News from Nelson - October 2 2014

Hi everyone,
Here I am again.

Jan has been on a week long residential course in Christchurch. He caught up with Jenny & Bertie while down there, and has come back with lots of plans for work: so all good... provided he gets time to implement what he wants to, and doesn't get road-blocked too much.

While he was away, I revamped my website and got my marks back for my Master's (A). All good. Had a few storms go through, but most haven't touched us here in the Moutere:

Roses Road looking east, storm going along the Nelson ranges, Oct 2014

A couple of weekends ago, Jan had a concert with the Greenhill Community Orchestra at the Stoke Memorial Hall, which my Mum and I attended on the Sunday (photo of the rehearsal below). Warren swung by on Saturday and we gave him a hand to first load a trailer-load of his farm gear that he had been storing on our wetland, and to then off-load it at his place on Sunday. We even got dinner for our efforts (always stellar if I don't have to cook!).

Greenhill Rehearsal at Stoke Memorial Hall, Oct 2014

Labour weekend we went to three of the Nelson Arts Festival shows: Black Faggot, White Cloud and Davinia Caddy. Of the three sessions, Black Faggot was the most powerful, but White Cloud the most enjoyable. I was thinking, on our way home from seeing White Cloud, that there is probably nowhere else on the planet where you can go to a tiny provincial theatre and have one of your nation's music legends play music and tell conversational stories about their childhood and family. It felt like we were being hosted in Tim Finn's living room. Black Faggot was confrontational, full of pathos, funny and thought-provoking all at once. Both these shows were absolutely stellar.

Davinia Caddy was good, and, as this lecture was held in the Granary Festival Café, we enjoyed a good coffee and a stonking chocolate chip biscuit while listening. We also caught up with Derek Sherwood for a good chat (and briefly with Kate between her performances).

All in all, a great labour weekend. Jan even managed to fell some trees, and I got a chunk of marking done. Jan has been very busy in the garden, and has recycled an old door from Nelson Pine as cloches:

John Fitz returns in a couple of weeks, bringing with him Jan's new bike, a Triumph Tiger:

Jan's new bike: Triumph Tiger 800, 2014 Reg

Barb has been in the US (Maryland) for a few weeks, visiting Joe and his family, and got some great photos at Montego Bay & on Assateauge:

Barb showing us this is definitely Assateague, Oct 2014

Patience (Joe's sister) & Barb, Assateauge, Oct 2014

Awesome light at Montego Bay: Joe reads while carrying Barb's shoes (!)

Next weekend we are helping out at the Big Beach Cleanup, and doing some more gardening chores. The weekend after that, we have a 1920s party to go to (...I have no idea what we will go as!). I will be in Auckland from Sun 16 to Tues 18 Nov at a CDANZ meeting, Symposium and AGM; and the weekend after that is our Anniversary BBQ. Man, where has the year gone?!

We may possibly have a trip to Dunedin to visit some family sites of interest next February, but we are unsure as yet. However, Jan & I are definitely planning a trip to Brazil next April (back in time for Beck's wedding if we can manage it), and we will both be up in Auckland in May for my graduation.

Right, that's all for now: more in a couple of weeks. Keep well!

Sam (& Jan)

News from Nelson - October 2 2013

Hi all,
I hope you are all fit and well - we seem to be boxing along here just fine. Jan has had a cold though - and spent three days off work with it, but amazingly I didn't catch it. There is a first time for everything!

We seem to have been busy here again for the past few weeks: again, I am not quite suire what has been filling our time, but we have been busy doing it.

We have had the orchard cut, our tenants are moving out at the end of November so we are looking at putting the Montrose Dr house on the market once more, and we have caught up with a few people around the country.

Jan has been to Wellington for the Naenae College reunion this weekend - and apparently many beers were imbibed! Jan went with Tina on the Friday night, and together they caught up with lots of old friends - particularly from Jan's year, as loads of his old compadrés turned up. On Saturday, Jan had brunch with Brigitte and John at Tina & Jeremy's.and caught up with Hartmut & Uta. On Saturday night Jan went to meet his year people for dinner at a Chinese Restaurant, and they finished up at Helen's mother's house in Kelson. He had a great time overall, and I am really sorry that I forgot to send him with a camera!

On Sunday, Gary & Sandra - who have been in Port Headland (Oz) for the past five years - were here on holiday, and picked up Jan from his flight home from Welly, and came to stay. Jan made a massive lasagne for dinner, which he had better freeze, because he is off to the US next week, and he will never eat 3/4s of a huge, deep lasagne dish full of pasta, mince, cheese and tomatoes, before he goes.

