Update on Christchurch family & friends

The 6.3 magnitude earthquake that struck Christchurch yesterday has caused a lot of damage. The shock was only 5k down (very shallow) and only 10k away (three times closer to the city than the September quake), with an epicentre in Lyttleton. The September earthquake was 30k away and 10k down, and even that quake was much shallower than we usually experience in New Zealand.

So far all our friends & family in Chch are OK, post-earthquake; only losing doesn't-matter-stuff, like small breakables and their nerves :-)

 My sister Barb, Tessa, Aunty Diana & Uncle Eddie are all good. Just breakables ...and mess.

Jenny was outside having coffee at the time, and was shaken but not stirred (not sure how her house is). Warren & Tracey have lost their caravan and chook-house to a falling boulder, but they are OK - Trace has headed down to Waimate. Pat is getting back today from overseas, and he, Marjie & the sproglets are thinking of heading up to Nelson. Bertie spent the night at her folks' place before heading home to clean up the broken stuff (minor). Dan is OK. Paul & Bridget are OK - and Paul's shop is less smashed up this time, as the epicentre was further away, and at home his chimney was toppled in the September quake, which was a bit of a bonus in a weird way).

Kathleen & Frits' son & nephew are in Chch but both are OK and helping out people around them who need assistance. We haven't heard directly from Megs but have heard through the grapevine that she & hers are alright. 

We haven't heard anything from Gary & Karen, or Yi & Paula, but are assuming that no news is good news... Hopefully everyone at Streats is OK too.

In Nelson we have had very minor disruptions to phone and power systems; power due to the fluctuations of supply through Christchurch, phones due to overload. Neither of which are remotely bothersome for us, except when we are trying to get news of people we care about.

 

Anyone who hasn't heard from friends or family should call 0800 RED CROSS. Important response information is posted at http://canterburyearthquake.org.nz/. For those of us not in Christchurch, news can be found at http://www.stuff.co.nz/ 

Our best wishes go out to everyone. Call us if you need us, and feel free to come & camp.

News from Nelson - February 2011

Hi everyone!

The weather has been hot & sunny, with an hour or so of light drizzle last week – just enough to wash the dust off the roof into the water tanks. We are doing well for water though; our tanks are still half full.

Waitangi weekend was the start of the Adam Chamber Music Festival, and we saw five concerts between us. The music was great, and the Hermitage String Trio from Russia was just fantastic. Last weekend Jan had a whole weekend of music as on the Sunday he also had a full day workshop for the NSO.

Despite having bought some wall-plugs, none of our heavier pictures have yet made it to the walls, nor have our bathroom mirrors. I am quite tempted to ask the builder if he can put them up, to take them off Jan’s list. We’ll see.

The Montrose Drive tenancy is going well so far. Fingers Xed for the long term.

My study stalled for a bit; I have got an extra paper to teach in Semester 1 this year, and have been getting it ready instead.

Jan has been going to Underwater Hockey, (twice this year now – the Adam Festival got it the way a bit). He is thinking about playing in the South Island Masters Games which will be held in Nelson in October this year, so is pretty keen to get to the pool every week.

He has also signed up for all the NSO concerts for the year, and I have signed up as a  “Friend” and booked my concert seat all the way through. My mother has done the same, and booked the seat next to mine, and Kathleen & Frits have also signed up.

The Sarau Fair was really nice; we bought an updated version of “The Road to Sarau”, a history of the area written by our architect’s wife. The fair started at 4, and carried on into the night, which is a great idea for high summer. It was very relaxed, and we found we knew a lot of people there.

Last Saturday night we had Gary Rae’s 50th birthday party at the Honest Lawyer, which was fun. It was a 60s fancy dress theme – Jan went as a hippie & I went in psychedelic gear (we raided a local fancy dress shop which had some great costumes). Nik was a Mary Quant dollybird and Gary was a mod! I think there was only one person there not in a costume, so everyone had really got into the spirit of the thing. Wendy & Wayne were there – and we had a good catch up with them – along with Hugh & Julie B. Jan had a long chat to Paul Dalzell from Nelson Pine – and only part of it was about work!

On Sunday while Jan was at the music workshop, Magda came out after church with some plums and cooking apples from Gea. We had a lovely afternoon having lunch and pottering about, and after she left, I got the Agee preserver out and spent three hours stoning and bottling the plums (only 5 jars for my trouble, and terribly stained fingers!). On Monday night Jan & I did 7 & 1/2 jars of apple puree from Gea’s cooking apple tree.

