News from Nelson - November 2017

Hi all,
Hopefully the year has been kind to you all: things are starting to return to normal for us, though we have been - as usual - fairly busy.

We began the month with the CDANZ Conference in Auckland as detailed in our October newsletter), and ended it with the SMAANZ Conference on the Gold Coast. We stayed with Tanja and Tony in Tan's new appartment in Bulimba: wow, what a great place, with awesome views. I had several days on the Gold Coast, commuting for the first couple, then staying for the last couple. Lars and Ann came up from Sydney on Friday night, and we spent some time with them over the weekend. Tanja and Jan spent some time together while I was away for the days. Some photos of our trip follow.

 

 

 

 

We spent some time in Brisbane, touring the city and the river; as well as a dinner and drinks at Q1 Skypoint on the Gold Coast, and a meander along the beach. We also went to Caloundra for the day on the Sunday before we came home, to see Ann's grandparents. There was a great thunderstorm that came through on our last night which gave us some fabulously moody photos. We got so well looked after we were almost tempted to stay :-)

On the plane I watched half of the second series of "Head of the Lake" on the way over, and the other half on the way back. This second series was set in Sydney, rather than in and around Queenstown. It was OK, but didn't quite hang together. I probably wouldn't bother watching a third series, unless it got rave reviews.

It was a total month of parties. Dawnie had her usual Guy Fawkes BBQ, which was great fun, followed later in the month by her birthday party at The Boat Shed, Mapua.

We had Glenys and Kevin's for Kevin's birthday dinner, which was a late night out (needless to say! It is always a late and hilarious night at the Mudcastle).

Tracey is moving into town next month: she has sold her share of Cotterel Road to Max & Karen who will now both farm full time. Erica will be going to Nelson Intermediate in 2018 - crikey, intermediate age already! - and Trace will be reinventing herself. Exciting times! We all had fish and salad one night with Tracey, Erica, Max, Karen, Jenny and John: on the first night that John was back in the country. Jenny was up for a family weekend, so it all worked out very neatly.

We caught up with the Cools's again: they came around for dessert and a movie (Hot Fuzz). It is amazing how quickly the year gets away on you though: we only live ten kilometres apart, but it is surprising how hard it can be to co-ordinate diaries.

Daniel turned 50, and had a big shindig up in his new shed. We caught up with our builder, Glenn, and his new partner (Beth) and some people from SA who are new to the district, and are beekeepers. A good night out, and a fair catch up with the neighbours. Margot and Michele told us that they are moving because Susie Lees is planning on moving back in with her new man - from the UK, aparently. That will be interesting.

Jan had the NSO Christmas BBQ at Eleanor’s place in Heron Grove, behind the old Templemore Gardens farm. They have a lovely house with a gorgeous English/Australian garden, designed for lots of shade, but all I could see was lots of work in keeping it beautiful! We took along things that I could eat - coleslaw, hummus, cucumber and broccoli, and marinated chicken. We were there in the garden for three hours... the time just melted away.

The Kanuka is flowering gorgeously.

Gorgeous sunrises again: and not much rain at all. It was so dry that we decided to put off planting most of our vege plants until we got back from Oz.

Jan has been getting the vege gardens ready for the summer, while considering that offer he was made that I mentioned last month. Negotiations have progressed to the point where contracts have been signed, and he has done a couple of hand-over days on his free Mondays. He finishes at the DHB just before Christmas, and goes to Port Nelson as Safety Advisor, starting the week before Christmas. He is looking forward to the change.

The little nana car hit 200000ks:

Along with John, Nadine from Ulm has come to stay too, and will help out John with the first couple of tours as a driver. It is lovely to see her again. She is in the spare room, and John is in the laundry!

I wound up my teaching, marking and results for the semester, and had the decks clear before heading off over the Tassie. There is still some admin to do next month, but I am pretty much done and dusted for the year, aside from supervising three full year project students who will continue their projects over summer, and attending graduation. That means I can get stuck into my PhD, which has been sadly neglected... largely due to the personal toll this year has taken with family illness and deaths.

This month's MOOC was a FutureLearn University of Reading course, "An Intermediate Guide to Writing", which was part two of the MOOC I did last month. It wasn't bad... and again, I learned something new. And then I managed to fit in another one to help me finish off my journal article: How to Write a Scientific Paper course, by l'Ecole Polytechnique on the Cousera platform. It too was free :-)

Boo looking after my Fluevogs:

And some people wear sunglasses inside!

'til next month!


Sam (& Jan)

News from Nelson - October 2017

Hello again!
I hope you are all fighting fit? This month was a bit smoother for us than last month: thank goodness. Everyone has stayed well.

