News from Nelson - January 2011, Part 2

We are having a great summer. We had a lovely bbq recently with about 50 people here, and got to catch up with folks we haven’t seen in ages. We were also surprised how many of our friends had other connections between each other. It all goes back to that Kiwi thing of 1.5 degrees of separation.

Tanja, Brigitte & John all came to stay for a week, and we got to celebrate Tanja’s birthday with her. I think they had a good time in Nelson, including going for some very scenic drives – and only one of them was unintentional! We had fish & chips down at the Mapua wharf, from the fish & chip shop that has just got the Wild Tomato Award for the best F&C in the top of the south, had the bbq for Tanja’s birthday, and had a very relaxing time. Mind you, Brigitte & Tanja could have shopped for New Zealand – it should be an Olympic sport! And I know I don’t have the staying power to do what they do. I should emulate John & grab a coffee & a paper & have them swing by afterwards to pick me up.

Jan has now built the second wine rack built and that has a couple of columns of bottles in it already. We still have some more space that we need to free up in the cellar, but we feel like we are starting to make more progress. This week I hung some of our pictures, and we bought some wall-plugs for those things that are a bit heavier, so hopefully this weekend they might get put up, along with our bathroom mirrors. The list gets shorter!

We have rented Montrose Drive again until this coming October, when it will go back on the market for the 2011-12 summer. We have some great tenants for this year (so far, anyway!), and what is more, we had two lots of really nice people to choose from. We downloaded all the forms from DBH and filled out everything that we needed, have sent off the things we needed to and took lots of photos. Should be all good.

Bon dog went home for a few days when John F got back from his first tour of the summer last week, but she came back again last night for the next month while John is away on #2 tour. Fliss & Coco were beside themselves when she arrived back with Jan last night. We ended up having to take them 2k down to the end gate last night at 8pm to get them to calm down. At least it was quite cool by that hour.

We had Wendy & Wayne up to see us last weekend, and it was great to see them. We were also going to go & see The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) in the meadow at Fairfield House on Sunday night, but it got rained off. Next time.

My study is going well – I am onto unit 9 of 16, as my second lot of course materials finally turned up. Mind you, I am still waiting for 4 assignments from the first half of the course to be marked & come back.

Jan is going to Underwater Hockey tonight, which will be the second time this year. He is thinking about playing in the South Island Masters Games which will be held in Nelson in October this year. So he needs all the pool time he can get between now & then.

He has also signed up for all the NSO concerts for the year, and I have signed up as a  “Friend” and booked my concert seat all the way through. My mother was talking about becoming a friend too, but I don’t know if she has registered yet.

At the beginning of February we also have the Adam Chamber Music Festival starting. Jan is going to see five concerts, and I am going to three. He is going to a Paganini concert on his own as I can’t stand the Caprices – to me it sounds like cats being dreadfully murdered :-(

Next weekend is the Sarau Fair, which is a blackcurrant festival. That should be fun.

Happy birthdays in the next couple of weeks to Tamara, Mike S, Eberhard and Oma Friedel. I hope Andreas' footballing birthday party went well, as did Christian's birthday celebrations.


Best wishes to Steph - I hope the floods haven't damaged your Rockhampton property too much (let us know if there is anything we can do); and we were glad to hear that Uncle Lin escaped most of the damp north of Brisbane.

Right, I think that's it. All the very, very best for the coming few weeks, and we look forward to catching up with you all sometime this year.

Take care and alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young