News from Nelson, May 2012

Hi all,
It has been a while since I wrote up our news – I don’t know where the last two months have gone. Staggering really; you turn around and it is suddenly a week away from winter!

Jan’s grandmother, Oma Lieselotte, is still slowly recovering in Germany. We have planned a fortnight’s trip to Ulm in June. While we hoped to catch up with everyone, unfortunately it looks as though we will miss Oli & Katrin as they are heading to France for two and a half weeks at the same time :-(

However, our plans at the moment are:

-          Sunday 10 June: 18.00 into Frankfurt, pick up the rental car & overnight with Simone & Michael in Langen.

-          Monday 11: drive to Ulm, to Uta & Omi Lieselotte. 

-          Tuesday 12 - Sunday 17:  Ulm, catching up with as many people who can make it there to see us.

-          Sunday 17: drive to Treysa, to Omi Friedel, staying with Anne & Herbert.

-          Monday 18: Treysa: catching up with as many people who can make it there to see us.

-          Tuesday 19 - Friday 22: Edersee.

-          Friday 22: drive to Frankfurt (possibly via Polheim), leave at 19.45 for NZ.

John F has headed off overseas for the winter, so Bonnie is still with us. She is such a happy dog! Magda will be looking after things at this end, and, with a bit of luck, while we are in Germany, we will catch up with John in Ulm. Funny how small the world is these days.

Brigitte’s birthday celebration went well. We caught up with Melissa, Jörg and Tanja who all came especially. Jörg had a bit of a relapse afterward, but seems to be right again now.

I have been up to Wellington a couple of times for CDANZ Exec meetings, but get to miss the next one as I will be in Europe. I will be up again in August though, so perhaps I can catch up with some of the Welly crowd then (August 24-26).

Justine came to Kiwiland for a holiday, and came over to Nelson. We did lots of shopping, eating and talking… what a surprise! Had a lovely catch up, and hopefully we will be able to catch up again in Germany in a couple of weeks time; we will see how Justine’s time works out.

Mike & Donna’s engagement party went off well – and I spent some time catching up with various family members. I am hoping to get some photos from my sister of the three of us.

Jan has an NSO concert on this weekend, with guest conductor Luke Di Somma. They are playing Mozart, Fauré and Elgar, which will be interesting to experience. This week Jan has practice tonight, tomorrow night, Friday night and Saturday. The performance is Saturday night, so by Sunday he will be ready for a very quiet day.

The Rotary North Island trip was a blast (see the post a couple down for some photos). We had eleven girls with us from nine nations, so were quite a mixture. Both Jan & I have said we would do it again, and I am currently preparing a photobook of the trip to send to all the girls. The girls also gave us a New Zealand flag as a memento of the trip, which we have had framed. It will go on the office wall.

A couple of the girls – Anna from Germany and Camila from Brazil – have come to stay for a weekend, having a king hit on watching the entire Director’s Cut of the Lord of the Rings… all eleven hours of it. We had a lovely time then too!

We have briefly caught up with Kathleen & Frits, who have been in Europe for a huge holiday, but are looking forward to a much more in-depth discussion of where they went and what they did soon.

Uncle Norman has had a fall, and has been in hospital for a week. He is more-or-less OK now, and was allowed home today.

Happy birthdays to my Father, my Aunt Diana, John D, Adrian C, and Megan A over the next month.

All the best - hope to hear from you all soon!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

Skinnymalinks vs skilligimink

Hi all,
Having just spent some time thinking about words, I was reminded of the phrase "sky-blue pink with a finny haddy border". I think I heard that phrase from either my mother or my grandmother, so assumed that it was a London phrase. So I trotted off across Google, detouring to wwwords (http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sky1.htm), and found that in actual fact it was an American phrase that started off as just "sky-blue pink". Trust the Brits to embellish it in the 1930s :-)

But what I was struck by was a line from Howard Garis, the 1910 author of a children's book containing sky-blue pink "He splashed around and scattered the skilligimink color all over the kitchen, and when his mamma and Susie fished him out, if he wasn’t dyed the most beautiful sky-blue-pink you ever saw!". What struck me was that "skilligimink" seemed awfully close to skinnymalinks, an old Scots word referring to someone who was very, very thin (perhaps with faint modern overtones in these days of anorexics of being only as good as they should be).

