th August to (a)
celebrate Mr Tunley's 40th and (b) get Wazza & Jan's wedding clothes
measurement done. It would be great to catch up - perhaps liaise with Megs
about a get together on Friday night or something? Meg's email is
minwood@kathmandu.co.nz
And we
are in Wllg next on September 24th which will whizz by in zip time. Would be
good to catch up with all you Wllgnians - I think that a lunchtime BBQ at
Doug's was mentioned for Saturday 25th? Is that still a go?
=======================
Wednesday
9th July 2004
Hi Guys,
Hope you
are all fit & well still - not succumbing to the cold too much!
Again we
seem to have been very busy over the past few weeks & haven't had much time
to write; but here I am now so let's get on with it!
We hired
a digger a couple of weeks ago which Jan drove & cleared the ditches along
the road and tidied up the shed building site. Jenny L's folks came out to see
us & have a picnic - the lure of the digger was too great for Donald to
resist. He & Jan had a great time playing in a BIG sandpit. Check out the
photos of Jan on the digger.
We have
also pegged out where we want the shed to go, so now we are waiting on the
Resource Consent to be approved so that the builder can get the construction
started. We haven't yet purchased our water tank, but we will have to get that
in pretty smartly too, otherwise we will miss the spring rains & there will
go our tree-watering opportunities for the summer.
Since I
last wrote we have celebrated a couple of birthdays - and, of course, they were
both on the same day. My Mother's & Jan's brother Jörg's; we had lunch with
my Mother at the Grape Escape in Nelson last Saturday, then hopped on a plane
to Wllg and had dinner with Jörg at Eden at Greta Point.
It was
great to finally meet Jörg; hopefully he enjoyed the experience too!
Then we
had brunch with some of Jan's family Brigitte & John, Tamara, Jeremy, Tina
& Lara) on Sunday morning and lunch with friends at Clark's Café at noon
(Hui-Ping, Doug & Morv, Sonia & Guy, Mike & Birthe, Sam & Moose
and assorted short people who zoomed like manic things in the playground &
had a ball). We had a great weekend & an excellent catch-up at the café
(unfortunately we didn't catch up with either Karen, as she was in Auckland, or
Christél, as she couldn't find us :-( ). However, we have another opportunity
in Sept when we come up for Carmen - don't forget Doug & Morv, we are
having a BBQ at your place on Saturday lunchtime.
Jan &
I have finally gotten to see "Calendar Girls" which we enjoyed. We
realise that we are a bit slow with these things, but at least we got there in
the end!
Following
an article by Matt Lawrey, the editor of a free community newspaper here in
Nelson (if you want to read the article you can click on it at the right of the
page), I have gotten involved with a project to find a replacement for WOW for
2005. Initially I sent out an email to a load of associates & found that
there were two meetings planned from two separate groups. I have
cross-pollinated, adding some more people to both groups & will attend both
meetings to see how the ideas pan out. Should be good fun.
In the
past month, an old friend Jeff Hextall & his wife Colleen have just been
blessed with a bouncing baby boy called Daniel, Tessa's stepfather Mike Dutton
& his new partner Kara have had an as yet unnamed baby girl, and Jenny
& Andrew Ricciardi in Monterey, California have had a baby girl called
Ella. All are well ...and crikey, perhaps it's spring!
It is
winter festival time again in Nelson - tonight we are going to hear Tim
Beveridge singing light opera followed by a bit of a shindig for Nelson Pine;
tomorrow night we are going to hear Deidre Irons on piano; next Tuesday we are
going to see the silent movie “Phantom of the Opera” with Lon Chaney
accompanied by real organ music; and then the week after that we are going to
experience “Strike in Motion”, a percussion group. Should be good for our
souls.
Also
coming up on 7th August we are going down to Chch again to (a) celebrate Mr
Tunley's 40th birthday and (b) get measured up properly for our wedding finery.
Warren & Trace are coming down as well, so it is a mass-measuring for Jan
& Wazza. And they get to go to town & order suits! Whoopee!
I have
just booked tickets for Tessa & myself to fly up to Wllg on the Thursday of
her UWH Nationals so we can go to Te Papa, the City Gallery etc before I leave
her with her team & fly back to Nelson. They have three days of
competition, then come back on the Ferry. Hopefully she should enjoy the trip.