I have been clearing out my wardrobe a little: I have gotten rid of some unworn scarves, pants, jewellery, shoes and accessories... and even a very old laptop. While that has not made a huge difference to the space consumed, getting rid of stuff seems to make a difference mentally.

Doing yet another FutureLearn MOOC on “An Intermediate Guide to Writing” from the University of Reading. This is a two part course, which should be interesting.

Lara came for a week while Otto was up in Auckland at a hockey tournament, which was lovely. I took her for a leg wax and a facial... and she stealth shot me while having a haircut. Totally at my best!

Lara spent lots of time on with Lexie, walking, talking, playing pool, and even inner-tubing down the creek. She had a few baths with a bath bombs, and we did some cooking and watched a few movies. The dogs got walked a lot, which was great. We went Op Shopping to get her some gumboots, as her feet are now larger than mine, but had to give up. We bought some at the Warehouse instead. We have caught up with Dawn - Lara and I went to visit while she was here. She now has Pekin ducks - and a couple of those have cowlicks!

Our new couch has arrived (weeks ahead of schedule), and we have taken one of our old two seaters - the least worn one - to my Mother for her lounge. Now we are hoping that the L-shaped couch arrives too... but they did say the ETA on that one was the end of January. A while to go yet.

Boo and Bonnie are quite relaxed at home: and both have found good places in the sun, now that it has finally decided to stop raining.

Smudge, Scott's bulldog, adores tummy scratches. She trails around after Jan panting at him until he does his duty. 

The sunrises continue to delight:

Jan went down to Christchurch for a two day course in October and brought home a cold, bless him. That led to me having my first cold in 18 months, and ended up in bed for a few days. I missed Anabelle's birthday because of it, so Jan went on his own, as he had recovered!

I managed to strain my medical cruciate ligament, and thought that I could walk it off - and no you can't do that, as I have found - and now have it strapped. It seems to be very slow in healing, so instead of doing my 12,000 steps per day, I am just getting to whatever distance I get to without pushing it. One of my sport & rec students showed me how to strap it properly, so hopefully it will come right.

Jan has been approached by another organisation to see if he would be interested in working for them as a safety coach, and so he is exploring options. We will see how it shapes up.

We headed off to Auckland for a few brief days at the end of the month: I had a conference to go to, and we managed to squeeze in a couple of lunches with friends (one with Morv at Mojo, one with Doug at Bird on a Wire in Takapuna) and a night out with Janet & Shells at "Pleasuredome, the musical", out in Avondale. My advice on Pleasuredome: don't bother. It is pretty fragmented, and it took me quite a long time to work out where the songs came from. Most of them were pretty hard to recognise, and the storyline was very, very weak. The highpoint was the recreated New York street scene outside, which was pretty cool, however the prices for drinks and food was pretty steep. However, if you do go, and if you value your hearing, take earplugs. It was deafeningly loud. I stuffed chewed up tissues in my ears!

We booked an apartment in Lorne Street. It was very central, and - although it was getting quite worn - it had everything we needed. We did a lot of walking. Janet was awesome, picked us up from the airport and dropped us back again, as well as ferrying us to the Pleasuredome. We also did a spot of shopping at Sylvia Park (H&M). It was really lovely to catch up: it has been so long! 

The whole show was disappointing. Never mind: I am glad we went, because going is important. The songs included the Human League’s ‘Don’t You Want Me’; Bruce Springsteen’s ‘I’m on Fire’; Frankie Goes To Hollywood, ‘The Pleasuredome’; Diana Ross, ‘I’m coming out’; Lou Reed ‘You’re a slick little girl’; Luther Vandross ‘The Night I Fell in Love’; Grandmaster Flash, ‘White Lines’; Hall & Oates, ‘I Can’t Go For That’; George Clinton, ‘Tweakin’; Tears for Fears, ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’; Simple Minds “Don’t you forget about me'... I am sure there were more, but I didn't recognise them.

We caught the Devonport ferry on a bit of a day trip, and I visited the Anna Stretton outlet shop ;-D

Everything was going swimmingly at work, when a colleague from the IT degree died suddenly. She had leukaemia, but went downhill very quickly. One of my supervisory team was covering for the IT courses, and suddenly found herself with our colleague's entire workload. My supervisor is now off on stress leave, having tried to do it all without outside help. However, the rest of us have managed to pick up the slack, and to start the process of getting in an outside marker for the end of year reports. Thank goodness for having written up all the instructions last semester: it should make it reasonably easy for me to brief someone new. I have also been asked if I would be interested in developing and teaching a Master's course on Leadership. Oh, yes!

We caught up with Magda and David before they left for Aussie - QLD - to live. I hope to catch up with them when I am over for supervisory meetings. They don't go until the end of November, but this was their last trip to Nelson. Julie came out with Sterl and Siobhan as well. We had a great time, and though it is sad to see Magda move so far away, I am sure the move will be great for both of them.

