News from Nelson - January 2018

Hi everyone!
We kicked off the New Year with our traditional New Year's Eve BBQ... which finished after 3am on the 1st of January 2018. We slept almost until midday after that! Even Boo and Bonnie didn't stir for breakfast at 7am. We had a fairly small turn-out this year, but the neighbours were total stayers, bless them! There wasn't much to clean up as before we hit the hay, I had had run the dishwasher once while I tidied the place up, got the recycling ready to go out, then loaded it again when we went to bed, and had the last load ready to go in when we got up. New Year's day was a lovely day too: we took the dogs for a nice long walk.

Murray and Leigh came around at 4pm on New Year's day for afternoon tea with Lexie and Isaac… they played pool, and we chatted for a couple of hours before they headed back to their rental to get ready for the return to Christchurch tomorrow. Nadine is currently staying at our place, and Nane is now taking the current tour with John.

Then on the 4th, we hopped in the car for our first road trip of the year, along with my Mum: heading off to Dunedin for my cousin Sarah's wedding. My Aunt from Christchurch and my sister both came as well, so it turned into a bit of a minor family reunion, which was really good. Nadine kindly house and dog-sat while we were away. We had a lovely trip down to Christchurch, and had lunch at the Nor’Wester Café in Amberley before going to visit Erik and Jacky and meeting our soon to be new puppy, Finn. After that we cruised in to stay with Jenny, who is in very good form. My Mum stayed with Diana. We caught up with Gary and Karen, and Jan caught up with an ex-DHB colleague in the cafe at Moeraki Beach on the way down. The trip the next day to Dunners was pretty uneventful, and we got to check out Warren's place, which is brilliant! He has done so much to the place already. It is light-years more organised than our place, and we have been here coming up eight years... <sigh>. Erica was staying, so we got to see her as well.

The wedding in Dunedin was great: though the weather was not very co-operative. The ceremony was held out at Wal's Plantland in Mosgiel, with the reception just on the other side of Mosgiel, in a local hall. Sarah and Allan's friends had done a great job of decorating the hall, with everyone doing a little, to share the work around and make the day easy for them.

 

We also got taken up in some wee two seater planes for a scenic flight from Taeiri Areoclub by Geoff and his mate Gerard. We had a blast, with Geoff trusting Jan enough to fly his baby. We went out over Port Otago and Larnach's Castle and it was wonderful.

And below you can see bits of our flight from Taeiri along the Otago Peninsular and back. It is almost ten minutes long as I made this for myself, so I remember it!

All in all a great trip. Except on our first night in Dunedin we got a call from Nadine to say that Bonnie was unable to put any weight on her hind leg, and didn't want to eat, move, or otherwise. John was away with his tour, we were at the other end of the country. We got Nadine to call the vet, and she contacted a good friend of John's who knows Bonnie well to go with her. The vet rang me after she had seen Bonnie, and said that she had broken her knee from the weight of the tumour on her hind leg. It was time. She was in her 13th year: not bad for a dog with a heart murmur and a very malignant tumour. And full of joy for all but the last day of her life. So very sad though. And terrible for all the main people in her life to be away, and to not be able to say a last goodbye.

Aside from that terrible news, Finn is doing well, and settling in with Boo. She began with a face like "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest" (Henry II 1133–89 about Thomas Becket, Ratcliffe, 2006) and has now shifted into resigned mode. Even sometimes now moving into running interference mode: when Finn is getting told off, she pushes in to protect him. She is such a nutter when considering the amount he hangs off her lips, ears and cheeks. She should, by rights, simply abandon him to his just desserts. 

Finn is not that conducive for good PhD writing (which is what I am supposed to be doing!), but he is a joy to have. He has certainly helped to fill in the huge gap left by Bonnie.

Jan is back at work, and I am trying to write. NMIT starts again at the end of February, and I want to get a lot more done before then. All my prep is complete, and my supervisory team is ready to go, so hopefully things won't be too difficult this year.

Our new couch arrived two and a half weeks early (thanks Smith's City) and so now we have it. The really strange thing is that the one we saw in the shop was less... 'bouffant' than this one. I guess from all the bums on seats the couch had packed down a bit, whereas our one is still pretty puffy. We need to apply some serious backsides to this to flatten it out to our expectations! I don't think I have ever said that before about something new...

We had a BBQ down at Miranda's at number 99 on the road, which was a lovely way to spend a glorious summer afternoon. We got a date for Cards Against Humanity out of that session, and found out about a huge eucalypt that had come down on Zig & Lib's place, which Jan could get enough wood out of to make an outdoor seat.

Erica, Tracey and H came around to dinner one night and brought Ollie. They got to eat the scraps of the BBQ, and even Finn got the hang of how to sit politely for Erica.

An ex-workmate of Jan's gave us some tomatoes that weren't quite ripe yet. I lay them out on the rug inside the sliding doors in the lounge to redden up, and once done, I bottled 22 litres of tomato puree. It was a race between me and the puppy, as the tomatoes just fitted nicely in his mouth, so, if not carefully watched, he kept stealing them and taking them outside to chew (obviously much nicer mouth feel than the actual toys we have lying everywhere!).  I need to find some more tomatoes as ours have hardly grown this year, and I do like tomato soup in winter.