On Monday morning, Pat, Marjie & their brood called in for a waffle breakfast on their way home to Chch. The McLarin's drove up to Nelson on Friday, Pat flew to Welly on Friday night for the Naenae Reunion with Jan, came back on Saturday for brother Matt's 40th, then drove home Monday morning with a segue to our place for brekkie on the way. It was lovely to see them again so soon (Marjie is very trim & fit after doing a 20 week challenge. I don't envy her the effort, but it has been very worthwhile because she looks great).

The weekend before that we went to Christchurch, I went to my symposium & AGM, which was great. We stayed with Jen, Jan had lunch, morning tea & afternoon tea dates every day (including Bertie, visiting Meg, Mr Tunley and my Aunt Diana. He had a great time being a lady who lunches :-D ). We had dinner with Magda on Friday night, too.

We caught up with Jennie, Pat, Marjie, Megs (& Will), KB, Gary, Dan, Tori and all the short people. We had a great night at Pat & Marjie's, which was, of course, way too short.

  

 

We called in to see my sister on the way home - and to drop off her birthday present.

The weekend before that we had a lovely, quiet time at home, doing some tidying up and me prepping materials for the coming Career Symposium and AGM in Christchurch. We did a few jobs outside, but the weather wasn't that flash for getting out and about. We had a bit of rain and the fords were pretty full:

Dogs are well. Playing. Lying in the sun. Sleeping. All normal :-)

So, Jan is off to the US and Germany next Tuesday (5 November), and returns on 24 November. Just in time to talk at another Rotary Club about Rotary Youth Exchange with me about the two tours we have taken around the North Island.

Next concert (which Jan will miss) is Sibelius. Magda is coming to Nelson to stay though instead, so I will have the pleasure of her company instead:

That will do for now - I had better do some work!!

Jan & Sam

News from Nelson – July 2011

Hi everyone,

We have had lots of rain! It really feels like winter now with thunderstorms and snow. We certainly aren’t collecting lots of energy from the solar arrays at the moment, and the dogs are clustered around the fireplace!

Well, things have moved quickly since I updated you last. Jan’s dislocated finger is healing slowly; it is still a bit swollen and sore. Jan is very impatient with the speed of his recovery, but I think that he has forgotten that it is going to take six weeks to come right after the last time he played volleyball – so he needs to give it another four weeks yet before it will be largely better…. and the fact that he played after two weeks from the injury may have slowed his recovery even more.

I went to see my specialist at lunchtime on Friday 24th June, once he got back from his holiday (and after bludgeoning my way into an appointment through his receptionist – I did buy her a box of chocolates as a thank you) and got a surgery date; for the following Tuesday morning. We were going to Christchurch on Saturday, back Monday night.

Right. So in the carpark outside, I rang our Health Insurer and got an approval number, filled out the surgery forms and dropped them off at the hospital straight afterward. Then I realised that perhaps I had best go & stock up on library books and various other things that I might need for the following month that I would be out of action! So Friday afternoon was spent shopping and planning – and letting my Heads of School know at NMIT. At least I had finished all my marking & compiled my results in case the surgery was able to be done quite quickly (just wasn’t expecting it to be quite that quick!).

Christchurch was great – we caught up with Jenny, Trace & Erica, Bertie, Pat & Marjie and their brood (can’t believe how much they have all grown!) and Gary and Karen. Jenny, Bertie and Trace drove us around to do various things; we got to see Warren & Trace’s new place (which we hadn’t seen before), Bertie took us on a tour of the city, which was scary but interesting, and Jen drove us around on a tour of nurseries for a seed and plant pot search. It was lovely to catch up with everyone, and there was only one aftershock that we felt (a wee one on Saturday lunchtime – about a 4). Jan got to watch rugby on Sky :-)

Jan’s course on Monday was deadly boring, and my laptop crapped out at 10am, so all the work that I was planning to do that day while Jan was at the course was kaput (we later found out that the motherboard was fried – apparently a problem with that model… and only 3 years old. Pah!). Never mind, at least I had brought three books with me. So I read them all!

Monday night we got home, I did washing and organised everything ready for the next day going into hospital. Surgery went well, no complications, other than the usual vast amounts of anti-emetics they have to give me. I had a full abdominal hysterectomy, but they have left an ovary so I won’t need HRT (they tried to leave both, but one was damaged by the fibroid crushing it, so they decided to take it out as well).

However, 20 hours after surgery I was even more dizzy and sick, so they gave me a “scopaderm” anti-nausea patch, which I proved to be allergic to. My eyes swelled up, my throat closed and I got sores and blisters. Very exciting. Needless to say, they have made a note on my file not to use these patches!

