News from Nelson - September 2 2009

Hi all,

Man, where did those weeks go?!

Right, the quick run-down. The build has started with a couple of glitches; the house was in the wrong place, due to the excavations being slightly off kilter. We got all that sorted out, but not before the builder had already done the profiles. We were away for the weekend, but went out yesterday to have a look at how it was going and realised that the house wasn't entirely where we thought it was going to be. But all sorted now, and Jan went out after work to sign off on the new profiles. And ask the builder to move them yet again! Ouch.

We have actual power on at the land, and are going to put the lights and power sockets into the shed this Saturday. Jan has installed a "life guard station" for the builders to use for their tools on site as well. One of Jan's electricians is coming out this weekend to help install and then to sign all the work off.

Jan is also starting to agitate about moving out to the land sooner rather than later. I would like to get the term over before having to move, but I understand his haste; being there we can catch problems before they become problems. I will have to start investigating our communications options this week to see what the costs are.

With regard to my health, my suspicions about having had a minor stroke were entirely correct. The oncologist is getting me an appointment with the neurologist; and he is asking for that to be expedited. I didn't realise initially that my sense of smell had been hugely diminished, but it is now slowly coming back. He said that there are some areas of damage that showed up in the MRI that are consistent with a stroke in the brain areas controlling speech, vision and smell. I have to have some new cholesterol tests and some cardio tests as well before I see the neurologist. The oncologist has no idea what caused the stroke; whether it is a heart problem, a blood factor, a blocked artery, a brain problem or a migraine problem, but expects the neurologist to be able to eliminate some and dig into the others. He suggests that I take aspirin daily (which I am already doing) and drink plenty (which I already do too). Glad to know I am doing all I can on my own!

I have submitted my work for CAT 15 and the RPL for CAT 5. I am now halfway through CAT 4 for RPL as well, but will wait to put that in until I get feedback on CAT 5. It is now the holiday break, and if I can get some more work on CAT 4 done around sorting out the remainder of the house bits & bobs on my list (comms, quotes for the showers, documentation for the bank, sourcing tiles, and designing the shelving unit for the end of the lounge), that would be good. But I won't hold my breath.

Jan is now a permanent member of the Nelson Symphony Orchestra. They have their next concert on November 28th, called the Italian Job. Read all about it at http://www.nso.org.nz/. He has lots of new pieces to learn, and is currently procrastinating about his rehearsal schedule :-)

Warren's birthday in Chch was great; we caught up with pretty much everyone except Pat (who was away). We even got out to see Gary & Karen's new house. Jenny Ladley got us sorted on all our light fittings; the second place she had on our 'places to shop' list came up with the goods & we spent $4.5k buying everything we needed. FAN-tastic! We took half the gear home with us and are just waiting for the remainder of our shipment to arrive. Jan has also gone through the list of electrical gear with one of his electricians, and we picked up the first part of that gear this week and delivered it out to the land.

We had a great time last weekend in Wellington with Tina & Jeremy, Otto & Lara; we caught up with Hartmut & John, and Karen & Hui-Ping ferried us around to see three new houses; Doug & Morv's new place in the Hutt; Guy & Sonja's new build in Belmont; and Mike & Birthe's half-built house in Whitby. It was great, but we ran out of time & couldn't get out to Island Bay to see Sam & Moose. Next time :-(

We have had a couple of invites to some 40th birthday parties, which we are thinking about. Our aim was not to go anywhere else for the rest of the year, and concentrate on the build. We are going to sit down and work out the $ budget and the time budget for the rest of the year and see what we can come up with. We will be back to you all in due course!

And we are aiming for a housewarming in April; exact date to be advised. Again, we will keep you posted.

Take care & alles liebe!

Sam & Jan

News from Nelson - September 2009

Hi all,

Well, we are getting ready to sign our contract with our builder - Glenn Grant - so we will be all underway in a couple of weeks. He is a local, a younger guy who is establishing his team, seems very energetic and determined to come in on price and on time. We'll see whether we manage to get both of those right! We have talked to some previous client of our builder's and they are completely satisfied with his work; so much so that they are about to sign him up for their next job (always a good sign).

