Hi all,
For those
of you who know Julie Crosswell, her husband Sterl died on December 19th. Jan
& I went to the funeral the Tuesday before Christmas. With so many of the
fire service people there, it was a huge funeral. Sterl's brother gave a
beautiful eulogy. Very sad. Julie seems to be coping with her pregnancy (twins),
which is a relief.
And on
another sad note, Ana Silvia left on Boxing Day Friday. She had a big send off
at Nelson Airport - there must have been thirty people there to farewell her. A
group of us went back to Phil & Anna Gully's afterwards to talk about our
experience in having her here & what we had gained from it, which was
really nice. Jan & I still have a huge pile of her stuff on the spare bed,
which we need to ship to Brazil. We are waiting for her school documents to be
processed and returned by the Brazilian embassy so we can include those in the
shipment. Hopefully that won't take long (though it will be quite costly -
about $300 we think).
We have
had Jeremy, Tina & Otto here since Boxing Day - and we have had a lovely
time, bbq-ing, walking, relaxing, and watching films. Otto has been very well
behaved, despite being without his big sister, and has made a firm friend in
Coco. We had Otto here for a night while Jeremy & Tina had a night of
luxury away. Jan even managed to read Otto his bedtime story :-)
Hui-Ping
has been in Nelson since Christmas Eve & we have caught up a number of
times, which has been great. She has been very busy, getting out & about,
visiting people and places. Bertie & Megs were up at Megs' folk's place for
Christmas, so we caught up with both of them, then Bertie went to stay at Karen
& Max's while Megs headed home. We hope to catch up with Bertie, Karen, Max
& KT (who is also in town) today or tomorrow. Magda has just moved back
from Blenheim & we have arranged our first tennis game for Monday - yay!
I have
been facilitating an on-line course for NMIT called "Positive Workplace
Relationships" on the Front Line Management Certificate over December
& January, which has three weeks left to run. I have just completed marking
the first assessment, so feel quite virtuous. I have pretty much managed a
break over the past two weeks, despite intending to work through. Very
fortunate! I have also been prepping some materials for my first semester
courses next year, while things are quiet, which has been quite nice. No
pressure, and time to be able to do things properly.
Jan goes
back to work on Monday, but he tells me that he feels like he hasn't had a
holiday. I have not yet managed to get to the bottom of why he feels like that
- I feel very rested!
Jan drove
Jeremy, Tina & Otto to Picton today to drop them back at the ferry. Having
been full of life for two months, now the house is very quiet. It will be
interesting to see how the dogs react to the resumption of "normal service".
Right,
that's it for now. Take care & alles liebe!
Sam & Jan
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