News from Nelson - January 2017

Hi everyone,
We hope all of you are fit and well.

My father has been in hospital for a few days with breathlessness, but has recovered well enough and is now back at home. I think he gave us all a bit of a fright. Strangely enough, in one of those coincidences that seem to happen to Kiwis, he ended up in a bed right next to my sister-in-law's grandfather. 

Jan & I have had a lovely break from work, relaxed, read, watched movies, played pool, got out in the sun, and done quite a few jobs around the house.

We have had visitors: Otto and Lara down from Wellington, Warren from Auckland, and Heidi here from Germany.

It was great to have Otto and Lara here. We baked, set up the train, visited Dawn, had fish and chips at Mapua, ate out at the Moutere Tavern, and watched lots of movies:

 

We went to Golden Bay with Heidi, and, although the weather was pretty overcast, I think we all had a good time. We stopped at Hawkes Lookout; Takaka for morning tea at The Wholemeal Café; The Waikoropupu River and the Springs; Rosy Glow; Langford's Store at Bainham (were I bought a nice new bucket hat); The Naked Possum; The Puponga Café for a picnic outside, then coffee and a view of Farewell Spit from the deck; Wharariki cliffs at Pillar Point; and lastly, Wharariki Beach:

Jan has finally bought chaps for chainsawing, and looks terribly stylish when amongst the trees now!

He has finished all the wood for winter, and is now working on next winter's felling. He also hired a pole saw and had topped all the kanukas outside both sides of our lounge to reclaim some of our view. The kanukas will have bushed out and hedged up by this time next year:

 

When Warren was here, he and Jan worked hard for two entire days to get the string lights up at long last (although there is still some finishing to do). This means there is only ONE more light to go in for the lighting to be complete. Only the patch panel in the office to finish and the supports on the spare bathroom bench to go and the house will be pretty much finished. And it only took seven years, and we aren't thinking of selling any time soon, so we get to enjoy all the completed jobs ourselves.

On Sunday just gone we had the Sarau Fair, which is the annual blackcurrant festival in Upper Moutere, to celebrate the berry harvest. Jan entered two of his blackcurrant jams - made from Tracey's organic blackcurrants and our 'support' fruit. The flavours were blackcurrant and apple, and blackcurrant and lime. The blackcurrant and lime was by far the nicest.

However, Jan entered the Jam under my name, saying it is 'easier' for Kiwis to read and say... and 'I' won first and second prize for the jams. Well done me ;-D

We have also managed to catch up with the Cools's already this year at the Sarau Fair, along with Stu and Anne, and some visitors from Germany, Wolfgang and Renate.

Our weather has been both good and awful over the summer:

 

Boo is settling in well, and, aside from totally lacking traffic sense, is a pleasure. Thank you, Erik!

We have larger holidays planned until December, when we think we are going to head to Germany for a few weeks for a - hopefully - white Christmas. I may be going to the Gold Coast once or twice this year for my PhD - possibly July and November. As these trips will be just a few days, if the timing is right, Jan & I will both go. Also, we are both going to Auckland at the end of October and the beginning of November for four days. I have a conference to attend, and, as Jan is only working three days a week, he thought he would join me. This part-time lark is fantastic.

Happy birthday to Mike S, Eberhard, Steph, Gary R, Linda, Kenn, Kathleen, Pat and Kent.

Ka kite ano

Sam (& Jan)

Brazil Flipbook complete at last

Hi everyone,
At last I have put together the flipbook of our Brazil trip, which can be viewed here or below.




Sam (& Jan)

News from Nelson - December 2016

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the December edition of our family news... a fairly quiet month, which must come as a surprise to all of you :-)

It was Di M's Dad's memorial service early in the month, and my folks and I went to farewell him properly.

John has arrived back from the UK, and is staying with us until February, as the cottage in Waimea West has been rented out. Bonnie was beside herself to see him again.

Ian & Sharon came out for a weekend to go through our Nullarbor photos and videos. Ian and I spent the Saturday afternoon putting together a Momento photobook of our Nullarbor train journey in August, which I have since turned into a flipbook. This can be viewed here.

We caught up with the Cools's at our place for lunch in December, which was great. Renate always brings such GOOD cakes (though I simply admire their flawless construction now as I can't eat them - because of the no sugar, no grains thing).

Speaking of that, at this day of writing, 3 January, I am 210 days migraine free. I have also learned that even a small-ish amount of sugar will give me a headache.

Let me explain. I pretty much had a continuous headache since I was 11 until mid-May 2016. I would stop having a headache just before I got a migraine (actually, when I told the just-ex-neurologist from the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board - DHB - that, he basically told me I was imagining it. Cute).