I have had a bit of a health scare - I ended up in hospital overnight a couple of weeks ago, have had at CT scan & an MRI - but we still don't have a diagnosis of what actually happened. It started off like the precursors to a migraine, but didn't develop into the classic aura nor did I get a headache; my speech, sight and co-ordination got very dodgy so Jan took me up to the hospital. Initially when I had the attack, I pretty much couldn't talk - I couldn't think of the words - & had chunks of my sight missing. It was all a bit frightening. When they stood me up I fell over backwards which was a bit trippy. I suspect it was a minor stroke, but I can't get into see a neurologist until after I see the emergency doctor who admitted me to hospital - and I can't see him until the 28th of September - not to mention the fact that he is an oncologist and will then have to refer me on to the neurologist; and goodness only knows how long that will take. The neurologist in Nelson does not take private patients, so, in order to see someone faster than being referred by my 'admitting' doctor, I will have to find someone to see me privately in one of the main centres. And I have no idea of who has expertise in this area... it is amazing how much at the mercy of the medical profession we can be. My speech came back to 99% quite quickly; I was reasonably intelligible within an hour or so, but I am still saying the wrong words from time to time two weeks later. My sight seemed almost completely recovered by the following Monday, and now it is fine. I was still missing some patches after a week, but after 10 days it was normal.

I have finished CAT 15 bar one teaching observation by the course supervisor, and have my RPL almost ready to be submitted (I am just waiting for a couple of attestation letters to be able to submit that). I have got a lot of quiet study done over the past week, as the building project is starting a few weeks later than we thought.

Jan too has filled up his time with some busy-ness. He was asked last weekend if he would play for the Nelson Symphony Orchestra, as they were a viola short for the Young Soloists' concert they were giving this past Saturday night. So with only a week to prepare for nine pieces, he has done an awful lot of practice and been quite short of sleep! He took Friday off work to practice, which left him feeling much happier. They had four three hour rehearsals, so he had lots of time to get used to the viola section, and some of the orchestra members are common between the Greenhill and the Nelson Symphony.

I went to watch the concert on Saturday night, and it was really good; the young musicians who played were from around New Zealand and Australia, and the standard was quite high. There was one violinist who got a partial ovation; he was an exceptionally good musician - full of passion and skill.

Interestingly, the last time we went to see the Symphony play they were supporting Deidre Irons and were pretty dire. Lots of squeaky violins and sour notes. But we hadn't seen them for maybe five years and since then they have had a new conductor and now have a new first violin, who also plays with the Greenhill. The Symphony's standard is much improved on five years ago. Jan has been asked informally if he would like to join them (I hope he decides to - I think the higher standard of play would be really good for him).

It was Jan's birthday on Sunday and we celebrated on Saturday night after he got home from the concert with a glass of Aria Riesling, some Ritter Sport and a mystery movie (as we had forgone dinner out so he could play). I gave Jan his birthday present; an electronic picture frame with 8 gigabytes image capacity; I had spent a fair few hours scanning ten photo albums worth of images into memory for him to enjoy his photos on his desk at work (as he had been bewailing the fact that we don't make or look at photo albums any more). A neat solution having an electronic version that he can enjoy 'flicking through' any time he wants to, and add to at any time with ease.

On Sunday morning we headed out to the land to check on the power installation; we now have a meter box and plugs all ready to go. We just await a contract so the builder can plug in his gear. I spent some time burning some old client papers (a partial purge before we move) and Jan dug out a small slip on the road... we cruised on home, went for afternoon tea at Lambretta's with Max & Karen, Sandra & Kevin, Murray & Julie, Dawn & Martin, Mike, Mother & Father, & Uncle Norman; then we went to a Greenhill Orchestra BBQ out in Hope.

This week coming we have something on every night again, and are really looking forward to coming away to Christchurch for a rest on 11-13 for Warren's 40th and to make some electrical purchases for the new house.

Then we start building a house on the 21st. Then we are up in Wllg for the 25-28 (Otto's birthday).

Take care & alles liebe!