World Wide Words Michael Quinion hadn't made the connection between  skinnymalinks and skilligimink, I think: "Don’t ask me about skilligimink, by the way: Garis seems to have been the only person ever to use the word, and where it comes from is unknown". The two words seem too similar for skilligimink not to have been an eggcorn (a mis-heard or mispronounced word).

Sam

An Arm and a Leg

Hi all,
I read in an email recently "In George Washington's days, there were no cameras. One's image was either sculpted or painted. Some paintings of George Washington showed him standing behind a desk with one arm behind his back while others showed both legs and both arms. Prices charged by painters were not based on how many people were to be painted, but by how many limbs were to be painted. Arms and legs are 'limbs,' therefore painting them would cost the buyer more. Hence the expression, 'Okay, but it'll cost you an arm and a leg.' (Artists know hands and arms are more difficult to paint)"
It sounded like a total piece of bollocks to me, so I went and did a 2 minute search on the web. I found several items:

1. From PhraseFinder (http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/13/messages/1197.html):
   An arm and a leg - "A large sum of money; as if worth two of one's four limbs." From "Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable" revised by Adrian Room (HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, 1999, Sixteenth Edition). No origin is given.
   There's another Brewer's entry that sounds like it might have a connection: Chance one's arm - "To run a risk in the hope of succeeding and obtaining a profit or advantage. The.phrase is of army origin. A non-commissioned officer who offends against service regulations risks demotion and the loss of a stripe from his sleeve."
2. From PhraseFinder (http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/arm-and-a-leg.html): an American phrase, coined sometime after WWII. The earliest citation I can find is from The Long Beach Independent, December 1949 "Food Editor Beulah Karney has more than 10 ideas for the homemaker who wants to say "Merry Christmas" and not have it cost her an arm and a leg."
   'Arm' and 'leg' are used as examples of items that no one would consider selling other than at an enormous price. It is a grim reality that, around that time, there are many US newspaper reports of servicemen who lost an arm and a leg in the recent war. It is quite likely, although difficult to prove conclusively at this remove, that the phrase originated in reference to the high cost paid by those who suffered such amputations.
3. From Snopes (http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/lesson.asp):
   "If it takes a leg" (used to express desperate determination) dates to 1872. Similarly, print sightings for "I'd give my right arm" (to be able to do something especially desired) go back as far as 1616.
4. From Word-Wizard (http://www.word-detective.com/032404.html) says it was popularised in print in 1956 and is nothing to do with painting.
5. Surprisingly, our man from WorldWideWords (http://www.worldwidewords.org/wordsearch.htm) is silent on this one. This guy is usually, etymologically-speaking, sound as.

So where does all this leave us? Possibly the phrase has sprung from a mixture. It will cost you an arm, based on 'chancing your arm' or giving your right arm; to which someone has inflated the value with 'and a leg'. It sounds much more logical to me :-)

Sam

News from Nelson - April 2012

Hi all,
Jan & I have spent the last two weeks touring the top half of the North Island with eleven Rotary International Youth Exchange students from - closest to Kiwiland - Chile (Rosario), Argentina (Magui), Brazil (Camila), France (Margot & Camille), Belguim (Caro), Germany (Anna & Jenni), Austria (Ela), Sweden (Tove) and Chikara (Japan).

We had a great time, and are even mad enough to think about doing it again.

Some photos of the trip (more to come):

I will put together a book of the trip once I have all the photos back from the girls :-)

Jan & Sam

Social Cycle Theory

In 1982 I bought a SciFi book, Friday, by Robert Heinlein. Having recently re-read that book, I was struck anew by Heinlein's proposition in the book that there was a causal relationship between men’s beards, the length of women’s dresses and the price of gold, which you could as a measure of societal health at any given time.

I was saddened by how much this book - a once 'old friend' - had dated in the intervening 30 years (!), and I don't imagine that I will read it again. But with this reading, instead of leaving the proposed relationship between beards, dresses and gold as an allegorical tool to engage the reader, I googled these three factors to see if I could find any links. Not surprisingly, I found it unlikely that there was any link - no causation that I could see, nor even any apparent correlation between the factors. But my research did lead me to look at social cycle theory.

So I did some reading on this. I quickly realised that social cycle theory was something I had run across many times before - but I just didn't know that was what it was called. There were a lot of proponents who expand social cycle theory into the rise of an elite class, or apply it to a particular ethnicity or religion (Pareto, Sorokin & Sarkar), but the aspect of this theory that I find particularly interesting is the secular mathematical model development of long-term socio-demographic cycles, largely by Nefedov, Turchin, Korotayev, and Malkov.