From Angela Stanton's work (here), I am now aware that, as a migraine sufferer, I seem to have a fructose-glucose-sucrose intolerance, just a small amount will give me a headache. Justine kindly brought some Kendall Mint Cake out from the UK for me when she came in November. If I have one piece, I now find that about an hour later, I get a headache. So I salt (following the Stanton Migraine Protocol) and it goes away. I can eat a third of a piece with no ill effects at all, however.

I have been experimenting a bit with other things. I have found my limit for boysenberries. I had 12 boysenberries with plain whipped cream. About an hour later I got a headache (not a migraine). I salted to correct, and the headache went away. The next day, I tried 6 boysenberries. Got a headache an hour later. Salted. Next day, I tried 4. No reaction, so I now know I can eat 4 boysenberries a day without effect. That is my sugar tolerance... not a lot, but at least I know I can have some.

And I can still eat dark chocolate, providing it really is dark without much sugar. Mmm. Whittaker's Dark Almond...

We went up to Welly for Tina's birthday, staying at Jeremy's place. We went out to see Hartmut and Uta on the Friday night, then caught up with a load of friends - Hui-Ping, Mike & Birthe, Katherine and Craig, and Sam & Moose - at Prefab for Brunch on the Saturday morning (a GREAT place for food and coffee).

Jan & I also went to Te Papa and had a scout around at the Gallipoli exhibition.

It was great to see Jörg, Tony and Tanja who had flown in for Tina's 50th birthday party, as well as catching up with everyone else. John D did a great piece of verse about Tina, and both Jörg and Otto did speeches (Otto's was very polished for such a young man!), as well as a couple of Tina's school friends (Maryanne and LT).

Lara and I talked about fitbits, as she was keen to get one with her Christmas money. I talked about how I use mine, and how I find it useful, and where I find it not so useful. She got one for Christmas, and is now starting to use it. She is coming down later this week, so we will share how we are finding the technology works for us.

Jan had his first week with the DHB, and has enjoyed the difference. He is now enjoying the first Christmas - New Year period that he has had off in a long time. 

I got approval as a PhD candidate at Griffith, though I will have to have my proposal and a peer reviewed publication before confirmation (which will be 12 to 18 months in). It is an interesting idea, ensuring that there is already one publication out of the proposal before confirmation. Good hedging, on their behalf, and I can only see it as a benefit from my end too. An early test of ideas, rigour and method. 

Jan & I had a very quiet Christmas: we got in some boysenberries and sloughed around being lazy. watching movies and relaxing on our own. Jan also couldn't resist getting the chainsaw and the brushcutter out, and felling half a dozen pine trees ready for winter. It was Christmas Day that I learned that 12 boysenberries are too many for me.

Boxing Day we drove down to Christchurch and picked up Boo from Erik and Jackie. Boo is a retired show dog who, at seven, was needing a new home - Gr Ch Quasar Tit for Tat: or Boo, for short. While we were there, we had a BBQ at Wendy's place, with Geia and Tjibbe, so caught up with almost the whole family.

Boo seems very cruisy thus far - she and Bonnie seem to be learning to get along pretty well, but like most things, it will take time to find out how well. She is starting to get called Boosephine. Or Boozilla.

Sam and Moose came to visit while they were in Nelson, which was lovely. Gary and KB came to visit briefly, and took Jan away for a morning as their driver so they could go kayaking on the Motueka River. A great time was had by all.

We also hopped on the bike and went to Murchison to see Gary and KB for dinner at the Lazy Cow: and I invented a new game that I have dubbed "Rephrase Scrabble". When we arrived at the table, there was a wooden board with scrabble letters on it, saying "Six thirty, Karen". I grabbed it and reorganised the letters into different words, took a photo, and passed it to Jan. Each of us took a turn. It was really, really fun.

So on New Year's eve, we did the same thing when the party started to get a bit quiet (I asked people for a phrase to get us started - I got "Good as gold, eh" but I substituted 'aye' as it gave a wee bit more flexibility! My rules ;-D). We didn't have so many people here this year for our party: Stu and Anne, my folks, Glenys and Kevin, John, Nane (a young German woman who is spending 6 weeks travelling around NZ, the Cooks and Australia, and who came to stay with us over New Year), Jan, Renate, Kilian and Sarah, and a few others came for dinner and dessert: then we had a later influx of Rose Road people - Margot and Michel, with their relatives and children, and Ian M. However, we did manage to stay up until 1.30am :-)

New Year's day dawned a little cloudy, but was fine as the day progressed.

As mentioned, we have Otto and Lara arriving later this week, which will be great. Then we have lots of time for relaxing, and, in my case, thinking and writing.

Happy birthdays to Christian O, Kevin J, Andreas S, Tanja, John F, Nicki, and Tamara.

Take care, and we hope to catch up with you all this year!


Sam (& Jan)