Sam & Jan

News from Nelson - August 2009

Hi all,

Once more we are busy, busy. Jan has been helping out with underwater hockey juniors on a casual basis; getting college students interested in having a crack at the sport. We are heading out to the Ngawhatu pool tonight to give some tyros a taste.

John has arrived back from his travels and has picked up Bonnie. Coco is now at a bit of a loose end without her friend to play with every second of the day; however, it is a lot less 'busy' for everyone else living in the house! She & Fliss are now playing more, which they didn't get to do while Bonnie was here.

We are going out to see Leigh this Friday coming to open & view the tenders. That will be an interesting process.

We have had our window quotes in - ranging from $37k to $131k. At this stage we think we will go with German windows (though I am still not entirely convinced with the whole 'opening inwards' thing, I think I can live with them. We don't have that many windows, and I do like the sturdiness of them). Being able to fit this style of window will be one condition of the tender for awarding our tender.

Jan is working with Paul Bow (one of his electricians from NPIL) on planning the electrical wiring for the house so we can order the components. We are coming down for Warren's birthday party, but will, while we are in Chch, be going to visit all the electrical and lighting places open on a Saturday and Sunday to see if we can make some choices on lights etc. There is not much choice in Nelson, and neither of us is very inspired by what we have seen.

NMIT have asked me to consider teaching another paper next year, on Research Methods. It sounds really interesting, and, as the build will be over by then, I would like to consider it. I am currently trying to really push on with the two CAT papers I am currently doing; being all too aware of the build process about to start. I am half-way through both the papers, and am maybe a third of the way through the RPL process.

Jan's work has now trimmed back to normal, which is great. He has been heading off to see some the Mako's Rugby games with Gary Rae, which he has been enjoying too.

Jan's orchestra has been in the paper, as they gave a charity concert a couple of weeks ago. He is also in another concert this weekend with the Nelson Civic Choir and Waimea College.

Our next trips away are two in September: Chch 11-13 to Warren's 40th and then Wllg 25-28 for Otto's birthday. No more trips for the rest of this year.

Right - I had better get back to my real work. Take care & alles liebe!

Sam & Jan

News from Nelson - July 2 2009

Hi all,

Things have been flat out, with organising things for the house (plans are in at Council for building consent and tenders are currently out at a number of building companies), both of us getting colds, and our trip to Hanmer.

We are busy, recovered (from colds), are busy purchasing things for the house, are in the process of getting quotes for the windows, are sorting out all the electrics, are putting the power on next weekend, are teeing up Dave Singer to close in the end bay of the shed in the next fortnight - having purchased our roller door for the front - and all dogs are happy, fit & well. We are looking after Bonnie at the moment, and she is keeping Coco nicely tired out!

This month I am have posted some of our images from Hanmer. I do have more images, but they are somewhat unflattering! Flick us an email if you want to see the rest :-)

Murray & Leigh have just had an addition to their family: Alexandra Elayne Hartley, born Thursday 23rd at 5.32pm in Oxford, UK. Mucho congrats to the growing Hartley clan :-)

Ana Silvia has sent a photo of what she is doing in Brazil (she says she is studying!) on our Rotary blog at http://whakaturotary.blogspot.com/ (you may have to scroll down if other posts have been added before you get there).

As previously mentioned, our only trip for the rest of the year is to Wllg in on Sept 25 - 27. We are reluctant to leave our building site unattended as there have been a number of robberies in the area. We don't really want to have our house-load of furniture in its container disappear!

A short note this time. Take care & alles liebe!

Sam & Jan

News from Nelson - July 2009

Hi all,

Wow, it has started to get quite cold now, with the dogs developing a new message to tell us; the "it's cold, we want the fire on" message. It took me a while to work it out, but it now happens quite regularly. Dogs are great at training humans, aren't they!

