News from Nelson - September 2016

Hello all,
We have had yet another busy month. Jan has been studying flat out, and I have been trying to find time to get my PhD application prepared and into Griffith University. It is now submitted, and I only need to wait to hear whether I will be accepted, or what changes need to be made.

Jan and I went to the Gecko Theatre for a movie a few weeks ago, and watched "A Month of Sundays", which was a really nice movie. OK, it was largely focused on death, but it had dignity and gentle humour. I liked it. And we had a nice view of the moon, Mars and - I think - Jupiter on the way:

 
We went to Jellyfish at Mapua for lunch on Jan's birthday, which was really nice. Max and Karen, Erica and Tracey, Mike and Donna, my folks, Dawn, Kathleen, Frits and Amy all came. We had a very good time.

One Friday night we caught up with the Cools's for dinner - easy-care fish and chips from the Upper Moutere Takeaway straight over the road. Fabulous. But Renate still made a fantastically delicious birthday cake for Jan that we all ate far too much of.

Getting some nice sunrises now:

The Subaru has been in and out of the garage with a steering pump issue... which turned out to be a blocked hose, in the end. That was after a reconditioned pump had been fitted. Ouch.

Jan has been down to Christchurch for the first half of a health and safety certification course, and has caught up with quite a few of the Cantabrians. He has been staying with Jenny, and goes back down in a couple of weeks for the next half, followed by an exam the day after Labour Day. 

I go down to Christchurch next week for a conference (I am presenting on some research that myself and a colleague have been doing on employer use of cybervetting), and I too am staying at 'Hotel Ladley' :-)

Speaking of Jenny, she, Tracey & Erica have done the Abel Tasman track. Jan & I picked them up at Marahau, after they had walked down from Wainui Inlet. They had had a great - and, despite the rain over Nelson-way this week, a dry - time. Well: maybe from Jen's point of view, an "OK" time!

Luckily, in the last week of the month, I had study break, which has enabled me to do some of that research for the CDANZ conference (to be delivered next week), and get on top of the administration tasks. Both my research and Sports PR students are now mostly well on the way with their projects, and I have finished with lectures on those papers, so now only student mentoring and marking remains. While lectures still continue for my Leadership paper, the load-lightening on the other papers helps to gain a bit of free (well... free-er!) time.

Our road has been graded, and, although the weather has not been that dry, our driveway is now looking pretty good.
  

Jan, my Mum and I went to the Nelson Symphony Orchestra's "Solo Spotlight" concert, where eight very talented young performers entertained us. It reinforces that here are some very committed young musicians and singers out there, and it was a privilege to be able to listen.

Happy birthday to Bertie, Robert, Becks, Jenny, Uta, KT, Ana Silvia, Guy, Barb, Kelly, Erica, Julie, Tracey, and Hartmut. 

We are really looking forward in November to seeing Holger, Dieter and Gudrun: can't wait!

More next month :-)


Sam (& Jan)

News from Nelson - August 2016

Hi All,

A few of you have been mentioning of late that you miss our news updates.

My workload has significantly increased over the past two years, which is why - I think - some things have had to slip. However, family connections should not be one of those things, because I think it's important.

But at the same time, I have have been doing a bit of research on what helps people get through the PhDs, and funnily enough, a key thing is simply writing. So in order to hone my writing muscles, last November I signed up to a website kept by a couple of Californians, called 750words. The idea behind Buster and Kellianne's website is that you write 750 words every day, and that kickstarts your creativity and builds your writing habit.

So since 11 November last year I have kept a daily dairy, and have written lots of my business blog posts through this mechanism. iin other words, I have been writing up what Jan and I have been doing, but I just haven't been posting it to our family blog.

I have given myself a metaphorical kick in the backside, and am going to aim to upload our news every two months as two short 'monthly' written updates write updates rather than creating videos or posting images (because it takes less thinking time, and is therefore 'easier'). I will, as usual, send out the email links to you once more as soon as I've uploaded.