Graeme and Julie, and my mother, have been out to Rose Road for lunch as well.  Allan and Sarah are getting married in Dunedin in January, so the family are planning a road trip south to help them celebrate.

More next month!


Sam (& Jan)

News from Nelson - September 2017

Hi everyone,
More sad news for 2017. My Uncle Norman passed away on the first of September at 5.45pm. Both Jan and I were with him at the end. My Mother had gone away for a few days to Auckland at Izzy’s 2nd birthday (Tessa's little boy), and the day she left he started to slip away. My brother came down, and together we saw him off on his last journey. He, like my parents, donated his body to the Otago Medical School, so the undertakers will do a special medical embalming and get him transported to Otago.

We held a memorial at the village he lived at for a decade, for his friends and neighbours to remember him. A lot of them had been visiting them, including a couple of them who can no longer drive, but happily biked the ten kilometre round trip to see him. That's dedication. My sister came up for the memorial, which was nice.

I am now winding up his affairs. His will has to go through probate, and apparently there is quite a queue in the High Court at present, so this is going to take a while. And, in going through this process again, I learned something new: if you are in a long term relationship, you need to have your bank account in joint names, not simply have signing authority. This is because at death, signing authority ceases but having a joint account means that the funds are free straight away for the surviving account holder. I hadn't realised the difference: and that is much easier than waiting for probate.

Jan's birthday was a fairly quiet affair at Poppy Thai, a Thai restaurant in Richmond. The food was good, and we had quite a range of people there - including Karen and Max whom we haven't seen in quite a while, despite them living out in Cotterel Road now.

Jan's boss at the DHB resigned this month, so they asked Jan if he would take on more hours. Of course he said yes! <sigh> He has gone up to 36 hours, but, instead of doing five days, he has packed the extra hour into four days of nine hours. That means he can keep playing in the quartet on Mondays, which is nice. What is really funny though is that Jan's boss was gone for a bit over a week, then was suddenly back as a contractor. It is also really murky about whether she is still the manager or not, and no one really seems to have any oversight of the actual practices going on there. The more I hear about this organisation, the more of a management debacle it appears to be.

Jenny L came to Nelson and we caught up with her for lunch at Karanga and dropped her off at the airport (which was lovely). She had been up for a couple of family birthdays. After that we went around to Glenys and Kevin's for Kev's birthday.

We know it is cold when Bonnie and Boo curl up together... and our spring has been cold and wet this year. Though, in saying that, we think Boo likes Bonnie more than Bonnie likes Boo. When Bonnie went to the vet for the day, Boo was totally at a loose end. Quite surprising.

And, speaking of couches - well, pictures of a couch, anyway - we have finally got around to ordering two new couches for our living area. We had meant to do this the year we moved in, but not only was money tight, but we just didn't quite get around to it. The intervening eight years didn't really get us any closer, either. However, two things came together this month: I was washing the upholstery and realised that it is getting VERY thin in places, and the burgundy has gone grey where the sun has bleached it; and we got invited to a 'cost plus 10%' evening for Farmside account holders at a local furniture shop. We went in, and found a lovely L-shaped leather couch to replace two of our old ones... which then left us with needing another two seater to replace the remaining two seater, and we found that at another store. Both are on order, in chocolate brown. The two seater should be with us in 6 weeks, and the L-shaped one in 16 weeks. No rush - the old ones were 23 years old, after all :-)

The rubbish weather has brought some lovely sunrises with it, which is nice. Always a two way thing!

The NSO had a pretty ambitious programme for the spring concert, including Pictures at an Exhibition, which I managed to find illustrations for, and popped on a PowerPoint for Jan to change as the movements progressed. This concert was in the Nelson College Hall.

I got an interesting surprise at the concert's after-match function: Jan has decided to step back onto the committee as the Chair - in the same month that he has gone back up to almost full time. That will also be interesting. He is also currently in rehearsals for the Cantata Memoria in conjunction with the Nelson Civic Choir, which will be performed at Labour Weekend.
 
Again, to polish my writing I have been undertaking another MOOC over four weeks, the University of Leicester's course, Discovering Your PhD Potential. This is proving very interesting. I have got quite a few tips already. I am still plodding away on getting my academic articles written: up to draft #8 on one of them now. By crikey, I am sick of the sight of it! The other one is languishing in "not enough data collected yet" land. I am trying to get more students to answer the survey, but there is only so much I can do without creating unacceptable amounts of bias <sigh>

I am looking to the study break and spending some time with Lara, who is coming down to stay next month. It should be great fun. 

That will do us for this month: back to you in another four weeks... and hopefully everyone is well next time.


Sam (& Jan)