So this weekend we are swapping some Cox’ Orange seconds from our local friendly apple man for a bottle of wine, and we will be apple processing to the max. One day’s full on effort will keep us in bottled fruit for a year – and we know exactly where it came from and what it has in it. And very low air miles :-)

This Sunday Jan is off for a mbike ride with Derek Sherwood, which will be fun for both of them.

Fliss is at the vet today as she appears to have something stuck in her throat; Jan dropped her off this morning and we will hear through the day what the problem - and the solution - is. Coco, despite having Bonnie here, is quite lost. I took her for a walk this morning and she spent her whole time wanting to run down the road after the car (despite Jan having left half an hour before).

Happy birthdays in the next couple of weeks to Kathleen, Kenn B, Pat McL & Kent.

Right, I think that's it. All the very, very best for the next few weeks.

Until I write again - alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

Parkour

For a look on the light side, check out Parkour Training founder, David Belle's BBC ad at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAMAr8y-Vtw, or some younger Brits in Parkour play at St Johns in Oxford at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wDMnKpEMfM.

If, like me, you really like the music in the background of the St John's vid, it is Professor Longhair's "Big Chief", from the 2000 album "New Orleans Funk".

News from Nelson - January 2011, Part 2

We are having a great summer. We had a lovely bbq recently with about 50 people here, and got to catch up with folks we haven’t seen in ages. We were also surprised how many of our friends had other connections between each other. It all goes back to that Kiwi thing of 1.5 degrees of separation.

Tanja, Brigitte & John all came to stay for a week, and we got to celebrate Tanja’s birthday with her. I think they had a good time in Nelson, including going for some very scenic drives – and only one of them was unintentional! We had fish & chips down at the Mapua wharf, from the fish & chip shop that has just got the Wild Tomato Award for the best F&C in the top of the south, had the bbq for Tanja’s birthday, and had a very relaxing time. Mind you, Brigitte & Tanja could have shopped for New Zealand – it should be an Olympic sport! And I know I don’t have the staying power to do what they do. I should emulate John & grab a coffee & a paper & have them swing by afterwards to pick me up.

Jan has now built the second wine rack built and that has a couple of columns of bottles in it already. We still have some more space that we need to free up in the cellar, but we feel like we are starting to make more progress. This week I hung some of our pictures, and we bought some wall-plugs for those things that are a bit heavier, so hopefully this weekend they might get put up, along with our bathroom mirrors. The list gets shorter!

We have rented Montrose Drive again until this coming October, when it will go back on the market for the 2011-12 summer. We have some great tenants for this year (so far, anyway!), and what is more, we had two lots of really nice people to choose from. We downloaded all the forms from DBH and filled out everything that we needed, have sent off the things we needed to and took lots of photos. Should be all good.

Bon dog went home for a few days when John F got back from his first tour of the summer last week, but she came back again last night for the next month while John is away on #2 tour. Fliss & Coco were beside themselves when she arrived back with Jan last night. We ended up having to take them 2k down to the end gate last night at 8pm to get them to calm down. At least it was quite cool by that hour.

We had Wendy & Wayne up to see us last weekend, and it was great to see them. We were also going to go & see The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) in the meadow at Fairfield House on Sunday night, but it got rained off. Next time.

My study is going well – I am onto unit 9 of 16, as my second lot of course materials finally turned up. Mind you, I am still waiting for 4 assignments from the first half of the course to be marked & come back.

Jan is going to Underwater Hockey tonight, which will be the second time this year. He is thinking about playing in the South Island Masters Games which will be held in Nelson in October this year. So he needs all the pool time he can get between now & then.

He has also signed up for all the NSO concerts for the year, and I have signed up as a  “Friend” and booked my concert seat all the way through. My mother was talking about becoming a friend too, but I don’t know if she has registered yet.

At the beginning of February we also have the Adam Chamber Music Festival starting. Jan is going to see five concerts, and I am going to three. He is going to a Paganini concert on his own as I can’t stand the Caprices – to me it sounds like cats being dreadfully murdered :-(

Next weekend is the Sarau Fair, which is a blackcurrant festival. That should be fun.

Happy birthdays in the next couple of weeks to Tamara, Mike S, Eberhard and Oma Friedel. I hope Andreas' footballing birthday party went well, as did Christian's birthday celebrations.


Best wishes to Steph - I hope the floods haven't damaged your Rockhampton property too much (let us know if there is anything we can do); and we were glad to hear that Uncle Lin escaped most of the damp north of Brisbane.

Right, I think that's it. All the very, very best for the coming few weeks, and we look forward to catching up with you all sometime this year.

Take care and alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

Random Acts of Kindness - dead or alive?

I have been reading today about Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) by Interflora (go to http://lnkd.in/izxY6W ); Interflora are crawling Facebook & Twitter to find people who have had bad days, then they send them flowers. 