She is currently in Chch visiting friends for a week of the school hols; and as
she has averaged Merit on her reports, I think she is well due the break.
Well, Jan
is working again this Saturday, and I need to do some billing; so we have our
fingers crossed that the weather holds fine for our firewood expedition this
Sunday.
=======================
Wednesday
23rd June 2004
Hi Guys,
Hope you
are all fit & well. We haven't - touch wood - succumbed to any colds or flu
as yet, but I am sure there is still plenty of time!
This will
be a very short catch-up as I seem to have been very busy over the past few
weeks, so haven't really had any time to write (very bad, I know).
We went
to Melbourne at Queen's Birthday & caught up with Jan's sister Tanja &
her family (husband Charles & son Lars) which was fabulous. Tanja devoted
three days to showing us around and we had a very cruisy time. Didn't do much
purchasing, saw some great sights - like the National Gallery - and had some
very good & very bad coffees!
We plan
on going again - we didn't want to try to cram lots of things in, so we didn't
- to get to see those things that we missed.
The weekend
before last we went down to Chch to organise wedding clothes & have been
very capably sorted out by Maryanne Cathro, a friend of Jan's sister Tina. The
only thing we need to do now is get Warren down to see Maryanne before too long
for measuring etc. Megs had organised a gathering at her place on Saturday
night to watch the rugby which was great so we caught up with nearly everyone
in one go.
We went
to visit Pat & Marjie with Mhairi & Isla too - what good wee girls they
were too. And already look incredibly different from their first photos.
On the
way home we called in to see Erik & Jackie which was great - they are well
& now have a fabulous place about 10 mins down the road from where they
were initially.
Tessa's
team came second at the South Island underwater hockey champs, so she will be
coming to Wllg for the finals in August. I am planning on flying her up on the
Thursday & taking her to Te Papa & the Gallery etc before leaving her
with her team & coming home.
We caught
up with Magda last Saturday night (pot luck dinner - yum!) and had Mr Tunley to
stay. A very good weekend for me, as I did lots of socialising and quaffing of
wind (which is just like drinking only you spill more!). Unfortunately not so
good for Jan who had to work all day Saturday. At least he didn't end up having
to work Sunday as well. Instead we went out to the land and measured out for
the shed. In the rain. And mud. Both of which the dogs loved immensely!
Jan still
hasn't had a chance to run in his new chainsaw as our last firewood gathering
mission is still on the postponed list due to rain. And it won't happen this
Saturday, either, as we have hired a digger - which Jan is going to drive (!) -
to clear the ditches along the road and do the final tweaking to the shed site.
With a
bit of luck the builder will get the shed underway the first week of July &
get the 23000 litre water tank installed. Yeehah. We will then have somewhere
to start stashing big tools and timber - and put Myrtle (caravan) out of the
weather. Oh; and we will get to move Myrtle's Turtle (aka the long-drop) so
that it won't then be a 200m walk from where the caravan will be in the middle
of the night...
All Jan's
remote control helicopter parts have arrived now, so I bet this Sunday will be
a "tinkering in the garage" day.
Jan &
I saw Girl with a Pearl Earring at the movies. OK film but visually a treat -
just like Vermeer's paintings, very Dutch, very sumptuous and VERY brown.
The
weekend after next we are celebrating my Mother's birthday & coming up to
Wllg for Jörg's birthday. Then I think we had better get that blasted firewood
in!
=======================
Monday
31st May 2004
Hi Guys,
Hope you
are all fit & well. The weather is still holding up OK here, but it
certainly has got colder in the past couple of days.
We are
both keeping fairly well, and have celebrated a few birthdays recently! We had
a quick trip to Wllg yesterday for John's 60th birthday; then the weekend
before it was my father's 70th birthday (with the day before his birthday being
one of my Aunts' birthday & the day after being one of my Uncles'
birthday), and the weekend before that being Tessa's birthday. And it was Meg's
birthday on Saturday just gone.
My
father's birthday was brilliant as he had a couple of surprise guests that he
hadn't realised were coming - his brother & sister-in-law from Brisbane and
his sister & brother-in-law from Chch. He had no idea that they had even
been invited, let alone that they were coming. The look on his face when they
walked in to the restaurant was priceless (and of course, we missed that on
camera!).
