Hi all,
Wow – here we are a sixth of the way through the year already! How did it get to be mid-February so fast?!
Brigitte appears to be recovering well from her hip replacement in Germany, and Jörg is slowly making progress following his head injury. My brother got swarmed by a wasps nest recently when mowing the lawn. He appears to be OK, but that is not the nicest experience either. He was very lucky.
I had a minor fall – Coco towed me over on the neighbour’s steep gravel driveway, leaving me with lots of bits of gravel to pick out. Thank goodness for Christian’s high pressure winery hose – that cleaned the bits out pronto :-)
As I write I am reading over what we were doing last time I wrote; and I am pretty much at the same space! I am still trying to commission my new PC. Jan has finished building shelves in the cellar – though; and they look great.
I have pegged back my teaching for this year; only teaching three papers, and they are all now underway. I am still trying to mop up summer school though. Getting there, but it feels like the mountain is very big at the moment.
Each week I have been helping the Nelson Symphony Orchestra secretary set up some new systems. Their previous secretary, who basically carried the whole shebang for several years, recently left. No one knows how to do anything as everything was in his head. At least while we are reinventing everything, we are writing it all down, and putting it into Google docs, so that everyone can access everything.
We are definitely now driving the Rotary International exchange teenagers around the North Island at Easter for my birthday. Camila, Ana's sister, is here from Brazil, and is coming to stay this Friday night with us. We are going into Able Tasman on Saturday for a day cruise in and a walk – or part walk, part cruise – out, depending on the weather. I hope Camila enjoys the dogs as much as Ana did.
Last weekend we had a great time up in Wellington. Jan had lunch with Doug, and Hui-Ping came around to Tina & Jeremy’s along with Pae-Ling, whom I vaguely remember from Auditing class many years ago. It was great to see everyone. We had a lovely family brunch on Sunday morning too, with Hartmut and Uta, and another friend of theirs. Tina & I tried to take a run – well, Tina did, and I puffed along beside until nearly asphyxiating and having to walk! I was up for a CDANZ Exec meeting, and so had eleven hours of meetings in two days. It was a bit full on – I got a pretty bad migraine on the way home, so will have to cut down what I try to fit in while I am up in Welly.
Kathleen & Frits came to stay at our place for a weekend, which was really fun, and we had Erin, Simon & wee Isla up for a meal while they were on holiday in Nelson.
Right, that's it for now – this weekend we have the Abel Tasman trip, and a Roses Road BBQ on Sunday. Then I am ensuring that we don’t add any more back in for the next two weeks!
* Justine – the earphones arrived perfectly! Send your CV!
All the best - hope to hear from you all soon!
Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young