Interflora's RAK is a nice idea, but I would rather get a live plant than a bunch of dead bits... what do you think?

Hello Mall

For those of you who remember the film "Shirley Valentine", you will no doubt remember Shirley uttering those memorable words "Hello Wall" in a monologue to the wall, which reveals her innermost spirit, and by degrees, how narrow, confining and boring her life has become. Shirley wants happiness, challenge and change.

Entrepreneurs and service workers have flocked to Dubai to get an economic bite of the wodge of oil dosh that is transforming this splinter of the East into the West. On the surface, the Dubai development looks like it could bring both the immigrants and the locals happiness, challenge and change, but Joe Bennett isn't so sure.

I have just been reading Joe's latest travel book - this time he delves into the UAE, in "Hello Dubai: Skiing, Sand and Shopping in the World's Weirdest City". As with "Where Underpants Come From" (2008), Joe's writing is most entertaining, with him gently poking his finger at both the Western and Eastern cultures.

However, I was most struck by a couple of paragraphs on pages 60 and 61 of his book, regarding consumerism, and our consumer society, which read:

“Malls are easy to despise, but they are merely covered markets and markets are as old as agriculture. But what a mall offers is far more than agricultural surplus. It offers the ideal fantasy world as seen on television and in magazines. And nothing is permitted to disrupt the fantasy: no weather, no thugs, no traffic, no dirt, no distress. There are security guards, piped music, and cooled synthetic air. Malls are the apex of the consumer society that Dubai has come to represent. And of all societies in history the consumer society is the least social. It emerges from Fortress Home only to make raids on stuff, to take that stuff home in a sealed car, haul up the drawbridge, drop the portcullis and then watch television in order to learn what to get next.

“It is so easy to forget how constantly we in the West are bombarded with a single lie. It is the notion that the things we buy – the cheese spread, the duvet inner, the all-in-one barbecue tool - will make us happier than we were before we bought them. The lie is bellowed from the radio, the television, the newsprint, the roadside billboards. Experience tells us that the lie is a lie. Yet some instinct continues to respond to its siren call, and the balloon of hope keeps re-inflating.

“In our world the call of advertising is as constant as the call of the muezzin. Commerce and religion use identical marketing strategies. The mall is effectively our mosque and, like a mosque, it is built to impress. Like a mosque it is a focal point, the place where people gather to do a culturally important thing. Like a mosque it confirms a belief and gratifies a need. And if Dubai had to choose between mosques and malls, it would choose malls. Indeed, though it would never admit it, it already has. Just as we have chosen them over cathedrals.”

Having not watched TV for fourteen months, Joe's comments give me hope that my consumer edge is becoming dulled. I certainly feel no pull to buy the latest supercallifragilisticexpialidocious goods. Mind you, that could be the results of building a new house and being poor, and having an intense aversion to malls. But I digress.

Buy Joe's book, and support a good, transplanted-Kiwi writer. It is a thought-provoking read.

Bennett, Joe (2010). Hello Dubai: Skiing, Sand and Shopping in the World's Weirdest City. UK: Simon & Schuster.

News from Nelson - January 2011

Well, what a busy few weeks we have had. We are both well; Jan narrowly skirted getting a summer cold, but it didn’t quite eventuate. Jan’s work isn’t too busy, and my study has reached a stall-point as I am waiting for my next lot of materials to be sent to me, and I have completed all the on-line work available. So for the next couple of days, I guess I have to read a few books and go for some walks instead.

We are still battling the gorse in the gully, and we now have a large pile of it against our shed, drying out to burn in autumn once the fire danger is low and we can get a fire permit.

Not only do we have cars in our garage, we also have one wine rack built and full of bottles. Jan did a great job welding last weekend, and we stocked it up. That has freed up a lot of space in the cellar, though we still have one more rack to build, and then some benches and shelves down there before we are really organised. There is still some timber and a few remaining workshop items in the garage that need to go across to the shed.

Our new tandem axle trailer arrived from Briford in Christchurch just before Christmas, which was great. Jan managed to clear some space in the shed for it, so it is stored out of the rain.

We have had lots of visitors – in the past week we have had Kathleen & Frits and John F for an overnight; Megs, Will & Emily along with Noreen & Paul and Max & Karen on New Year’s Day for brunch; Hui-Ping, Ella & Nikus a couple of days ago; Kent C & his wee boy Cameron. Kathleen & I played tennis at the Moutere Rec Centre courts, which was great fun. 