We also
had Heidi - a Kuwilsky family friend from Germany - here again for a couple of
days. She came to visit us last year, but this time she was accompanied by two
friends, Rainer & Regina. The weather was pretty good for them which meant
that they could get a bit more done during their short stay... but it wasn't
long enough to enjoy the visit! It will be great to catch up in Germany when we
go next year.
John's
birthday in Wllg was great - with both Heidi and Rainer providing excellent
entertainment. Rainer created an impromptu choir with us singing Bass, Alto and
Soprano rounds of a special birthday song, written for John in German and
English. Then Heidi treated us to an exhibition of her skills in belly dancing,
with Jan, Lara & John all being lucky enough to obtain a veil each. Who
needs to be an MD when you can dance like that?! (to the right are photos of
the celebrations including - of course - some with me with my eyes shut).
We are
coming to Chch on June 11, 12 & 13. Tessa has the South Island underwater
hockey champs that weekend, so we are bringing her down. While she won't have
much time for seeing anyone - stapled to QEII Pool, effectively - we won't be
so hamstrung. We hope to catch up with as many of you as we can, so if can you
all talk to Megs & try to organise some gatherings?
We held
Tessa's 16th birthday the weekend before my Father's birthday. Prior to the
event I had spoken to all the parents and told them that I would be supplying
orange juice, soda and food only; that if their offspring were allowed to drink
alcohol, they had to be sent along with whatever it was that they were allowed
to drink.
So we had
thirty 15 to 17 year olds invading the place. They all turned up so promptly
(or early) that I was forcibly struck at the difference between their and their
parent's generation (ie parents usually an hour to an hour and a half late).
Jan &
I secreted ourselves in the upstairs bedroom and Jan watched the rugby while I
read a book. We had absolutely no trouble from the young people - but we
probably ensured the lack of trouble by doing a "tour" every
fifteen minutes - ostensibly cleaning up and putting out more food with the
trouble-radar turned up to high gain! I couldn't hear the stereo at the
beginning so I went down & told them three times that they were allowed to
turn it up so that they could hear it. Tessa was also very well behaved and
kept an eye on everyone. Good host responsibility - one girl got a little drunk
and Tessa and her friends plied her with water, walked her around the garden
for ages and then put her to bed with disprin and more water. That was it.
At 1am we
said "Go home" to the ones who were left and "Go to bed" to
the six girls who were staying here overnight. I think they went to sleep about
3! In the morning we got them up early and fed them lots for breakfast. Shipped
most of them home by lunchtime and took the rest to the land to sow grass seed!
Our last
firewood gathering mission is still on the postponed list... we couldn't use
the trailer three weekends ago, then had wet Saturday mornings for two
weekends; just enough to make driving across paddocks treacherous and
chain-sawing a wee bit dangerous (I would rather keep Jan with all his limbs
for now! ). Jan's remote control helicopter is still not operational - still
waiting for a starter from the US.
Jan &
I saw Kill Bill 1 on DVD. Crikey - will Mr Tarantino ever get less violent?
However, I guess we will still see Kill Bill 2... but maybe not until it gets
to DVD. There is a new mini cinema opening here in the main cinema complex here
in Nelson soon - a 21 couch-seater theatre that, as well having regular
showings of art-house movies, you can book out for private functions. Sounds like
fun & both Jan & I are trying to think of good movies that we would
like to hire it out for!
We have
had some enquiries about what we are doing about wedding gift registers or what
we would like for a present. Please - we DON'T want any wedding presents... we
have everything that we want or need between the two of us and it just seems
silly to get more things when we don't have room for the things that we already
have. However, if you REALLY can't help yourselves, you can always make a
donation to our German Travel Fund (and it can be anonymous if you prefer).
Contact Karen Trotter for details on karen.trotter@horwath.co.nz or 021 495 662
Next up
we are off to Australia for a few days, then down to Chch for Tessa's UWH
Champs - then Paul Tunley comes to Nelson to visit, then we have a weekend off
before celebrating my Mother's birthday & coming up to Wllg for Jörg's
birthday. I think that takes us up until the second weekend in July! Phew...
Quick
notes;
Erik & Jack - would like to swing by and see your new place on the
way home on Sunday; will you (a) be about and (b) send us destructions on how
to get there?