These guys collectively focus on socio-demographic cycles in complex agrarian systems. What happens is, after our population reaches the land's carrying capacity (ie, once humans are at maximum stock units), our growth rate declines. Our population is under stress, our living standards decline, we have famines, rebellions and unrest. While our systems have reserves, within 50-150 years we have chopped through those; then we have a "Malthusian catastrophe". This is a huge demographic collapse; severe famines, epidemics, increasing internal warfare and other disasters, resulting in a big chunk of deaths. Lots of dead people result in more resources being available, we start breeding again, and we start a new cycle.

Nefedov, Turchin, Korotayev, and Malkov set up mathematical models to predict the likelihood of Malthusian catastrophes. That old saw about history repeating itself appears to hold true: there appear to be recognisable and repeating patterns to agrarian societal rises and collapses.

Birth - growth - starvation/fighting - death - birth - growth...

But what about technological societies? What happens to our societies when only 1% of the planet's US population and 10% of the New Zealand population work the land? I might have to start researching whether social cycle theory applied to agrarian systems will follow the same rules of engagement with a technological society...

However, one of the things that all of this really brought home to me was that all of this pondering was REALLY possible - and easy - because two PhD students from Stamford created a little search engine. Called Google :-)


References:

• Bridges, T A, PhD (8 March 2012). Sociology & Social Theory: Classical Social Theory. Retrieved 4 April 2012 from http://toddarthurbridges.org/10.html
• Heinlein, R A (1982). Friday. UK: New English Library
• Korotayev, A, Malkov, A & Khaltourina, D (2006). Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Secular Cycles and Millennial Trends, Chapter 4 - Secular Cycles & Millennial Trends. Russia: Editorial URSS, 2006 (pp. 95-133)
• Prout (1998). The Social Cycle. USA: Proutist International Inc. Retrieved 4 April 2012 from http://www.prout.org/ChapterTwo.html#dialectics
• Wikipedia (n.d.). Social Cycle Theory. Retrieved 4 April 2012 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_cycle_theory

Birthday present

Hi all,
PIcked up my birthday present today: a Pohutakawa and boulder bank vessel from Katie Gold. The unexpected and wonderful thing was that Katie had made two vessels, but one had delaminated in the firing. She gave me the 'second', so instead of one original sculpture for my birthday, I am the proud owner of two!
Katie has made both of these using my favourite colours, with Pohutakawa flowers, mussel, scallop and paua shells to decorate, and using a photo her husband & fellow clay artist has taken of Nelson's boulder bank. So immensely cool.

I like the blue one best, which is not the second. And they fill the spaces in the bookshelf almost like they were designed for it :-)

Check out Katie Gold at http://www.form.co.nz/artists/katie_gold.htm

Sunrises from Roses Road

And we have been having some nice sunrises lately. A couple of images:

And an update of what our living area looks like (please note that we still don't have in-ceiling speakers!):

Sam

News from Nelson – March 2 2012

Hi all,
Sorry not to email you all to say that I had posted an update: this news is 'old' news!

Jan’s grandmother, Oma Lieselotte, seems to be recovering a little. Hartmut has updated us regularly on progress. Brigitte and John are back from Germany, and we will be seeing them next weekend at her birthday celebration. We will be able to also catch up with Jörg, as he will be there too, as will Tanja.

I have had a cold, a real stonker of one. It arrived on Saturday night when we were in Sydney. I managed to get through until Monday afternoon before I finally had to give up and go to bed, officially ‘sick’. I got up on Friday (yesterday)! However, although I am coughing and my nose is still a bit blocked, I feel reasonably normal again now. I think that is my first cold in a bit over a year, so that’s not too bad.

We had a fairly good time in Sydney – it rained on the Saturday, but it didn’t impinge too much on our plans. The hotel - Sebel Pier One - was a good one, Jan’s stamina for the Art Gallery was fairly good, but our restaurant got changed. Est, the restaurant we were booked to go to, said they wouldn’t honour their promissory voucher, so we got changed to an Italian restaurant (Intermezzo). It was OK, but not what we were expecting. We did some shopping though, and lots of walking. The hotel had really good quality fittings etc.

Tonight the Nelson Symphony Orchestra has a concert, but I won’t be in the audience: it is also my brother’s engagement party. He & Donna are planning on getting married sometime in the next couple of years in Rarotonga. The whole family will be there, aside from Jan, who will be at the concert.