So. What follows is a link to each month which you can click through to all that we have done this year since I caught you all up last in January, with August's news below these links:

• February: Westport to spectate at the Buller Half Marathon, PhD derail, Frits's birthday celebration
• March: harvest time and Taupo
• April: mega-migraine, visitors, puppy yearnings and movies
• May: Concert, friends, dogs and nature
• June: Wrist surgery, lunches, lakes and Uncle Eddie
• July: Victoria leadership lecture trip, driving, mid-winter Xmas, orchestra, new Uni

This month Jan played in the Stabat Mater, a mass for peace, with the Nelson Civic Choir:

Jan caught up with Gary and Karen when they did the Queen Charlotte track in Marlborough recently, along with Max and Karen, Tracey and Erica:

Towards the end of the month we flew to Sydney, then hopped on a train, and travelled four days across the Nullarbor to Perth. Why would we do that? A friend of ours, Ian, was having a pretty significant birthday, and had always wanted to do the trip. Ian and Sharon were going, and had asked a few other people if they wanted to go. Jan had always wanted to do a longer train trip, and I was reasonably keen, so we teed it up.

The timing meant I had to miss a week of lectures, but I had planned that week in back in May, so there was no problem. I set tests and tutorial work for the week so the students weren't disadvantaged.

We started in Sydney with a delicious birthday dinner for Ian at Essen, a German restaurant close by UTS (and just down the road from the Mercure, where we stayed overnight).

The next day, Sharon's cousin Glenn took us out for lunch to the Sydney Fish Market, where we ate far too much gorgeous fish, and I finally tried Barramundi. A bit too soft in texture for me, but Jan loved it. 

At 2pm we rocked up at the train station, and were shown to our berths. Despite being small, the cabins contained all you needed, and were more spacious than I thought they would be. We had four days of enforced idleness, looking at the world going past. Jan had some study to do, and I spent a couple of hours each day reading and writing my PhD research methodology. The rest of the time we were playing games, walking up and down the train, talking to people, taking photos, and listening to books and music... and eating.

Man alive, they fed you well. Everything was included: snack food, morning and afternoon tea, coffee, teas, cocktails, bubbly... wow.

We stopped at Broken Hills for three hours on the first full day, the next day for the afternoon and evening in Adelaide, then Cook on the third day for half an hour, followed by dinner under the stars for a couple of freezing hours at Rawlinna (and pretty much only sitting down), then no stops on the last day until we hit Perth. 

We were supposed to do a walking tour in Adelaide, but we found that they were going to take an hour and a half to walk a couple of kilometres, so we cut out of the tour and did our own walking tour through the CBD, just meeting up with the rest of the company at the Adelaide Wine Centre, in time for dinner.

The  age of most of the passengers looked to be 60s to 80s, so I felt rather too young. They were all nice enough people, but it did feel a bit like a retirement village.

For me it was an OK experience. Jan really enjoyed it. I found it a bit too confining, as there was not enough opportunity to walk around on the third and fourth day; although I had really thought that it would be Jan who felt that way, not myself.

One of my work colleagues, Sue, has done the Trans-Siberian, and said that that was a great trip. That might be worth doing. She and Steve had stayed at Lake Baikal in the middle of the trip, which I think saved them from going stir crazy from the confinement.

When we got to Perth, we met up with Robyn, one of the Nayland old girls. Robyn used to work with my father at MAF, and used to play hockey for Waimai. She hosted us, toured us around Perth, and had us to stay at her place. We got to see Kings Park, South Perth, Fremantle, Victoria city and up the coast to Woodvale. We had a lovely walk along the new waterfront development in the CBD. It is going to be quite spectacular when it is finished. The bell tower on the waterfront has used bells imported from St Martin’s in the Fields in London for its carillon. It is also going to cast a new ANZAC bell as a ‘great bell’ shortly, which will be quite cool. 

It is a very picturesque place, with lots of green areas, and some really interesting development. It has been hit by the mining downturn, but I think that is something that is affecting all of Australia at present. 

I will create a movie from the trip photos and video sometime soon, and will post it below. For now though, just a few key photos:

Our flight home was pretty uneventful - aside from neither of us being able to sleep. Oh, and the movie that Jeremy was in - A Letter for Hope - was on the AirNZ film list on plane when we flew home (I was so excited)!

I will be down in Christchurch in October, as I am presenting some research that a colleague and I at NMIT are doing on employer cybervetting. Staying with Jenny.

Jan too is in Chch in September and October - a week each month for his NEBOSH course. I am sure he would love to catch up with as many Cantabrians as he can :-)

My sister is, I think, heading off to America in November, and I assume that sometime soon after that we will get a date for the wedding... with hopefully enough time to arrange good flights to Maryland to help celebrate.


Sam (& Jan).