Pat & Marjie - glad you liked the blankets
Tanja & Charles - look forward to seeing you VERY shortly
=======================
Saturday 24th
April 2004
Hi guys,
Hope you
are all still keeping well. Weather remains good here, but it is getting
noticeably colder, despite the sunshine. Jan & I are going out on one last
firewood mission to 88 Valley today (Donald & Bunty Ladley's) & then we
will have enough combustibles for winter & spring.
I have
been well, but busy (& re-elected to the Chamber of Commerce board this
past Monday), but Jan has been a bit sore & tired. This is despite the new
drug regime, coming home from work at a reasonable hour, eating sensibly and
getting to bed early. The only thing I haven't managed to do is to organise
entire weekends off where he does nothing but rest... but whenever we have a
weekend like that, he fills it with something (or goes in to work).
However.
He does have a new passion too - he has bought a remote control helicopter. It
isn't quite operational yet, but I am sure that he will be able to crash it in
fairly short order! We had dinner at Kelly & Duncan's a few weeks ago. Dunc
is a mad r-c hydroplane fiend. He & Jan disappeared into Dunc's workshop
and from then on Jan was unstoppable until he found a chopper for sale on the
Trade Me website. The cartons all arrived at the beginning of the week, and so
the tinkering begins!
The last
person we had to stay was Karen T who came down - ostensibly for an audit, but
really for my birthday (!). We had a lovely few days, starting with breakfast
on Thursday morning with a crowd of old friends at Zest. A very cruisy way to
start the day - we didn't get away from there until 11. Photo of us attached.
We went
over to the land that weekend as the bulldozer was clearing approx 2ha in the
gully. And man, the driver was good. What really surprised us was how little
vegetation was left in the windrow they made against the clearing boundary...
that and how quick he was. Amazing. We now have a tiny earth dam as well, which
is already full from the little rain there has been (it still needs some more
work with a digger to enlarge it, which the contractor is going to do when he
is in the area with the digger next). Photos attached too.
On the
Thursday night before Easter we decided to have another crack at going to
Herzog to celebrate my birthday. This time we took MY car. We had a fabulous
night. I would firmly recommend it for anyone who is a passionate foodie... the
food and wine was superb; but make it for a special occasion only - the price
is pretty steep. For two of you, if you are both drinking, dinner is likely to
set you back $400 plus.
Yi &
Paula were here for Easter & we had dinner at Lambretta's, which was great
(and Yi really got Jan going on r-c planes). They had pretty good weather while
they were here, so I think they enjoyed their holiday. Unfortunately I told
them about the whereabouts of Rosy Glow a little too late so they didn't have
time to get to the shop. It is the loveliest place. <sigh>
Tessa has
been on school holidays & is now getting ready to go back to school on
Monday. She has - under duress - written up some History notes during the break
& done some of her English reading, so hopefully she will find the new term
a little easier. She was deeply peeved that underwater hockey wasn't on for the
duration of the holidays & is looking forward to it starting this coming
Friday night again. When Jan & I went to the parent-teacher night, we had
pretty much glowing reports of her, except with the two hardest subjects for
her (Math & Geography) which, co-incidentally, have two of the weakest
personality teachers. She has been talking in class in both those subjects,
where she can least afford not to concentrate. While the Geography teacher
didn't really find it too much of a problem (she would just tell Tessa to
"shh" & Tessa would), it was driving the Math teacher to
distraction. So we had a talk to Tessa about it, & I have checked with her
teachers just before the end of term to find out if her behaviour has changed
(and it has).
As well
as going to Wllg for Jan's stepfather's birthday celebration for the day on May
30, we are hoping to get down to Chch before that. But spare weekends are a bit
thin... May 22 is my father's 70th, the weekend before is Tessa's 16th... so
realistically, we are running tight for spare time. But we will see what we can
do.
Quick
replies to;
Jeremy & Tina (glad things are improving. We should be home Sunday
evening if you want to call)
Hartmut & Uta (sorry we missed your call, try again Sunday night?)
Pat & Marjie (how are you both?)
Justine & Gareth (hope all is now resolved work-wise)
Rachel & Micro (have you thought of a name yet?)
Kent & Gill (what is your UK email address?)
Looking
forward to seeing Neil Lee again today - he & his girlfriend Karen are here
from Sydney for a week & we are all going out to the Boatshed for dinner
tonight.
Sam &
Jan
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