The Chamber of Commerce Christmas function was entertaining at the upgraded Theatre Royal – the restoration team have done a wonderful job of the theatre, including recreating the original wallpaper. The AUT graduation party, NMIT’s graduation and the Business School's farewell get together all went off well. The Roses Road Christmas Party & our family pseudo-Christmas lunch went off well, but we ran out of steam for the Neudorf Road Neighbourhood Party (at Glenys & Kevin's) & put in our apologies instead. We caught up with Glenys & Kevin a couple of nights later & caught up with their news first-hand anyway.

Our Wellington trip went well – read the entry immediately before this one to catch up on that info. Unfortunately we missed seeing Guy & Sonya, but hopefully next time; and also didn’t manage to catch up with Sam & Moose or Gary & Karen on this side of the Cook Strait either.

We have Bon dog here for a couple of months while John F is off on tour. Fliss & Coco are thoroughly enjoying having their partner in crime back.

John, Brigitte and Tanja are coming down to visit us for a few days next week, and I have a few brochures for them to decide what they would like to see while they are here.

We have a barbecue on January 15^th from 3pm if any of you are about Upper Moutere & looking for a party :-)

Right, I think that's it. All the very, very best for January, and we look forward to catching up with you all sometime this year.

Take care

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

Christmas in Wellington

Jan & I had a lovely time in Wellington - the company and the weather were both fabulous.

We had Weinachten (Xmas Eve) with Jeremy, Tina, Brigitte, John, Tanja, Otto and Lara at the Nelson's in Karori. Everyone had made so much delicious food, it was terribly tempting to eat until we popped! A great night, and everyone was very good about us boring them with our German photos :-) 

We had a lovely, low-key Christmas day, starting with a wonderful brunch with Hartmut & Uta. We peacefully drove home the slow way down Stokes Valley & through Hutt City, with Jan giving me a tour of places he used to go, and where his friends lived. We had a walk along the Petone waterfront. Very relaxing and peaceful. Then we caught up with some friends at the Intercontinental Hotel & had a light meal for dinner there, which was perfect.

We were asked to do some extra activities (eg going to the European painting exhibition at Te Papa, and, while I would have loved to have gone, it would take another three hours and would have cut down on our time with friends & family), which after some discussion on various ideas, we declined all extras. 

On Boxing Day we went to see Doug & Morv who were preparing for their Boxing Day BBQ, before heading back to Karori to Tina's Boxing Day BBQ. Tina had along some people we already knew, and some we didn't. Hui-Ping came, and then some other friends unexpectedly arrived to pick her up - Ella & Alenas with their son Nikus - whom Jan & I hadn't seen for several years as they had been in the US, and we had a good and unexpected catch up. 

So we had a lovely, low pressure Christmas, thanks to learning to say "no"! And we left our camera at home, but hopefully we will get some photos off the others. 

More news next week :-)

Chainsawing

Jan, Coco and Fliss have had a busy morning sorting out firewood. Coco supervised from the tray of the new trailer :-)

News from Nelson - December 2010

Well, what a busy few weeks we have had. We are both well, but Jan has tweaked his back again (the same type of injury as when he came to Germany), playing underwater hockey. He has been going to an osteopath who seems to be straightening him again. I have been studying flat out, and Jan has also been trying to pull his team into shape at work :-)

And speaking of Jan's work, check out the "Changes at the Top" section on the bottom of the front page of the latest company newsletter:

  

In the evenings, despite his back, Jan has been cutting gorse from the top of the gully, and I have been trying to pitchfork it up beside the house in a big pile to dry out, so we can burn it in autumn (not alongside the house though!). A colleague at NMIT reckons we would go well with Boer goats on the property, as they actually enjoy eating gorse. I am not so sure; a friend of mine years ago got about 50 scrub goats on his property - 700 acres being re-broken in from scrub - and all the goats ate was grass and the odd thistle head :-)

We have our cars in the garage, and the pilgrimage of workshop items continues across to the shed. We picked up some posts so that we can do the retaining walls around our water tanks, and then back fill them. That will mean we can have a clothes line at last (never thought I would get excited about a clothes line!). And, after borrowing our builder's trailer for the umpteenth time, we have just ordered the same tandem axle trailer from Briford in Christchurch which should arrive up here just before Christmas.

I had a chat with our as yet un-met painter/decorator neighbour Rob on Friday about fencing our eastern boundary, which he was really co-operative about. Our boundary has a really weird shape along that side, and he too is keen to determine exactly where his place ends & ours begins. Since clearing, seeding and putting up the industrial unit, he has been renting the place out. He had some good tenants in there for a year - Shane who plastered our house - but he & his wife have moved on and the place is empty at the mo.