The Long Lunch at Kahurangi Winery was great fun, and we met the Peckhams there, who live in Neudorf Road, and make the most divine cider. We hope to see more of them!

The Rotary North Island trip is coming closer – just another couple of weeks now until Easter. I will update you all again afterwards.

 

Happy birthdays to Duncan, Dilani, Murray, Birthe & Gerhard.

All the best - hope to hear from you all soon!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

News from Nelson - March 2012

Hi all,
Whew, and we gallop on through the year!
Jan’s grandmother, Oma Lieselotte, is quite ill in Germany. She may have had a stroke, as her legs were paralysed, but we have not had an update, so are unsure if this will be permanent or temporary. Jan’s dad, Hartmut, left for Ulm on Monday, so will hopefully be able to update us on how she is doing shortly. Brigitte continues her recovery in Germany, and Jörg is getting the help he needs at last. No other illness in the family, thank goodness.
Jan & I are both well, but both still flat out. Jan is still trying to hire a new Electrical Engineer and I am STILL trying to commission my new PC. I have hit all sorts of “you can’t get there from here” Microsoft messages in trying to put the damn thing together (mainly permissions and key codes for XP).  However, summer school has all been finalised, and I have finished marking my first round of assessments for Semester 1 already. I keep thinking that perhaps I should just hand the thing over to a shop and say “make it so”!
The Nelson Symphony Orchestra is continuing to take up quite a bit of both Jan’s & my free time, but we are hoping that once we have built a big list of everything that needs to be done, we will be better able to plan everything.
We are about to Skype with the people who drove the Rotary International exchange teenagers around the North Island last Easter, to pick up all the goss. We are both looking forward to going at Easter.  Frits & Kathleen went into the Abel Tasman for Frits’ birthday a few weeks ago, and we took Camila with us. Photos: Camila above Anchorage, leaving Marahau on the water taxi, Pitt Head coming into Anchorage, Te Puketea Bay, Camila on the beach at Te Puketea Bay.

We will be up in Wellington again on 31 March for Jan’s Mum’s 70^th birthday (just after she gets back from Germany). Hopefully Joerg will be OK to fly; he has booked his flights, so should be all good. Then I am up again on 27 to 29 April for my second CDANZ Exec meeting.
However, we will also be in Australia from 16-18 March; yes, in eight days. We went to the Suter Gallery’s Degustation dinner a couple of weeks ago, and bid on, and won, the last auction item of the night; a trip for two to Sydney. We fly AirNZ, stay at the Sebel Pier One Hotel, get a guided tour of the Picasso Exhibition which is at the Art Galley of NSW, and get a dinner for two at Est. We will have lots of fun. We fly up to Auckland on Thursday the 15^th, and nice and early to Sydney on Friday morning (my students get to play hookey for the day!).
We also had the Roses Road BBQ a few weeks ago, and caught up with just about everyone the Valley, except Christian (he was away in Blenheim), but including Lyn Redden, who is back living in his house. Zig & Lib’s house is coming along slowly, but no wonder it has taken them so long to get organised with it; it is a pretty big place. Lib is planning on having another get-together at Orinoco Winery later this month or early April, so we will have seen everyone on the road three times already this year! (Photo: Kath, Jackie, Linda & Ian obscured behind Jackie, Hugh, Daniel, Diana, Christine, Kevin).

Jan and I also helped out a the Weet-bix Tryathlon last weekend, as cycle marshals on the cycle course.  Whakatu Rotary did this last year as well, so we were all keen to help again; though the 5.40am briefing was a bit grim when it meant that Jan & I had to get up at 4 to leave home at 5 to be there by 20 to 6! A great day though, and I think we will both be keen to be involved again next year. 1500 7 to 15 year-olds took part (peaceful playing fields at Tahnunanui at dawn on my post before 1500 kids and parents deluged in).

Right, that's it for now – this weekend we have the Long Lunch at Kahurangi on Sunday, and both Jan & I are working on Saturday (marking for me, commissioning software for him). I think last time I said that I was ensuring that we don’t add any more back in for the next two weeks… what was that Sydney trip again…?! Gary & Nic, Jan & I have been trying to find a weekend free to catch up. We are now into the second week in May, and still don’t have a date that works :-(
Happy birthdays to Melissa, Brigitte, Mike D, Sandra W, Jen C, Frits, Duncan & Dilani
All the best - hope to hear from you all soon!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

News from Nelson - February 2012

Hi all,
Wow – here we are a sixth of the way through the year already! How did it get to be mid-February so fast?!

