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)

News from Nelson - June 2017

Hi again,
I hope you are all well. Jan came through his second hip replacement surgery well, and appears to be completely on track with post-operative healing and mobility. This is excellent.

However, just when I thought that family was the gift that might stop giving, Uncle Norman had to be moved to a nursing home. My mother, Mike, Jan & I worked non-stop for about three weeks to pack up his whole flat, put all his gear in storage, and do our best to wind up his outside affairs as he would have liked them done, find him a rest home, and start getting into a routine of visiting him.

It has been pretty crazy. I am glad that I took most of May out of doing my PhD, else I think I would have been going spare now.

Uncle Norman's change in circumstances also coincided with NMIT end of semester reports coming in and me needing to moderate 50 students' project work and reflections. No pressure.

Then my mother got sick and had to go to hospital with breathlessness and a lung infection. Turns out she has a heart condition, which I found out about accidentally by turning up when her lung specialist was talking to her. Thank goodness I arrived in her room when I did.

All that was two weeks out from her 80th birthday party, which I was trying to organise in the remaining three minutes I had left this month... all while waiting for Jan to go under the knife for his last hip operation, and fighting the council to ensure that they put in all weather access to our valley as they were replacing our bridge (initially they hadn't been going to do ANYTHING about allowing us to get to our homes. Perhaps they were expecting us to fly?).

Though a local wag added an addendum to the bridge notice, as follows:

Collectively, all the happenings over the past four months led to three break-through migraines last week: the first patch I have had in a year. Not surprising really. But, by crikey, I hope that is IT for a while. I need six months of peace and quiet.

Of course, I am not going to get it. Next month I am off to Australia for a PhD induction and a planning session, I have two other research papers which need to be edited ready for publication, I start teaching a brand new paper in four weeks' time which I haven't even looked at yet, my sister tells me that the rest home my Uncle is in is poor, so he needs to be moved, my mother goes to the cardiologist in a fortnight and I need to go with her, and and and...

Deep breath.

We have concreted in part of the dog run under the gate, and bought and hung a new steel gate, as Boo has turned out to be an escapologist. So far she has not escaped since "project imprisonment" was completed. Bonnie has a malignant tumour on her hind leg, so is not likely to be with us for much longer.  However, we have not told her she is sick, so she doesn't know, and is carrying on as normal ;-D

And the world continues to give us visual gifts, as you can see:

 

Barb was back from the US this month, and came to stay in the last week, to help me organise the last bits and pieces for our Mother's 80th.

But more about that next month... and hopefully this time it is all good news.

Take care!

Sam (& Jan)

News from Nelson - May 2017

Hi everyone,
Another month has rolled around, and hopefully it will be less stressful than the last one.

We started with a bang: Jenny L came to visit - and stayed - which was great. Warren also stayed for a night with Erica. Warren helped Jan to get the pool table lights finished. Then Jan got one more spotlight to fit over the VERY last electric light wiring in our ceiling, and AT LAST the lights are complete: almost seven years after we moved in.

I decided that for this month I was not going to do any study or work other than that which was already booked: to give myself four weeks break. It was nice to have permission to play for a while.  Jan & I have taken the dogs for lots of walks, and I have been doing at least 11,000 steps per day.

My mother had booked a holiday before my father died: a two week bus tour of the far north. She decided that she would still take the time away, and enjoyed it. It gave her time to think, but also enough structure in her day to prevent brooding. A good balance.

While she had been away, she had all the carpets shampooed. We called around and helped her put her furniture back just after we dropped Warren off at the airport. My mother gave my father's stereo to Erica, who is now a real teen with her own music centre. Except for being ten years old!

I have rediscovered two crime writers: Louise Penny and Jo Nesbo. I now have pretty much all their books as talking books, and am working through them in order. It is proving quite restful. We also got a notification from the Tasman District Council library that the third series of the Danish programme "The Bridge" had come in on DVD. We picked it up and binge watched it.

Jan got access to John's Netflix account, and has been watching all kinds of things. We watched the Crown, which was quite fun. 

Jan, my Mother and I went to see the latest NSO Concert, The World’s Most Beautiful Melodies. It was a good concert, and the spinto soprano was very good in the Puccini ...except for her last two notes (which were screamed, as opposed to sung). Extremely enjoyable aside from just four seconds. There aren't many experiences you can say that about.

We went to visit Kathleen and Frits, taking with us a pair of Fluevogs - Investigators - that I was returning to Timeless Soles as they were too narrow for me. Kathleen got me to open them, saw them, tried them on, and bought them. They are gorgeous on her.

Barb is back in the US, spending time with Joe. She has been to visit the Fluevog shop in DC. I can't wait to see what she has on her feet at my Mother's 80th birthday party in July.

Justine came down for a visit for a few days. We spent some time talking about our experiences in having just lost one parent each, and how we are processing that. We went to small, out of the way places like the Macmillan Gallery and tried to call in on Vickie's Originals (but they were shut. Next time).

We had lunch with Sharon & Ian at the Moutere Tavern, eating inside this time. Another great menu and a relaxing afternoon. Sharon and Ian bought me a shrub to remember my father by, which was very nice of them.

Warren, who is up again to visit Erica, came for a visit in the afternoon with Erica, and we went for a walk down the hill with Ollie and Boo. Jan and Warren had a good chat, and Erica read quite happily. Jan has managed to get Netflix working on his tablet so he can download 50 episodes of Dr Who in preparation for his next hip operation in June.  

Donna suggested that we celebrate my Father's birthday somewhere he liked going, and everyone - aside from me - had a chocolate ice cream sundae in his honour:

Late in the month Uncle Norman had a couple of bad falls, and ended up in hospital with a fractured scapula and broken ribs. He is determined to get home, and is in the AT&R ward again already, undergoing rehabilitation to get him ready to return to his flat. However, when we went to visit him, he is floating in and out of reality: it doesn't seem to me like he can go home in a hurry.

I will be heading for Aussie in July for my doctoral induction, and to have a half-day planning session with my supervisors.

Take care - catch you all up next month.


Sam (& Jan)