John H is out here today cutting our building off-cuts into lengths for burning, separating cedar for storage. It is a big pile that Jan & I only just managed to make a tiny dent in, so it is great that John is out here for the day getting it done. Jan worries about all these jobs, so it made sense to get someone in to tackle the ones that keep getting put off. I got a load of cartons from the supermarket to store the bits in to use as firewood, but we aim to get a few apple pails instead, and buy a tractor with a forklift attachment so we can just truck a pail of firewood around to the western deck for the winter. We can strap a tarp over it & be sorted.

I have been being TradeMe queen again this past week, selling off some unearthed items from the garage as we have been clearing out. We have the big treated pine beams on to sell, as we need to empty a whole bay in the shed to fit our new trailer into... gee, that's not going to be easy! I have been ferrying some of Jan's timber which has been stored in the cellar over to the shed so we have some room in the cellar for the wine rack to be built... man, we are definitely getting to a crisis of space.

At least we can get the cars in the garage now. That makes all sorts of things a lot easier - like unpacking the car of the week's groceries onto a flat, clean surface for a start!

Flissy had a lovely time at the neighbour's the other day. Lyn Redden has rented his house out again, and his tenants had a BBQ and dumped the leftovers in an open pit. Fliss and Coco went up there and gorged themselves - Flissy in particular. Jan was horrified that she was so full she was sick, and hurled up a whole sausage without a mark on it. Ah, dogs.

We have Kathleen & Frits' old piano installed now. The piano movers had no trouble finding the place, and said that the map I emailed them was the best set of instructions they had ever had. Nothing like an engineer and a management consultant to get instructions right, eh. So the piano is here, sounding quite sour in places, but there is no point in getting it tuned until it acclimatises...

Jan & I have joined the local tennis club, and have a key to go & play at the lovely new Moutere Rec Centre courts. I am looking forward to having a good bash about over the summer (and I have very little skill, but lots of enthusiasm).

Our last power bill wasn't (ha ha). We got a $10 credit, even netting off the supply charge, which was good. 

We caught up with Karen Batten a couple of weekends ago for lunch in town, and then after a fab Chamber recital at the Chanel Arts Centre in Motueka (which we nearly missed, because we didn't book tickets, thinking door sales would be fine, and they were fully booked out! We were VERY lucky the organisers put some extra seats in). She was playing with Martin & Victoria Jaenecke (violin & viola) Konstanze Artmann (violin) and Paul Mitchell on cello. I hadn't heard an alto flute solo before, and, as it was a piece of Andean music, it was really haunting. Just lovely. The near miss on getting seats for that event gave us a huge spur to get on with booking our Adam festival tickets (next Feb here in Nelson).

We have a week of Christmas functions again - having already had the NSO one, the Career Practitioners one, the Rotary one, the NMIT one and the last Founders meeting of the year. Coming up this week we have the Chamber of Commerce, the AUT graduation party, NMIT graduation, a farewell get together for the Business School's Programme Leader, the Roses Road Christmas Party, the Neudorf Road Neighbourhood Party (at Glenys & Kevin's Mudcastle - always a blast), our family pseudo-Christmas lunch... we were also supposed to have fitted a BBQ with Gary & Nick and a BBQ with Kevin, Sandra & Tiff in there too, but have run out of days. 

Then we are up in Wellington for three days. It will be good to have a few catch ups in the North Island. We have already raided the Nelson Market for edible treats to share. If any of you are travelling around the Nelson Tasman way, give us a call; we are aiming to have a summer at home. John, Brigitte and Tanja are coming down to see us mid-January for a week, otherwise we have an empty spare room and a caravan. Please feel free to come & visit/stay.

Speaking of staying, we will have Bon dog coming for a couple of long stints while John F is off on tour next year. Fliss & Coco will love that.

Right, I think that's it. All the very, very best for Christmas, and we look forward to catching up with you all in 2011 :-) 

Take care and alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

Post

Oops, and for those of you who didn't realise that a year ago our address changed to PO Box 7090, Nelson Mail Centre, Nelson 7042, NZ, please update your address book.

We have had a couple of Christmas cards from people who can't have read the blog :-)

Study, study and more study

Hi all,

It has been a busy couple of weeks for me. I have been going flat out through my DiCG course materials, spending 10 hours studying each week day, and a couple of hours each day on the weekends. However, the time investment has really paid off, as I have now got through nearly 5 of the 8 courses for the first year's work.

Excitement! Cars in the Garage!

We had a productive weekend clearing all Jan's workshop gear from the garage and putting it into Jan's workshop. Now our cars & the motorbike are at long last in the garage. It is brilliant!