Brigitte appears to be recovering well from her hip replacement in Germany, and Jörg is slowly making progress following his head injury. My brother got swarmed by a wasps nest recently when mowing the lawn. He appears to be OK, but that is not the nicest experience either. He was very lucky. 

I had a minor fall – Coco towed me over on the neighbour’s steep gravel driveway, leaving me with lots of bits of gravel to pick out. Thank goodness for Christian’s high pressure winery hose – that cleaned the bits out pronto :-)

As I write I am reading over what we were doing last time I wrote; and I am pretty much at the same space! I am still trying to commission my new PC. Jan has finished building shelves in the cellar – though; and they look great. 

I have pegged back my teaching for this year; only teaching three papers, and they are all now underway. I am still trying to mop up summer school though. Getting there, but it feels like the mountain is very big at the moment.

Each week I have been helping the Nelson Symphony Orchestra secretary set up some new systems. Their previous secretary, who basically carried the whole shebang for several years, recently left. No one knows how to do anything as everything was in his head. At least while we are reinventing everything, we are writing it all down, and putting it into Google docs, so that everyone can access everything.  

We are definitely now driving the Rotary International exchange teenagers around the North Island at Easter for my birthday. Camila, Ana's sister, is here from Brazil, and is coming to stay this Friday night with us. We are going into Able Tasman on Saturday for a day cruise in and a walk – or part walk, part cruise – out, depending on the weather. I hope Camila enjoys the dogs as much as Ana did.
Last weekend we had a great time up in Wellington. Jan had lunch with Doug, and Hui-Ping came around to Tina & Jeremy’s along with Pae-Ling, whom I vaguely remember from Auditing class many years ago. It was great to see everyone. We had a lovely family brunch on Sunday morning too, with Hartmut and Uta, and another friend of theirs. Tina & I tried to take a run – well, Tina did, and I puffed along beside until nearly asphyxiating and having to walk! I was up for a CDANZ Exec meeting, and so had eleven hours of meetings in two days. It was a bit full on – I got a pretty bad migraine on the way home, so will have to cut down what I try to fit in while I am up in Welly.

Kathleen & Frits came to stay at our place for a weekend, which was really fun, and we had Erin, Simon & wee Isla up for a meal while they were on holiday in Nelson. 

Right, that's it for now – this weekend we have the Abel Tasman trip, and a Roses Road BBQ on Sunday. Then I am ensuring that we don’t add any more back in for the next two weeks!

* Justine – the earphones arrived perfectly! Send your CV!

All the best - hope to hear from you all soon!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

News from Nelson - January 2012

Hi all,
Well, Xmas has been and gone, and we have had a very busy time with Otto, Lara, Lars, Tina, Jeremy, Tanja and Adrian... not to mention Xmas dinner with my folks, Barb & Mike!

 A couple of problems following Xmas though; Brigitte has had a fall in Germany, and had to have a hip replacement (not what you want when you are overseas) and then Jörg had a  fall a couple of days ago in the milking shed, and cracked his head badly. Tina has already reminded us that these things tend to strike in threes; hope she is wrong!

I am still trying to commission my new PC; I am getting there, but trying not to go flat out on it. I still have another four lots of software to source and install, then I will be ready for the big change-over. Jan is busy at the moment, building shelves in the cellar. He is using all the left-over timber from the floors. It is fantastic :-)

Summer school is going OK, but I have realised that I have been doing too much and need to slow down so that I can get my Master's study underway properly. I will talk to the NMIT Head of School when he gets back from leave and let him know that I need to peg things back a bit. However, in staying that, I have got a case study written, and have another one in process.I have also reconfirmed that I don't enjoy teaching online - it is fine when there is a face-to-face class, so I get the personal interaction, but when there isn't, it's really not my bag. So something to not try again.

Dogs are well, Jan is wondering where his holiday went to, and we are thinking about driving a load of teenagers around the North Island at Easter for my birthday (Rotary International exchange students!). Camila, Ana's sister, is here from Brazil, so we hope to catch up with her regularly while she is in New Zealand.

We also hope to see Andreas, Katrin & Christian this coming Xmas on their trip to Kiwiland!

