I hope you all had a lovely time with your whānau over the break!
When we came back through Aussie on our way home, we came through Christchurch airport, and saw Sue, a friend of ours... so teed up a catch up before Christmas. Jenny flew up to Nelson on the same night, and John was there too so we had a good catch up dinner. Except we over-cooked the fish and ended up with something that resembled kippers! Most entertaining, and will be forgotten by no one, I am sure!
Had the CDANZ end of year function, and nearly got a migraine driving home, but salt and water saw it off. I also ate some avocado when I got home (high in potassium) to ensure it stayed gone. It is staggering how easy it is to get rid of migraines, just through food. No drugs necessary.
NMIT's graduation went off well, now back in the Trafalgar Centre, with everyone all together. It has taken three years for the earthquake strengthening work to be completed, but it is done at last. It was lovely to see the students who have been working hard for three years gaining their undergraduate degrees. A day of celebration - though the street parade is darned hot in a cashmere gown in 25 degree heat!
Jan has started his new job with Port Nelson, and appears to be enjoying it so far. Time will tell, but it seems like they have a good culture. He will work through most of the break, but he had organised the time off to go to Dunedin before accepting the job, so at least will have had three mini breaks within three months. Then it will be a long haul through until he has leave again, at Christmas 2018. We are thinking about a holiday to Europe then, though. Providing he doesn't change jobs again, we should manage that this time!
We took Nadine into town for lunch at the Suter and looked at the exhibitions that were on. There was a great wall exhibition from Katie Gold that really were wall flowers. Gorgeous. We walked through the gardens, then came home.A lovely, lazy day. We caught up with Gary at the Upper Moutere pub, who was here from Port Headland for a couple of days. He came around to our place for dinner, and we had a good catch up, on the same evening that John got back from Aussie. We have a house-full once more!
It has been dry and hot for six weeks (in fact, we left Brisbane at 31 degrees, and came back to 31 degrees in Christchurch!), but at last we had some rain. We watched the clouds gather, and then the thunderstorm started over Nelson way.
We had 17mm in a couple of hours, but despite a bit more drizzle, it wasn't enough to wet the soil more than a centimetre down. Thank goodness for having so much water supply - our tanks were three quarters full before the rain started, and full once the rain was over :-)
We will have a new addition to the family early next year: a boxer dog puppy we are calling Finn. When we go down to Sarah & Allan's wedding in January, we pick Finn up on the way home. Eric bred Libby and Finn is the sole result of the litter. Expensive lot of AI that was!
Nadine is going to house- and dogsit Boo and Bonnie while we go south with my Mother for the wedding, and to pick up Finn on our way back. The one thing I am wondering about is that our new couch and our new puppy arrive in the same month. I am hoping that these two things don't intersect in a bad way!
Barb came to stay for a week over Christmas, which was great. She left on New Year's eve. And, as you can see, we went all out on the Christmas decorations (the piece underneath is a pottery paua sculpture by Owen Bartlett):
Tessa and Izzy came down as well. Mr Busy Izzy had a good time, even though things were a bit spartan. We did have a tree – Jan cut down a pine tree which I had selected for early culling (growing on top of the septic tank!) and brought it in to decorate it for Izzy. Iz also got very attached to the only plastic present that he received: a batman mask and some kind of daggery thing (no idea about Batman - always thought his tights looked ridiculous). Christmas lunch was at our place with only nibbles, which was great. Tessa did a lovely platter of veges which got hoovered in double-quick time. We didn’t drink much (getting through just over one bottle of bubbles between us). No huge amounts of food, no one bloated and sleeping on the couch, and the fridge looking normal.
Izzy did the present allocation, which was quite fun in itself: and this year the theme was recycling. Regifting abounded, and then people swapped regifted presents as well. It was quite fun, and I think we all redistributed some stuff. However, we the family collectively got my Mother a fitbit to record her heart rate for the cardiologist - aside from things for Izzy, this was the only 'traditional' Christmas gift. We have stripped the commercialism out of this family time now, though it has taken us a good number of years to get there.
Jan made boysenberry jam after everyone went home from some of last year's fruit in the freezer, so at last we are getting some freezer space back. Jan, Barb and I all went for a late walk down the hill with the dogs to enjoy the sunset and some cooler temperatures.
We had a few lunches out as a family while everyone was here, with the traditional ice cream sundae (my Father always had one, so someone now carries on the tradition). Izzy ate part of the one below, delivered as plain vanilla ice cream, without nuts, sauce or sprinkles, so somewhat less sickening than usual Only the sundae glass and the wafer made it anything like a sundae, really.
Tessa starts her psychology degree at the University of Auckland in Semester 2 next year, which will challenge both her and Izzy: and be good for them both.
My last MOOC for the year, l'Ecole Polytechnique’s How to Write a Scientific Paper, on the Coursera platform, is now complete. This was a very useful course as it taught me a lot about writing my cover letter and how to ensure my artwork was correct, and all the appropriate declarations. As a result, I finally got one of my articles complete and submitted to the Australian Journal of Career Development. Now I just have to wait to find out if it is accepted for review, or if it is a desk reject. Hopefully the former after all the hours and hours of work, and twelve full rewrites...
Two of my NMIT office colleagues have just retired, which will make next semester very interesting indeed. It won't be the same without Ellie and Chris.
The rest of summer will be PhDing... and enjoying lots of dog walks.
We end this newsletter with our Christmas message. Have a safe and happy season!
Sam (& Jan)