Once that was removed I got better by leaps and bounds. I had taken 11 books and four talking books to hospital, reading 10 of the books before I came home (couldn’t listen to the talking books as the laptop crapped out). I got two newspapers every day and read those too (and did the code cracker and the word builder – but I was slow to begin with). I had lots of visitors, bringing good wishes, cards and flowers. Jan came every day, which was great – and in the opposite direction to home so added to the complexity of his life.

On Saturday I came home, and have been very quiet at home since. I have no trouble working quietly at my computer, and my WorkPace software makes sure I take regular breaks. I have had two lots of cautionary tales – one of infections and one of a prolapse – to ensure that I take care and convalesce slowly. Magda, who had a hysterectomy three years ago, came to stay for a few days last week, helped out and kept me company.

In the last week of July I plan on returning to light work, and will start lecturing again on 1 August. I have everything ready to go for that, and will organise some students to pick up the printing as I am allowed to do NO heavy lifting for six weeks. And boxes of student resources are very heavy!

So for now it is just pottering about. I have done lots of admin things and have even started tidying up some old filing. Until this week, I didn’t really feel yet like tackling anything new, so have been doing routine things in the office that take little brain power.

On the weekend I got some kind of mild gastric attack, which had me in bed for a couple of days, but by Sunday night I was feeling OK again. All good.

Jan has been doing the cooking and so on, but this week I am feeling a bit more up to things, so am starting to take things on again. I will definitely be careful about the lifting, and having lots of rests though.

Kathleen has been out to visit, and Nik is threatening to come out with Ash too. Jan & John went to see Jennifer Ward-Lealand in concert at the gala opening of the Winter Festival (I couldn’t sit for two hours). Jan is also going with my Mum to the NSO performance this Saturday – as a spectator, as he decided that the rehearsal schedule would be too hard to fit in along with my recovery. Again, I won’t go - sit ting for two hours, along with the hour and a half in the car to get both ways wouldn’t be wise (see? I am being careful).

John has headed off overseas again, and we have Bonnie with us now until September. Coco is very happy to have her running mate back again. I went for a walk halfway down the driveway between rain showers with them all yesterday, and they were mightily confused about why we had to go home already!

This week I hope to get back to doing some study - I have only three assignments to complete now, then I am completely finished. I would like to get those done before the end of July, and I see no reason why I shouldn’t be able to manage that – one assignment a week for the next three weeks sounds reasonable. In August I need to put in a one page proposal to my supervisor for my Masters; we have already discussed some ideas, but I just need to start fleshing it out so I can get approval to start.

Jan is currently germinating brassicas seeds as his first Certificate in Horticulture assignment. He keeps complaining about not being very motivated; I wonder if he would have been more motivated if I had done it with him.

Happy birthdays in the next few weeks to Thomas S, Fleur, Kelly M, Moose, Merrill & Julie C.

Catch you all again soon.

Alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

News from Nelson – June 2011

Hi everyone,

Hopefully you are all fit & well?

We have had a few probs of late; for example, Jan dislocated his finger at Volleyball. He decided, after having snapped it back in himself, then getting all light-headed and having to lie down for a bit, that he might take a week off. Bear in mind that this was the first time he had played volleyball in the better part of two decades.

So after he went back to playing again after a fortnight off, he thought the ouchiness of it deserved an outing to the physio; who promptly told him that he needed to rest it for six weeks at least. Jan was also told that he needed to remember that he was not so young any more.Needless to say with a flag like that one, he was back playing the week after. And his finger still hurts :-)

As for me, I appear to have what is known in local parlance as a fibroid, and will be having a chat to a specialist to have it removed once said specialist gets back from his lovely, long European summer holiday. My GP thinks I will definitely need abdominal surgery, so I will keep you posted.

So, we have been keeping busy. I have only 10% of my diploma in career guidance to go (can see the end!), but I have started negotiating my Masters programme, to start next March. I have a supervisor, and a rough thesis. More on that as it comes to hand too.

Jan has started on his Certificate in Horticulture, and has been going just down the street from Nelson Pine to do all his courses. It is very convenient for him… and I am so glad I didn’t do it – I would have been like a one armed paper-hanger trying to fit that in as well. He had to miss a pruning exam this weekend just gone as they were rained out (and boy, did it rain!).

Montrose Drive still looks great. Our tenant is still asking for little projects – he is currently putting in new drainage core and gravel behind the spa room. We need to go & buy some more cobble-stones for the spa room – but then they will probably install them for us!

Ellie’s Dad died last week, which was really sad. The funeral is today. Big zen thoughts going her way!