Right, that's it for now - aside from wishing everyone happy birthdays in the next few weeks (Nicki; Tamara; Mike; Eberhard; Gary; Kathleen; Pat & Oma Friedel)

All the best - hope to see you all soon!

Jan Kuwilksy & Sam Young

News from Nelson – December 2 2011

Hi everyone,

No probs for us with the storms, but quite a few Nelson and Tasman people got stickered. Most were told they were OK or not on the 23rd, so many were allowed back in to their houses for Christmas, which was great (Kel & Dunc, Ellie & Greg). I think there is still about 40 houses which are still red stickered. Horrible for their owners, but I think the councils have been appropriately cautious. The Chch experience has provided a good assessment process, and many of the Nelson & Tasman staff have helped out in Chch so are well aware of how that process should work. Logging and land clearance was the cause of a lot of the slips :-(

I am teaching summer school, and so went from finishing one course to starting another over a weekend. I started with over 100 students, but this has whittled down to 80 as they have found the course a lot more demanding than they thought. The course runs in just under half the time as a 'normal' semester (the same learning packed into seven weeks over summer as is normally delivered in 15). My new tutorial assistant is going well, and coping with the workload, so that’s all good.

In addition, I am trying to get a head-start on my Masters study, and am finding that quite hard to get onto with everything else that is going on.

Jan’s search for an Electrical Engineer continues – no bites still. In the New Year he has some different tactics to apply, and will see if they net any results. 

The house is slowly getting finished off; Jan has been terminating all the data points in the house, and has put up some more smoke alarms. We still have to seal the back of the laundry bench, then we will nearly be at the stage where we can get our CCC. However, our builder has to come back and do a couple of fixer-uppers for us early in the New Year. Then we can have the Inspector back for a final check.

We had a lovely Christmas Eve celebration with Tina & Jeremy, Otto & Lara. They have come to stay for ten days or so, On Christmas day, my folks, my brother and my sister were all here for the first time in ages. We had a very relaxing day with a BBQ and salads (and Christmas cake, of course!), except for poor Tina, who had a cold. Uncle Norman was not well enough to make it, which was pity, and Tessa couldn’t come down as she has damaged her knee.

John has escaped and headed up north to house sit for a friend for ten days. However, in a couple of days Tanja arrives with Lars and a friend of hers, Adrian (whom we haven’t met yet). So we will have a house full! 

We have caught up with Jenny L who is at her folk’s place over Christmas, and hope to see Megan, Sam & Moose and Gary & Karen whom we think are all in Nelson for the break too.

Jan & I are up in Welly for the weekend of the 10th of Feb, and yes, it would be great to catch up with anyone who is around. We will be flying over but should be able to borrow one of Tina or Jeremy's cars so will be somewhat mobile. We have a few trips to Welly planned next year.

Also a party at our place on New Year’s eve – about 6pm onwards. BBQ, BYO. All welcome :-)

Right – I think that’s all for now, aside from wishing all the party season’s birthday people a wonderful coming year: Gareth, Christél, Wayne, Christian, and Jennie.

Catch you all again soon.

Alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

Update on the weather

We are OK. There are five creeks between us and the highway, and four of them were up yesterday. The only one that wasn't really high was the Roses Road one (the drainage creek in our valley). There are no slips on our place, none down the valley, but lots of little ones on the Moutere Saddle. Our road is muddy and very slippery, but intact. But basically because we are a short, dead-end valley, we didn't get the volume of water to cause the damage that others did. The luck of geography.

We are pretty self-sufficient; the drains have worked as they should, all our roofs feed into water tanks, and the overflows are piped away well downhill. Plenty of clean drinking water (!) and no power outages. We haven't been generating electricity as there's been no sun for the PV cells - and we put the fire on to heat some water as the solar hot water system wasn't getting sun either, but the grid-tie system means we can pull from the grid when we aren't generating, so we were fine :-)

It also sounds like "driving" after 8am yesterday morning in Nelson was pretty near "stopping" instead; Richard Kempthorne was saying on the radio that journeys that normally take half an hour were taking three hours. Kathleen & Frits who live along Whakatu Drive said they were watching people on their way into town just sitting in their cars for ages (some apparently ran out of petrol, they were waiting so long).

Jan was up in Auckland yesterday and Wednesday, but he got home OK last night at 6. The Wairoa was still up at Appleby Bridge, but the bridge was open. Still some surface flooding.