News from Nelson - July 2016

Hi everyone,
At the beginning of July, Jan and I went up to Wellington to attend a leadership lecture at  Victoria Uni from a set of Fullbright scholars and Sir Peter Blake Leadership trust award recipients. It was very interesting, and hosted by my old Master's supervisor, Brad Jackson.

Jan had to come with me to be my left-hand man, as I would have been unable to have gone without his assistance :-)

We got picked up by Brigitte & John, with Otto, and had a cup of coffee and a chat at the Ibis. We walked from there down to Vic law school for the lecture (and they gave us lots of canapes). 

After the lecture we got picked up by Jeremy, and taken to see his new place. We met DeAnne, and got a chance to catch up with Lara. All in all we had a very tight schedule, but we managed to fit in lots of visits.

It was great to go to the lecture, but my arm was jangling fit to bust by the time I got back to the hotel, and by the time I got home again after the trip.

A pity we couldn't see Tina, Hartmut and Uta as well, but there was such a short time. We could perhaps have caught up with Tina for breakfast, except I had already arranged to meet Brad at Astoria for breakfast, to talk about  PhD options.

Brad thought that I should try Griffith University in Brisbane, and that I should continue to pursue the idea that I worked up for AUT, rather than undertaking my original career leadership idea. Griffith apparently has a good - and growing - global reputation. As I had not considered Griffith before, this will take some investigation. 

Brad was quite dismissive of my original career focused PhD: and I think he has a point. This is a "safe" idea that won't rattle any cages, nor will provide the amount of challenge that my sports governance one will. 

After breakfast, Jan went to meet one of the HR people at WorkSafe (New Zealand's health and safety government watchdog). He wanted to find out more about the organisation, and DeAnne had put him in touch with someone to talk to.

Despite the Wellington trip away, I have been taking things very quietly. I have read a book a day since my surgery, which has been really wonderful. 

Jan has decided to take the opportunity to become a certified electrician, and is starting his coursework this month, with his final exam being in November, and a practicum in the first week of December. He is also hopeful of getting into a health and safety certification course, NEBOSH (and I've no idea what it stands for), which will be held in September and October. He is currently on the waiting list for that.

The Nelson Symphony Orchestra had their mid-year concert: America, held in the Nelson Cathedral. This was a very interesting programme, with music that was quite expansive and sweeping. Jan has also volunteered to play in the Nelson Choir's production of Stabat Mater, and in Nayland College's school production of Annie get your Gun (with performances in the first week of August).

We caught up with Glenys & Kevin for an afternoon of eating, drinking and talking (surprise, surprise) which was very entertaining. We also had dinner with Jenny, Tracey and Erica. 

We also had a mid-winter Christmas at the Hofman's which was great: we had "three lights"; three light courses - nibbles, soup, and cake for dessert. I had made a Nigella Lawson Christmas cake last year, but the recipe makes two, so I had put one in the freezer. I pulled that out and defrosted it. We took a sugar cone, and brandy, and turned the 'bladder' of Peckhams mulled cider into a burnt caramel, clove and cinnamon heaven. The nibbles were just fantastic: all the things we don't usually eat.

And no-one was too full. It was a really good night, with lots of laughs.

I drove for the first time three weeks after my surgery. to see the hand physiotherapist, for exercises and wrist support. my surgeon had said that I was OK to drive, and despite my reservations, I drove the automatic. The hand physiotherapist told me off quite thoroughly, saying that I should not be driving until the surgeon had signed the bone off as being healed. 

However, despite the driving, I got a good report from the physiotherapist. I have good mobility and had no pain at all from the session - she was very conservative, and focused on only what I could do until I started feeling a small amount of resistance. She was very happy with my mobility and movement, and gave me three small exercises to do five times a day each. My challenge was that they all needed to be done v-e-r-y slowly! She only wants to see me once my surgeon has signed me off, which will be next month. 

After I saw the hand physiotherapist, I went to catch up with an old friend, Di, who was able to drive us around that day, while we had a good gossip, drink coffee, and acted like we were ladies of leisure. 

So once more, Jan had to drive me into work, as I started teaching on the 18th. At least in the first week, I only had two lectures, as one of my other classes didn't start until week six, and the other was online.

By the last week of the month it was six weeks after surgery, and although I hadn't seen the specialist (because he was too busy off skiing and swanning around the world to conferences), I started driving again. Much easier.