Speaking of dogs, we have had lots of doggy dramas in the past three weeks. We took the two of them into the vet for their annual inoculations, and, while we were there, had a lump on Fliss' backside analysed. The analysis came back that it was the worst kind of canine cancer - a mast cell tumour, so we had Fliss under the knife that week after the results came back from the lab. They tried to get 30mm margins all around the lump, but when the analysis came back after the surgery, there was one side that had only 1.5mm clear. They had to do quite a lot of reconstruction of her bottom to get a 60mm lump out of it, as well! However, she has made a good recovery after the surgery, and now we will have to wait & see if the cancer comes back. At the same time that all of this was going on, Coco hurt herself. I initially thought she had twisted a gut, but it turned out that she had hurt her back somehow. She was on lots of drugs & lay about drugged & moaning all weekend a couple of weeks ago. However, she is now back to normal - relatively! - and we are $2,100 poorer. Ouch.

This week we have been sorting out the materials for Dave Singer - builder - to build the shed. We have sourced some corrugated iron, some laserlite, an old external door and bought a new roller door. Hopefully Dave will get it boxed up and get the floor concreted this month. Jan has engaged a contractor to get the power onto our shed, so that should get underway next week too.

I have had my provisional accreditation from the Institute of Directors, which is great. I now have to keep an eye on positions available and ensure my name gets put forward for the right positions.

I have started work on CAT modules 19 & 15, but it is pretty busy! I am seriously thinking about postponing the Diploma in Career Counselling until early next year, when Jan starts studying again in Semester 1; I am worried about our internet access out there & don't want to have to drive to town in order to submit work.

The Trade Show went OK; I don't think there will be any immediate customers from it, but I made some useful supply contacts, and it was a good reason to update my marketing collateral.

I am keeping the Rotary President's role at a reasonably low level thus far (we have a great team) with not too many hours having to be dedicated. I attended my first area President's meeting on Monday night with my VP (Jo Garguilo). We would have been the youngest there by a decade, which was very interesting. Lots of the requests the district administrators had for us about information sharing we couldn't help them with; could we pass on our bulletin to an administrator (no, we couldn't, we don't have one - we have a blog. But they were welcome to register to get email updates), what help did we need with membership (none, our membership is growing steadily), could the person who organises our speakers liaise with their counterparts in the other clubs (no, each member takes a week and organises a speaker so we cut out a position... but they could check on the blog who was coming up). It has made me even more focused on ensuring we eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy in our club.

Jenny L was up again a few weeks ago, and it was wonderful to see her again. We went out to Karanga & visited with Donald and Bunty as well. Jen managed to source me a Franke Kubus sink & drainer, which was great... which reminds me, I need to send her some details about the bath that we want to buy to see if she can get a deal on that too!

This last weekend Jan sanded and re-polyurethaned the kitchen benches and the kitchen window ledges. We still have all the painting to do inside and a few more tidy up jobs. I had a chat to Paul Inwood about possibly doing some joinery in the new house, and Jan & I were talking last night about asking him if he can also do some of the Montrose Dr repair work as well. Ah, yes, and then the recarpeting.

So this Friday, at last, we head to Hanmer for the 20 year Canterbury Uni anniversary; it should be a good weekend. I hope the Lewis pass is open; otherwise it will be a 4-5 hour drive the long way! Then the next trip away is September for Otto's birthday in Wllg (eta 7 on Friday night, Sept 25, leave Sunday 4pm Sept 27).

We move out to Roses Road in November, we think (at this stage), and rent Montrose Dr for a year or so.

We are still talking about arrangements for Xmas; this Xmas coming we are supposed to be in Wllg with Jan's family. However, we are worried about how to ensure security of the building site if we go away. The neighbours (Le Gros, Orinoco Vineyards) were telling us the last time we were out there that there have been a lot of robberies around Roses Road. Lyn Redden's place (right next door) has been broken into half a dozen times (a sign of the economic times; and the quietness of the neighbourhood). We are pretty uneasy at leaving a house-load of our existing property in a container, and a house-load of new building materials & appliances in the end bay of the shed with no-one there... and it won't be so easy to get someone to come & house sit; it will really be low-rent camping out. So this will take some working out. If any of you Wellington folks know what your plans are for December already, let us know; maybe we postpone coming to Wllg until next Xmas...?

Right, that's all for now. Take care & alles liebe!

Sam & Jan