We are just fine, but I am not travelling today; Civil Defence are asking people not to travel unless it is essential. The traffic load means that emergency services can't get through, and the bow waves from cars are damaging property. Aside from the treacherous nature of the driving itself!

And take a look at the Maitai - from 'normal' to yesterday (from Stuff at http://static2.stuff.co.nz/1323907641/157/6145157.jpg):

Thank goodness for having had the dam at the top to control the release of water is all I can say!
Cheers

Sam

Wild Weather in Tasman & Nelson

Hi all,
We are fine here, but the area has had some wild & woolly weather for the past two days. I was not able to get to John's funeral today due to flooding & road closures, but that is the only way the weather has affected us here. 

Of course the dogs keep expecting me to be able to open a door into summer, but they keep being sadly disappointed with the rain each time I open one :-)

You can check out photos of the floods at http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/photogallery-nelson-tasman-weather-4641156 or http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/image.cfm?c_id=1&gal_objectid=10773423&gallery_id=123105#8402984 and some updates at http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/93780/roads-gridlocked-in-nelson

Sad News - death of John Hannah

Hi Everyone,

I didn't post this news yesterday, as I was still trying to get my head around it. A long-time friend of mine, John Hannah, was killed on Friday night in a tramping accident. I haven't managed to catch up with Hetta yet, but have left messages.

The Nelson Mail's Anna Pearson (10 December 2011) had this to say at http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/6120333/Another-tramping-trip-ends-in-death:

A 63-year-old Nelson man with a love of cricket, family and the New Zealand seafood industry has died in a fall while tramping in Kahurangi National Park.

John Leo Hannah was negotiating difficult terrain with friends in the Adelaide Tarn area when he fell 20 metres to his death about 7pm yesterday.

He was tramping with two others, after a fourth member of their party was airlifted from near Lonely Lake by the Summit rescue helicopter earlier in the day with a suspected broken ankle.

Mr Hannah joined Sealord in 1988 as a business development manager, and was said to be responsible for the company's successful move into aquaculture.

He went on to take the helm at the New Zealand School of Fisheries, as the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology's marine studies chief.

His friend and long-time neighbour Alan Winwood said the pair had been Rotary members together for more than 20 years.

He said Mr Hannah was one of the "leading knights" [sic] in Rotary cricket circles, with a trip to India with the New Zealand cricket team planned for next year. "He was a family man and community-minded." He said Mr Hannah was an experienced tramper, and was on a five-day trip with "three of his closest mates".

Nelson Tramping Club president Lawrie Halkett said he had been tramping in the Adelaide Tarn area in the Douglas Range twice, and it was "very steep".

"There is a tramp that you can do from the Cobb Valley through the Aorere Valley. It definitely is only a route for very experienced trampers," he said.

Senior Sergeant Stu Koefoed of Nelson said police were speaking with the other members of the tramping party to ascertain the full circumstances relating to Mr Hannah's death, and the matter would be referred to the coroner.

He will be sadly missed. I will post when the funeral is, once I know, for those of you who want to attend.

Sam

Season's Greetings Everyone!

Hi all,
Attached is our summer greetings card to all of you. Enjoy a wonderful summer, and we hope you are all fully recharged for a fantastic 2012 :-)

xxx

Jan & Sam
(and Fliss & Coco ...& Bonnie)

News from Nelson – December 2011

Hi everyone,

Another short one!  Where has the year gone?!

We had a great weekend this last up in Wellington – and have another five weekends planned for the Capital next year. We caught up with Jeremy, Tina, Otto, and Lara; Hui-Ping, Guy & Sonia, Doug & Morv and Birthe and Mike (who hosted us out at Whitby) and Hartmut. A fantastic, relaxing weekend with good catch-ups! We didn’t get to see Wendy & Gerry and their little one, or Uta, but next time we hope. A flying visit, but completely unpressured.

Magda came and dog- and house-sat for us (Yay!). John is away on tour, so she looked after Bonnie as well. I think she survived OK!

We are also planning on having a week or so away at Easter; somewhere a bit luxurious as both of us have had a really busy year. We will see what we can come up with!

The inspector has been and given us a list of works to do for the CoC. Our builder is coming out this week to organise a couple of small jobs, then we can get the inspector back out to check everything off. And we will at last be legal!

Jan’s search for an Electrical Engineer continues – no bites still.