We went to Alex and Caroline's Wassail celebrations this month, pulling in all manner of English traditions including the Black Morris to bring on the fruit for the coming year. Kev the Farmer sang a couple of songs again (he has such a good voice). Glenys and Kevin came along too, and we had a good chat about our planned weekend at McLaren's Bay next month.

We caught a movie at the Gecko Theatre in Motueka - Our Kind of Traitor - which was quite good. No major twists, but a good movie. We realised that we don't go to the pictures often enough, so have made a resolution to try to get there at least once a month.

I did a bit of digging and found that Griffiths was 39th in the world for sports management, so figured they could be really worth a look. I also realised that Graham Cuskelly was a professor in the business school at Griffith, and so I emailed him, and, despite being overseas, he replied straight away. So it appears that I may have my supervisor. 

Just like that. A new home across the Tassie for my project too.

Sam (and Jan)

News from Nelson - June 2016

Hello all,
We have been visiting friends for lunch on the early weekends of this month, which has been fun. One of my colleagues from NMIT and his wife came out to get firewood a while ago, and invited us for lunch in return.We had a great lunch at Shaw & Suz's place: I laughed so much, my face hurt. They are both so funny and have such great stories.

We also went to a Quiz night fundraiser for the Waimea Old Boys, with a load of our neighbours. We had a really fun night, and came in at around the middle of the pack - without any smart phone cheating.

We also had a good time up at Lake Rotoiti as well, having lunch with Robbie & Janet. We took homemade bread and pumpkin soup, so supplied lunch for everyone. We also had a good walk around the peninsular - and it was AMAZING how much frost there was still on the ground at lunchtime. The eels were right up by the boat ramp, looking for hand-outs, and there was an amazing duck - some kind of Chinese migrant - which had joined the resident mallards on the lake.

Marking, planning, marking, planning, marking, planning: that seems to be pretty much all that I did this month... aside from eating and sleeping. I had to mark flat out, plan all my work, assessments, build my Moodle sites, and do three course calendars for semester two this month as I had surgery on 23 June... and I needed six weeks of 'no work' space in order to recover. 

Jan went up to Lake Rotoiti to spectate Gary and Karen, Max, and Tracey did the round-the-lake run (I was flat out on my pre-surgery run-up so stayed home and marked):

I had my surgery on 23 June, and my anaesthetist decided to not give me any gas. As a result, for the first time I had no nausea after surgery. I couldn't believe it: I was actually hungry by the end of the day, and wasn't sick when I ate a very light dinner. Fantastic.

The surgery was to shorten my left ulna. For some reason my ulnas are too long, so when I damaged my left wrist two and a half years ago, it has not been able to heal due to the torsion put on it by the very length of the bone itself. Now it is 5mm shorter, with a 15cm plate, a bone graft and 7 screws, and should heal without problems. 

My right ulna is not as long as the left was, so probably may never need to be done, but I will be watching out for something similar, and flagging it much earlier.

I have a wrist splint that will help it heal, but basically I just need to ensure that I don't lift, twist or load it until the bone heals over the coming 6 weeks.

Oh, and I can't drive again either, until I get sign-off from the surgeon. I can use my arm a little, but not allowed to lift anything heavier than a cup in my left hand. 

All I can say is thank goodness for Dragon NaturallySpeaking. It is voice recognition software that means I can 'talk it in'... so I have 'written' loads of blog posts while I have been recovering at home. I have also been reading and listening to books (mostly murder mysteries). 

This has been a truly awful semester. Our school manager is off on leave for a month, and there has been lots of other employee assistance programmes put in place. We have been flagging for ages, but the organisation was fairly slow in responding... but they have responded now, which is good. I am getting a teaching assistant for next semester (which I have also had to factor into my planning for Sem 2). At least for the three weeks of next month I only need worry about myself. I start teaching in that third week, but should be fine by then, as teaching is 'light duties'. 

I also created a memorial movie about my Uncle Eddie for my Aunt Diana. It was so good to finally get the time to tinker, even if I was one hand shy!

Hui-Ping came to visit, with Mae. It was lovely to see them, and great that they could drive out and see us. She got cheap flights down to Nelson, and was staying with Bill and Cornish. We made chocolate chip biscuits to welcome her.

We have finally arranged to have our road upgraded, with Malcolm McDonald. We are going to get it done in two stages. The first stage will cost about 10 grand... ouch.

Ah well, it has to be done. 

More next month :-)


Sam (& Jan)