Hello all,
We have been visiting friends for lunch on the early weekends of this month, which has been fun. One of my colleagues from NMIT and his wife came out to get firewood a while ago, and invited us for lunch in return.We had a great lunch at Shaw & Suz's place: I laughed so much, my face hurt. They are both so funny and have such great stories.
We also went to a Quiz night fundraiser for the Waimea Old Boys, with a load of our neighbours. We had a really fun night, and came in at around the middle of the pack - without any smart phone cheating.
We also had a good time up at Lake Rotoiti as well, having lunch with Robbie & Janet. We took homemade bread and pumpkin soup, so supplied lunch for everyone. We also had a good walk around the peninsular - and it was AMAZING how much frost there was still on the ground at lunchtime. The eels were right up by the boat ramp, looking for hand-outs, and there was an amazing duck - some kind of Chinese migrant - which had joined the resident mallards on the lake.
Marking, planning, marking, planning, marking, planning: that seems to be pretty much all that I did this month... aside from eating and sleeping. I had to mark flat out, plan all my work, assessments, build my Moodle sites, and do three course calendars for semester two this month as I had surgery on 23 June... and I needed six weeks of 'no work' space in order to recover.
Jan went up to Lake Rotoiti to spectate Gary and Karen, Max, and Tracey did the round-the-lake run (I was flat out on my pre-surgery run-up so stayed home and marked):
I had my surgery on 23 June, and my anaesthetist decided to not give me any gas. As a result, for the first time I had no nausea after surgery. I couldn't believe it: I was actually hungry by the end of the day, and wasn't sick when I ate a very light dinner. Fantastic.
The surgery was to shorten my left ulna. For some reason my ulnas are too long, so when I damaged my left wrist two and a half years ago, it has not been able to heal due to the torsion put on it by the very length of the bone itself. Now it is 5mm shorter, with a 15cm plate, a bone graft and 7 screws, and should heal without problems.
My right ulna is not as long as the left was, so probably may never need to be done, but I will be watching out for something similar, and flagging it much earlier.
I have a wrist splint that will help it heal, but basically I just need to ensure that I don't lift, twist or load it until the bone heals over the coming 6 weeks.
Oh, and I can't drive again either, until I get sign-off from the surgeon. I can use my arm a little, but not allowed to lift anything heavier than a cup in my left hand.
All I can say is thank goodness for Dragon NaturallySpeaking. It is voice recognition software that means I can 'talk it in'... so I have 'written' loads of blog posts while I have been recovering at home. I have also been reading and listening to books (mostly murder mysteries).
This has been a truly awful semester. Our school manager is off on leave for a month, and there has been lots of other employee assistance programmes put in place. We have been flagging for ages, but the organisation was fairly slow in responding... but they have responded now, which is good. I am getting a teaching assistant for next semester (which I have also had to factor into my planning for Sem 2). At least for the three weeks of next month I only need worry about myself. I start teaching in that third week, but should be fine by then, as teaching is 'light duties'.
I also created a memorial movie about my Uncle Eddie for my Aunt Diana. It was so good to finally get the time to tinker, even if I was one hand shy!
Hui-Ping came to visit, with Mae. It was lovely to see them, and great that they could drive out and see us. She got cheap flights down to Nelson, and was staying with Bill and Cornish. We made chocolate chip biscuits to welcome her.
We have finally arranged to have our road upgraded, with Malcolm McDonald. We are going to get it done in two stages. The first stage will cost about 10 grand... ouch.
Ah well, it has to be done.
More next month :-)
Sam (& Jan)
Hi all,
Hope life is well with everyone.
It was the children's concert on Saturday this weekend just gone. It went well. Loads of the little lovies were absolutely spellbound by the Emperor and the Nightingale, which was just wonderful... including many real tots in the 'terrible twos'. There were three performances, leaving Jan incredibly tired – even I was tired, just from selling programmes.
Mind you, I managed to fit in some shopping, as I ducked into town after the house doors had closed on two performances and bought two new pairs of jeans (on sale too, I might add!). My old favourites, the only pair I had left 'unholed' had finally collapsed into holes two weekends ago, and while I have cobbled them back together, they are definitely now home jeans, not 'out' jeans.
We came home, grabbed a bite, then rushed off to a quiz night at the Upper Moutere School picking up Zig & Lib from further down our road and meeting Glenys & Kevin from the Mudcastle. Zig warned us that he had a head cold and his brain had fallen out; Glenys got there and said she had never been to a quiz night before and would be rubbish; Jan & I were so tired we felt we needed to be stuck with pins to keep awake! Great team, eh. But after a few wines, we did OK, finishing about halfway through the field of 36. It was to raise funds for the Upper Moutere Recreation Centre, which has had two fires in the past twelve months. They think the fires have been caused by rats eating the wiring. Jan & I helped repaint after the first fire, the centre was about to reopen, and there was a second one.
Actually, too many wines in my case: I woke in the morning with a slight headache, despite having drunk lots of water. The first touch of a hangover I have had in a long time! Luckily it was raining yesterday, so I did lots of catch up jobs like dubbining all my boots and shoes, taking up my new jeans, making tomato soup, tidying the house, doing washing and then finishing the day in a long hot bubble bath reading a book, while Jan slept in until 10 then watched films. We took the dogs out at lunchtime for a walk - only about 3k, but nice for us all to get out, and the dogs played like lunatics. Raincoats and gumboots are definitely things to be thankful for... as is a good day's recuperation. I can also say whole-heartedly "thank goodness for the rain" :-)
Where we felled our full grown eucalyptus trees to be architraves and floorboards in our house, we now have loads of babies growing up - and all growing on the access road to fell the pines on the next crop rotation (granted, 20-ish years away, but also in the way for a pruning gang to get to the pines). The guy Jan hired the digger from said that Jan could
keep the machine until he gets another hire booking. So last weekend Jan dug out some of the
eucalyptus and macrocarpa seedlings which have sprung up, and we transplanted them to the hairpin bend on our road. There are still lots more, and as Ken hasn't yet said he needs the digger back, we will probably transplant some more this coming weekend. The eucalypts are a really straight growing variety which mills very well with low wastage, so we are keen to have some more coming on.
We also need to get the slope mowing man back to munch some more of our gorse, and plant our new pear and nectarine trees. Better buy in another truck load of compost mix for that too - and some alpaca poo!
We went to the Boathouse AGM a couple of weeks ago, and as we were walking along Rocks Road, this was the sunset we had the pleasure to see:
Tomorrow night we pick up Magda from the airport, as she is coming to Nelson for a few days. It will be great to see her.
Jan's work is going well, though he still gets the itch for more hands on work. He is speaking at a conference in a few weeks in Rotovegas, so is working on his presentation at the moment as well.
Jenny L is a whiz on the sewing machine: she has sent me three new merino tops this winter. I must have ten or more of them now, and I have worn them this year since April for that extra layer under much lighter clothes. While it doesn't quite mean that I can wear summer clothes all year round, it is close to it. Brilliant - thanks Jen!
I saw a gorgeous 1900s PR post the other day on the horrors of "men caring for babies", trying to stop the vote for women. Check it out at http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/08/men-caring-for-babies-the-horror-visions-from-the-early-20th-century/278392/?goback=.gde_4174358_member_264882939. There are also a couple of short posts below this one of other things which have caught my fancy.
Best wishes to Neil L, Erik, Gary B & Uta this month :-D
Right - more to come in a few weeks. Take care, everybody
Jan & Sam