Jan won second prize in the Sarau Festival jam competition this year, with another crack at blackcurrant and lime. But it was a bit too firm, and he knew that when he entered, but still got placed pretty well. We caught up with Jan and Renate, Killian and Sarah, spent lots of time with Sue, saw Gary and Nicki, had a brew with a few of the neighbours, and generally had a great time.

The sunsets and sunrises continue to give us much to be grateful for, even out of a zippy wee car on the way home from the fair.

Back to you all next month

Sam (& Jan)

• Ratcliffe, S. (2006). Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (5th ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

News from Nelson - December 2017

Hello everyone,
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)

News from Nelson - November 2017

Hi all,
Hopefully the year has been kind to you all: things are starting to return to normal for us, though we have been - as usual - fairly busy.

We began the month with the CDANZ Conference in Auckland as detailed in our October newsletter), and ended it with the SMAANZ Conference on the Gold Coast. We stayed with Tanja and Tony in Tan's new appartment in Bulimba: wow, what a great place, with awesome views. I had several days on the Gold Coast, commuting for the first couple, then staying for the last couple. Lars and Ann came up from Sydney on Friday night, and we spent some time with them over the weekend. Tanja and Jan spent some time together while I was away for the days. Some photos of our trip follow.

 

 

 

 

We spent some time in Brisbane, touring the city and the river; as well as a dinner and drinks at Q1 Skypoint on the Gold Coast, and a meander along the beach. We also went to Caloundra for the day on the Sunday before we came home, to see Ann's grandparents. There was a great thunderstorm that came through on our last night which gave us some fabulously moody photos. We got so well looked after we were almost tempted to stay :-)

On the plane I watched half of the second series of "Head of the Lake" on the way over, and the other half on the way back. This second series was set in Sydney, rather than in and around Queenstown. It was OK, but didn't quite hang together. I probably wouldn't bother watching a third series, unless it got rave reviews.

It was a total month of parties. Dawnie had her usual Guy Fawkes BBQ, which was great fun, followed later in the month by her birthday party at The Boat Shed, Mapua.

We had Glenys and Kevin's for Kevin's birthday dinner, which was a late night out (needless to say! It is always a late and hilarious night at the Mudcastle).

Tracey is moving into town next month: she has sold her share of Cotterel Road to Max & Karen who will now both farm full time. Erica will be going to Nelson Intermediate in 2018 - crikey, intermediate age already! - and Trace will be reinventing herself. Exciting times! We all had fish and salad one night with Tracey, Erica, Max, Karen, Jenny and John: on the first night that John was back in the country. Jenny was up for a family weekend, so it all worked out very neatly.

We caught up with the Cools's again: they came around for dessert and a movie (Hot Fuzz). It is amazing how quickly the year gets away on you though: we only live ten kilometres apart, but it is surprising how hard it can be to co-ordinate diaries.

Daniel turned 50, and had a big shindig up in his new shed. We caught up with our builder, Glenn, and his new partner (Beth) and some people from SA who are new to the district, and are beekeepers. A good night out, and a fair catch up with the neighbours. Margot and Michele told us that they are moving because Susie Lees is planning on moving back in with her new man - from the UK, aparently. That will be interesting.

Jan had the NSO Christmas BBQ at Eleanor’s place in Heron Grove, behind the old Templemore Gardens farm. They have a lovely house with a gorgeous English/Australian garden, designed for lots of shade, but all I could see was lots of work in keeping it beautiful! We took along things that I could eat - coleslaw, hummus, cucumber and broccoli, and marinated chicken. We were there in the garden for three hours... the time just melted away.

The Kanuka is flowering gorgeously.

Gorgeous sunrises again: and not much rain at all. It was so dry that we decided to put off planting most of our vege plants until we got back from Oz.

Jan has been getting the vege gardens ready for the summer, while considering that offer he was made that I mentioned last month. Negotiations have progressed to the point where contracts have been signed, and he has done a couple of hand-over days on his free Mondays. He finishes at the DHB just before Christmas, and goes to Port Nelson as Safety Advisor, starting the week before Christmas. He is looking forward to the change.

The little nana car hit 200000ks:

Along with John, Nadine from Ulm has come to stay too, and will help out John with the first couple of tours as a driver. It is lovely to see her again. She is in the spare room, and John is in the laundry!

I wound up my teaching, marking and results for the semester, and had the decks clear before heading off over the Tassie. There is still some admin to do next month, but I am pretty much done and dusted for the year, aside from supervising three full year project students who will continue their projects over summer, and attending graduation. That means I can get stuck into my PhD, which has been sadly neglected... largely due to the personal toll this year has taken with family illness and deaths.

This month's MOOC was a FutureLearn University of Reading course, "An Intermediate Guide to Writing", which was part two of the MOOC I did last month. It wasn't bad... and again, I learned something new. And then I managed to fit in another one to help me finish off my journal article: How to Write a Scientific Paper course, by l'Ecole Polytechnique on the Cousera platform. It too was free :-)

Boo looking after my Fluevogs:

And some people wear sunglasses inside!

'til next month!


Sam (& Jan)