Power usage

While we were at dinner tonight, Jan told me something very interesting. Apparently the 'average' household in New Zealand consumes 8000 kWh/year.
Extrapolating our past six month's use out to a year, the two of us consume about 2,600 kWh/year, including running a business from home. About 30% of an average household (and we don't pay for it, at present, as we are generating monthly credits, including offsetting our supply charge).
I really don't think that Jan can complain that I am profligate with energy :-)

News from Nelson - November 2010, mark 2

Hi everybody, 

 

I hope you are all fit & well. The weather has been fantastic here, but we need some rain. It keeps raining in Nelson, in Golden Bay and out in Tasman Bay - just not here...

Jan's concert went really well on Saturday night. The music was great and they finished on a really high note; Arnold's Four Scottish Dances, which skirled the concert to a conclusion. We celebrated our wedding anniversary at home with breakfast on Saturday before Jan headed off to his last orchestra practice.

Like the Nelson family in Wellington, I am having trouble shaking this blasted cold, but it is finally going now. It has just been a bother at night, with my nose blocking when I lie down, but the last couple of nights have finally been easier for sleep. It hasn't been bothering me during the day. Jan still gets a slightly sore throat at times, but it still hasn't come to anything more.

We have heard about a guy a couple of kilometres away who is pulling out his vineyard - he was a contract grower for Hermann Seifried - & heading off to Oz. We went around to see him on Saturday to see if there was anything that we could use for our place. We think we will buy his 2000 litre black watertank to use as a new header tank. Then one pump fill will last over a week (instead of the three days at the moment), but better than that, being black, we won't get so much algae in the water - we are getting lots of photosynthesis through the clear plastic of the one we have at the moment. He also has a load of half round posts that we can use for the cross planks in our retaining walls, and he may have a container for sale which would be great for more storage space. We seem to be running out of room to keep equipment quite quickly.

We have got Montrose Drive ready & on the market. It is listed at http://rwnelson.co.nz/cgi-bin/clients/rwnz/profile.cgi?webid=NEL20121&gid=24476. There was an open home on the weekend which Susa thought went well; we will wait & see if there are any starts to negotiation or offers, before we think it went well!

My folks & my Uncle Norman called in yesterday for afternoon tea, which was great. We caught up briefly with Kathleen last weekend, and celebrated Uncle Norman's birthday with my folks, Mike & Donna, and Donna's sister Tanya and her husband Charlie two weekends ago.

Jan & I also went to a business after five function for the Nelson Tasman Chamber of Commerce, where we got a preview of the new NMIT Arts & Media building, which has been constructed almost entirely from Nelson Pine LVL (see it online at http://www.nmit.ac.nz/schools/artsmedia/artsandmediabuilding.aspx). We had a long chat with the architect as we got a tour of the building, which was really interesting. I have also been out for a farewell dinner for NMIT's Business Degree programme leader who is sadly heading off to pastures new.

In the next couple of weeks we are going to a private tour of the museum's Haven Ahoy exhibition with Nelson Pine, and going to the Chamber's Christmas Party. Oh, and we have a couple of dinners to go to as well, and a classical concert in Motueka. 

I have been through all the assignments, activities and forum requirements for Dip in Career Guidance, then made a matrix of what had to be done, and the date each bit was due by. Then I went through and put a date that I would like to get each bit done by, to ensure I get the whole thing cut by next June. So far I am on track, having finished my first unit - only 15 to go! 

Jan's work is still very busy, but the orchestra practice ensured he kept his work hours reasonable. I am not sure if he will be so punctual in leaving work at a good time now that he can stay as long as he likes once more. Time will tell.

Wellington people - let us know if you will be home on Christmas day avo; we would like to come & visit you if you are.

• Congrats to Tessa who has passed her first assignment in her Diploma with distinction :-)
• And before I write again, happy birthday wishes need to go to Jeremy, Neil, Donna, Janet, Jamal & Tina

Take care & alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

News from Nelson - November 2 2010

Hi everybody,

I hope you are all fit & well.

Jan's concert went really well on Saturday night. The music was great and they finished on a really high note; Arnold's Four Scottish Dances, which skirled the concert to a conclusion. We celebrated our wedding anniversary at home with breakfast on Saturday before Jan headed off to his last orchestra practice.

Like the Nelson family in Wellington, I am having trouble shaking this blasted cold, but it is finally going now. It has just been a bother at night, with my nose blocking when I lie down, but the last couple of nights have finally been easier for sleep. It hasn't been bothering me during the day. Jan still gets a slightly sore throat at times, but it still hasn't come to anything more.

We have heard about a guy a couple of kilometres away who is pulling out his vineyard - he was a contract grower for Hermann Seifried - & heading off to Oz. We went around to see him on Saturday to see if there was anything that we could use for our place. We think we will buy his 2000 litre black watertank to use as a new header tank. Then one pump fill will last over a week (instead of the three days at the moment), but better than that, being black, we won't get so much algae in the water - we are getting lots of photosynthesis through the clear plastic of the one we have at the moment. He also has a load of half round posts that we can use for the cross planks in our retaining walls, and he may have a container for sale which would be great for more storage space. We seem to be running out of room to keep equipment quite quickly.