I have just finished nearly all my marking – I only have 13 exams still to grade, which are being sat tomorrow, and even my moderation for one paper has gone out for external review. Because of the surgery threat, I am trying to get everything ready even earlier than normal for next semester, as it sounds as though I might be out of action for a month (surely I can still do computer work though…? Anyway, we will play it by ear). I have everything ready to go for most of my papers for next semester, so I might send everything to the print shop this week so I can’t tinker, either.

Next semester I have 140 virtual Leadership students, some flesh Leadership students; some video-linked Marlborough and some flesh Applied Management project students; and some flesh Sports Communication students. I have told Nic about my possible surgery, and he thinks we will be able to work it all out. All good.

We volunteered at the Founders Book Fair, and had a hoot (and I bought some books); but we didn’t get to go to Shelley & Kevin’s because Jan dislocated his finger! Dawn equally cancelled her land-warming party out at the Glen because it was far too soggy for a bonfire to light, so hopefully we will get to catch up soon.

Speaking of rain, it has been raining rather a lot here. We went into Nick & Gary's the other night for a great night of pizza, wine, rugby and their Vietnam photo shots, and got stuck on the Nelson side of the first ford at midnight for an hour or so, waiting for the river to come down enough so we could cross it (doesn't it look tiny in the daylight? You can see the tide-mark as to where the water was though - and it was swift, and full of logs...). And it STILL kept raining. 

Wendy & Gerry has had a wee girl (congrats, congrats!). All are well - and will probably be out adventure racing in five minutes! Tina is now officially a Kiwi (congrats doubled!). Our buddies in Christchurch are coping with the shakes (and double-triple-quadruple congrats to them).

This coming weekend we are off to Christchurch trip for a stay at the Sudima. We hope heaps of you will be able to swing by and have avo tea with us on the Saturday :-)

Happy birthdays in the next few weeks to my mother, William de B, my Aunty Jill, Colin C, John H, Jörg, and Thomas S.

Catch you all again soon.

Alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

News from Nelson - March 2011

Hi everyone,

The Christchurch earthquake continues to dominate our news, along with the situation in Libya. Petrol has risen by about 13 cents per litre in the past couple of months, but oil companies have kept the price in Christchurch as it was in an effort to make things easier on Christchurch residents.

Jenny L came up for a few days with her brother & sister-in-law as a rest from the failed Christchurch infrastructure. She came to stay here for a night, and it was great to see her. She was itching to get back down to Christchurch though, and check through her house thoroughly. The Uni is opening again on March 14^th.

It is amazing, but none of our friends appear to have been hurt. The only people we know of who have lost their house are Dave & Jo L (but they & the kids are all OK). Everyone else seems to have come through in good shape.

The central city will take a long time to return to normal; first of all the people of Christchurch need to decide if they wish to rebuild the CBD in the same location, or if it should be relocated to firmer ground. Repairs will apparently cost about $20b.

Photo: 3News (2011) from http://modernsurvivalblog.com/earthquakes/another-quake-rocks-christchurch-new-zealand/


Tessa is now up in Auckland, and is planning on settling there. She is staying with Mike & Kara while she organises everything –she has a preschool position already and is about to move into a house-share in Botany Downs.

Like the rest of the country, here in Nelson we have had a bit of rain, and the temperatures have fallen from some 30 degree days to some cooler temperatures.

In the past few weeks we haven’t really got any work done around the house, as Jan is practicing for the next NSO concert (which is in a fortnight), I am busy teaching a full-time teaching load this semester, and we have been doing lots of other things on our weekends.

We dropped off a trailer-load of firewood to Montrose Drive and picked up a trailer load of green waste from them – man, have we got some great tenants thus far. They seem to be treating our house like their own, and really taking care of it inside and out. It is wonderful.

Last weekend we helped out with the Weet-bix “Tryathlon”, which is a triathlon for primary school children. It was a great event, with nearly 1400 children sea-swimming, cycling and running (and only 4 accidents). I organised a group from Rotary to help out as marshalls on the cycle course, and made banana cake & coffee to bring in for our Rotary helpers team. It was great fun to take part and help the kids complete the event.

We also had Robbie & Janet’s birthday party at their farm in Tapawera - a 'cowboy' party. Luckily both Jan & I have hats, check shirts and boots, which made the whole dress-up aspect really simple. The party was in the woolshed, complete with a really good covers band who played nearly the whole time. It was a really good night, and we caught up with all sorts of people. Fleur & Neil were there and we had a great chat to them, as well as a surprise catch up with Nathan I.