My students for Semester 2 are all done and dusted; and I have just started teaching summer school with 91 students! At least I have a graduate that I am hiring as a tutorial assistant to help with the marking. I am seeing her tomorrow – an ex-student who has been overseas and is just returning at the right time! – and that will take a load off. Phew.

We had a great time at the Business Awards, Jan’s concert went really well, and he and my mother went to a choral performance of Handel’s Messiah last week with the choir that Frits sings in.

Speaking of Frits, he has not been so good lately – a few problems with blood pressure, and getting his medication right has been a real problem (boy, do I understand that!).

Also a party at our place on New Year’s eve – about 6pm onwards. BBQ, BYO. All welcome :-)

Right – I think that’s all for now, aside from wishing all the party season’s birthday people a wonderful coming year: Jamal, Tina, Murray, Karl, Cherry and Gareth.

Some  photos of quail on the car park & the Richmond Ranges :-)

Catch you all again soon.

Alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

News from Nelson – November 2011

Hi everyone,

A short one this time. Wow, spring is hustling along, and we are nearly heading into summer! It has been quite changeable though – this month we have had to pay $13 for power, as we haven’t had enough consistently fine weather to net off our usage; and of course we have used a bit more power than usual, as John has been staying with us too.

And double-wow, we have applied for an inspector to come and sign off the CoC. We are expecting someone to come out in the next couple of weeks, with our builder, so it can all get ticked off formally. That will be good.

Jan’s still looking for the Electrical Engineer – at least the HR firm they have engaged is at last going to contact IPENZ and the Alumni organisations.

Last weekend I went to Wellington for a Career Development Association national executive meeting and AGM, staying overnight with Tina & Jeremy. The meetings weren’t too bad, and it was great to see Otto & Lara (they have both grown so much!). Tina & Jeremy put on a BBQ on Sunday night, and Brigitte & John came along, so we managed to catch up before they head over to Europe for three months. All good.

Jan & I have both been so busy that we haven’t really had a chance to draw breath. Days seem to be whistling past in a slip stream, and we are a bit dazed and confused about exactly where we are. I have been marking like a mad thing, and Jan has been trying to be himself and three others. He also has the added complication this month of having two of his electrical guys away on a commissioning job in Vietnam.

A couple of sad bits of news to relate this time: Jan’s step father, John, had his mother die. She had been unwell for some time, but it is still hard to lose a parent. In addition, a close friend and work colleague of my Father’s, August Vavasovsky, died last Thursday. He had a major stroke.

This Friday we have the Business Awards to go to, so we are staying in Nelson overnight at Trailways. We can leave the Trafalgar Centre, where the shindig is being held, and potter across the footbridge across the Maitai straight to our room. I like that!

Jan & I will be up in Welly on 3, 4 & 5 December. We will be busy with family on Saturday and Monday, but if any of you Hutties etc are around on Sunday, we would love to catch up. Let us know.

Also a party on New Year’s eve – about 6pm onwards. BBQ, BYO. All welcome :-)

Right – I think that’s all for now, aside from wishing all the party season’s birthday people a wonderful coming year: Lara, Jeremy, Donna, Neil, Janet, Jamal, Tina, Murray & Carl.

Eberhard – good luck with your new apartment.

Catch you all again soon.

Alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

Would you like that with Sauce?

Huddersfield-based James Bamforth was an early English film-maker, photographer and artist. But he is best known for his saucy postcards, often featuring very buxom ladies with ...double entendres. The cards he created were largely sold as seaside postcards.

Often pushing right  to the boundaries of British censors, the Bamforth postcards started in 1910 but became incredibly popular in the 1930s, selling up to 16 million cards per annum.

The Bamforth business folded in 1988, and was purchased printing firm Dennis, which later also collapsed. In 2001, Ian Wallace, businessman, bought what remained for Bamforth and the rights to over 50,000 postcards images. 

Now in 2010, a century since Bamforth's cards first started titillating senders and receivers, the Bamforth images are set to make a comeback. Firmly entrenched in the Benny Hill and Carry On vein, Mr Wallace is hoping that these classic cheeky cartoons, featuring kilt-wearing Scotsmen, topless sunbathers, hen-pecked husbands and Junoesque women are likely to soon be appearing on mugs, mouse mats and boxer shorts. 

Read the Yorkshire Post's original story at http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/around-yorkshire/local-stories/let_s_smile_again_as_famous_postcards_are_revived_1_2596857