We have got Montrose Drive ready & on the market. It is listed at http://rwnelson.co.nz/cgi-bin/clients/rwnz/profile.cgi?webid=NEL20121&gid=24476. There was an open home on the weekend which Susa thought went well; we will wait & see if there are any starts to negotiation or offers, before we think it went well!

My folks & my Uncle Norman called in yesterday for afternoon tea, which was great. We caught up briefly with Kathleen last weekend, and celebrated Uncle Norman's birthday with my folks, Mike & Donna, and Donna's sister Tanya and her husband Charlie two weekends ago.

Jan & I also went to a business after five function for the Nelson Tasman Chamber of Commerce, where we got a preview of the new NMIT Arts & Media building, which has been constructed almost entirely from Nelson Pine LVL (see it online at http://www.nmit.ac.nz/schools/artsmedia/artsandmediabuilding.aspx). We had a long chat with the architect as we got a tour of the building, which was really interesting. I have also been out for a farewell dinner for NMIT's Business Degree programme leader who is sadly heading off to pastures anew.

In the next couple of weeks we are going to a private tour of the museum's Haven Ahoy exhibition with Nelson Pine, and going to the Chamber's Christmas Party. Oh, and we have a couple of dinners to go to as well, and a classical concert in Motueka.

I have been through all the assignments, activities and forum requirements for Dip in Career Guidance, then made a matrix of what had to be done, and the date each bit was due by. Then I went through and put a date that I would like to get each bit done by, to ensure I get the whole thing cut by next June. So far I am on track, having finished my first unit - only 15 to go!

Jan's work is still very busy, but the orchestra practice ensured he kept his work hours reasonable. I am not sure if he will be so punctual in leaving work at a good time now that he can stay as long as he likes once more. Time will tell.

Wellington people - let us know if you will be home on Christmas day avo; we would like to come & visit you if you are.

• Congrats to Tessa who has passed her first assignment in her Diploma with distinction :-)
• And before I write again, happy birthday wishes need to go to Jeremy, Neil, Donna, Janet, Jamal & Tina

Take care & alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

Our picture book of our house is viewable at http://www.momento.co.nz/priv_preview.asp?b=4754-6410-3324

News from Nelson - November 2010

Hi everyone,

I hope you are all well - be it spring or autumn you are experiencing at the moment.

Jan is still practicing for the next NSO concert, which is on the 20th of this month. He keeps exclaiming how he hates multiple flats :-)

I have had a cold for the past four or five days which was pretty grim. I was in bed for three and a half days & today will be my first full day up, so I am pottering about doing some light and enjoyable things - like writing to friends. Tina emailed that Jeremy had been unwell for ages, as have both Otto & Lara. Jan had a sore throat for a few days, ate loads of vitamin C and all the cough lozenges we had, and shook it off (which is great for him, because he has lots of work on at the moment with organising his new position - and his team - at Nelson Pine).

Our Roses Road worklist is great - I keep adding to it. Mind you, some things are getting crossed off, like sealing the plasterwork, planting some more trees and installing our house water pump. Still plenty more to keep us busy though!

Now this weekend we have a whole lot more things to add to our work list - but not at Roses Road. We have decided to put Montrose Drive on the market. The tenants moved out on 30 October, so we had a chat to an estate agent who is a member of my Rotary Club and very straight (Susa's German) & have decided to market it until Christmas & see what happens. Susa thinks we will get our price. If you know anyone who is interested in a four bedroom plus office, 1.5 car garage, three storey board & batten north-west facing house in Nelson with sea views, let us know - or click & download a description of the house with photos here. We have some outside work that needs doing (we are meeting someone there next Tuesday to sort out the grounds), plus a good clean inside. We also found a few minor things that were broken, which the property managers will hopefully sort out.

A couple of our hazelnut trees are growing like mad, one is very slow, two are middling. It is amazing the difference in speeds from four seedlings that started at all the same height, have had the same treatment, same planting and are all fairly close in position. Genetics, I guess!

We had Sharon & Ian McGuire around for afternoon tea a couple of weeks ago, along with Kevin & Glenys Johnston from the Mudcastle. Kevin told Jan about a whole pile of Ake Ake that had self-seeded and he was about to plough under - did we want them? So Labour Monday saw us at the Mudcastle harvesting 30-odd Ake Ake, a couple of Whauwhaupaku (five-finger) and some rosemary. Kevin (another one!) Heasman had already given us some lancewoods, Ake Ake & Whauwhaupaku, so we now have some lovely shrubs for the garden... once I get Wayne Heine up here with a truck-load of topsoil to plant them in, that is.