Jan & I also volunteered to help take down a set of water fountain installations from a Nelson street display. There was a competition for these ‘water works’, with the winner getting a prize of $3000, and all the pieces were purchased. The one I liked was a stone sculpture of a man & a dog in a dingy on some rocks, which has been bought by a local pub (the Free House), to go in their beer garden. The fountain is a jet of water that squirts up between the man & dog, as if their boat has been holed. Very cute.

We also went with Sandra & Kevin to the Crusaders vs Waratahs rugby match at Trafalgar Park – moved to Nelson because of the Christchurch earthquake. It was a great opportunity to see a really good game at a very low cost ($32 for both of us on the embankment - plus loads of Stephanos pizzas to keep our strength up!). We would love to be going this Friday coming for the Crusaders vs Brumbies match, but we have friends coming over for a BBQ & movie.

We now have 50 jars of preserved apple puree, apple juice, pear halves and stewed plums in the cellar ready for the winter. I had to borrow some jars off Kathleen to get us through, so now I am trying to buy more Agee jars so that I can pay her back for the loan. Thank goodness for TradeMe and the Buy Sell Swap!

A group of us caught up with Jen C for breakfast the other day – she and some other members of her Friday painting group have an exhibition on at Kaimira Estate for a month, which is pretty exciting. She is thoroughly enjoying Golden Bay, and is now a mad contract Bridge fiend (to the point of having stood for Vice President of the bridge club). The damage from the late December floods is still being repaired.

I have also managed to catch up twice with Kel A – which must be a miracle in the space of a month! Duncan is in PNG, she is splitting her time between Welly & Nelson, but is off to the US in April for a break.

Oli took some fantastic photos at Oma Friedel's 96th birthday in Feb. A couple to share with you below:

This weekend Jan is going to hire a small digger so we can fill in the dirt around our big water tanks (and I can get my clothes line in on top), and move a mound of dirt over a wee bit between the office and the shed so we can plant some screening plants in autumn. We have also ordered our next lot of fruit trees for the gully.

Fliss didn’t have anything stuck in her throat; she had laryngitis! Bonnie then got an eye ulcer, and we spent two weeks back and forth from the vet for both of them. I emailed John & said that it was like a dispensing ward here with all the various meds that had to be administered at each meal time! Fliss is now pretty right, and Bonnie’s eye is slowly coming right.

John got back last week, and is reunited with Bon dog. He heads away in another ten days or so for his last tour for the season, and Bonnie comes back for another stint of ‘home away from home’.

Happy birthdays in the next couple of weeks to Melissa, Brigitte, Sandra W, Mike D, Jen C, Frits, Duncan A & Dilani.

Right, I think that's it. Catch you again soon.

Alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

Update on Christchurch family & friends

The 6.3 magnitude earthquake that struck Christchurch yesterday has caused a lot of damage. The shock was only 5k down (very shallow) and only 10k away (three times closer to the city than the September quake), with an epicentre in Lyttleton. The September earthquake was 30k away and 10k down, and even that quake was much shallower than we usually experience in New Zealand.

So far all our friends & family in Chch are OK, post-earthquake; only losing doesn't-matter-stuff, like small breakables and their nerves :-)

 My sister Barb, Tessa, Aunty Diana & Uncle Eddie are all good. Just breakables ...and mess.

Jenny was outside having coffee at the time, and was shaken but not stirred (not sure how her house is). Warren & Tracey have lost their caravan and chook-house to a falling boulder, but they are OK - Trace has headed down to Waimate. Pat is getting back today from overseas, and he, Marjie & the sproglets are thinking of heading up to Nelson. Bertie spent the night at her folks' place before heading home to clean up the broken stuff (minor). Dan is OK. Paul & Bridget are OK - and Paul's shop is less smashed up this time, as the epicentre was further away, and at home his chimney was toppled in the September quake, which was a bit of a bonus in a weird way).

Kathleen & Frits' son & nephew are in Chch but both are OK and helping out people around them who need assistance. We haven't heard directly from Megs but have heard through the grapevine that she & hers are alright. 

We haven't heard anything from Gary & Karen, or Yi & Paula, but are assuming that no news is good news... Hopefully everyone at Streats is OK too.

In Nelson we have had very minor disruptions to phone and power systems; power due to the fluctuations of supply through Christchurch, phones due to overload. Neither of which are remotely bothersome for us, except when we are trying to get news of people we care about.

 

Anyone who hasn't heard from friends or family should call 0800 RED CROSS. Important response information is posted at http://canterburyearthquake.org.nz/. For those of us not in Christchurch, news can be found at http://www.stuff.co.nz/ 

Our best wishes go out to everyone. Call us if you need us, and feel free to come & camp.