We went to Miranda Harcourt's "The Biography of my Skin" at the Theatre Royal. It was a really good piece - part of this year's Arts Festival. We decided that we wouldn't go and see anything else this year. There were other things we could have seen, but nothing that burned brightly enough for us to spend 1.5 hours travelling in & out to see.

Labour weekend we also had the Hofmans - Kathleen, Frits & John - around for dinner. John has nearly finished his B.Eng, and made it to the final cut interviews for a Google position last month, being flown to Sydney for the final interviews. He missed the job, but isn't too upset by it - figures there will be plenty of other chances. We have also caught up with John F, after he was away in Auckland for a week. Bonnie came to stay with our two dogs for a week while John was away, and kept Coco fairly quiet, playing night and day. It was great for Fliss, who could then sleep as much as she liked. We also had Ellie & Greg Fijn around with Daniel & Diana (our neighbours) for afternoon tea, and Magda has called in too.

Last Saturday was the Upper Moutere School fair, so we went along. It was a lovely day, and they had loads of activities for the kid to enjoy, including climbing / building a stack of wooden crates (we saw a few tumbles - the kids were in safety harness suspended from a crane, so it was safe, but quite a spectacle to watch). We saw Bob & her sister Therese, Daniel & Diana, and one of the flautists from the NSO (whose name escapes me - but she made a fantastic pear, chocolate & almond cake!). Although the photo doesn't look that heavily populated, I think the entire Upper Moutere community was there. All the school children had tasks to do and performances to give, parents staffed the stalls, and it was very buzzy and lively. We bought some heritage tomato plants and some herbs to start my herb garden. Jan was surprised at the lack of produce stalls, until I pointed out that everyone had a garden and everyone kept chickens, so there wasn't much call for it. Lots of cakes, biscuits, bread, jam, pickles, duck eggs, plants, jumble and BBQ food for sale though. Jan was in heaven.

Fleur called in yesterday on a Nelson-side-of-the-hill shopping trip with her youngest, Lani, & picked up our Rimu TV cabinet to take it to its new home at their place in Takaka. She & Neil took the matching bookshelf a wee while ago. We had a quick cup of tea & a chat (which was all I was up to anyway) before she hurtled off back over the hill with all the shopping, the cabinet, a new mattress, a rabbit cage, a 'loaner' rabbit and Lani in the truck. Fleur dropped back the formica dining table chairs, which we had lent them a while ago. They managed to get some Rimu chairs, which was brilliant, so dropped the old ones off. I have been wondering what we should do with the dining table which is currently in the workshop. Now we have the set complete again, we can decide if we want to keep it for something or pass it onto a new home.

Because Jan's concert is on our wedding anniversary, we have decided to celebrate at home instead - we think we might go for a picnic or something similar. It will be probably as low key as last year. But we are considering a trip away next year instead.

My materials have finally arrived for my Dip in Career Guidance; a huge pile of stuff. Because of my cold I haven't had a chance to get into it, and now I have NMIT & AUT exam marking, course finalising & all sorts on which is taking up a lot of my time. It might be a while before I get started on my course materials now. I got registered early so that I could take advantage of the lull, but because of their systems, my early-birding didn't gain me any advantage. Pity.

I still have to get down to Christchurch to see that man about my brain (!), but have only had one migraine since 21 August. It looks like a 100mg aspirin might be my magic bullet; however, it may also be the 40mg beta blocker in combination. So I have just reduced my daily beta blocker dose by a quarter and will try that for a month & see if the migraine incidence increases. If not, I will drop by another 1/4 next month. I have been taking my blood pressure twice each day, so I can keep an eye out for any changes. Will keep you posted.

Our next confirmed trip away will be to Wellington for Christmas. John is house-sitting for us with Bonnie, so all will be well at home. We will be staying with Tina & Jeremy, and will have Christmas Eve with Tina, Jeremy, Otto, Lara, Brigitte & John, then see Hartmut & Uta late morning on Christmas Day. We were hoping to come & see as many of you as we can on Christmas avo - so let us know if you will be about, and when might suit you. On Boxing Day Tina is planning on having a BBQ at their place, which will be good. It all sounds very relaxed.

After that, I have no idea when we will be away again, but it is likely to be next year - but not before Brigitte, John and Tanja come to visit us in mid-January, which will be great.

Congrats to Adam who has a new job as Strategy Consultant with the Sulger-Buel Company :-)

Take care & alles liebe!

Sam & Jan