Making tape laces

I recently wanted to get a pair of unusually coloured tape laces as a bit of a fashion statement for a funky pair of boots, and went looking for laces to buy. After a fairly exhaustive trawl through the net, I ran across a great post by Devon Iott (August 2015) on how to make our own shoelaces.

It was a surprisingly easy project, just using a little bias binding machine, fabric of choice, thread and clear nail polish, a good, sharp pair of scissors, iron, ironing board, and sewing machine. If we have a quilting ruler, that will make getting the 45 degree angle bang on as well, to cut the fabric on the bias for the laces, as well as a rotary cutter.

Devon's post clearly laid out exactly how to make our own tape laces, which I have repeated here, using snips of some of Devon's images:

1. Use a diagonal ruler (or a quilting ruler) to line up fabric to a 45 degree angle for making the tapes. Get the fabric as square as possible (it makes lining up your cut strips easier later)
2. Use scissors (or a rotary cutter) to cut the fabric into strips 5cm apart (that provides just under 1cm wide tape laces). Depending on your fabric width, cut either two or four strips (you need laces bout 1.2m for ankle boots).
   
3. If using two fabric strips per lace, cross the ends, right-sides inwards, and pin.
   
4. Stitch together at 2.0.
5. Press seam open, trim waste.
6. With the wrong side facing up (NB: may need to trim the strip to a point), run each strip evenly through the bias binding machine, ironing the resulting binding flat as we go.
   
7. Fold the wrong sides together, then press firmly. 
8. Sew down the length of the binding at about 2.5
   
9. Mark each lace at 5mm from either end and 12mm: this is where we are going to sew the lace off into an 'aglet'.
   
10. Fold the fabric into another two or three thicknesses.
    
11. Select zigzag at 0.75 and a width of 5 (or 5.5) and sew evenly across the width of the folded lace ('satin stitch'), between 5 and 12mm from each lace end.
    
12. Trim waste.
13. Squeeze the aglet to make it tubular, paint it with a thick coat of nail varnish.
    
14. Dry. Trim excess thread.
15. Paint again. Leave to dry (or we can replace the nail varnish steps by using Plasti Dip).

A reader also posted in the comment that "for aglets, I use 3/16 heat shrink tubing, available at any home DIY store in the electrical dept. Slip them on the ends and hit with a hair dryer or craft heat gun. Tah dah, perfect aglets!".


Sam

• Reference: Iott|, D. (August 2015). Sew Your Own Shoelaces. Retrieved from http://www.thesewingparty.com/2015/08/sew-your-own-shoelaces/

News from Nelson - June 2018

Hi All,
Another busy month is behind us, and we are both feeling like there isn't a lot of light at the end of the tunnel, which is worrying.

While Semester 1 is over for me, Semester 2 is looming, and I have been asked to mentor a new lecturer, which has added to my workload. I am also still mentoring full year students right through the break, as well as hammering away at the PhD. Jan keeps saying that his workload only gets bigger each day he goes into the office, and he is having to do far too much administration, rather than the hands on work that he was promised. I know how that feels too!

Jan played in the concert opening the upgraded School of Music (it took five years to get the earthquake strengthening up to code - and there is a separate post on this), and then soon after had an NSO concert, all of which has kept him pretty darned busy in his 'downtime'. And then there is the current course he is doing for his Post-Grad Cert...however, in a rare moment of quiet on a Sunday afternoon, the dogs and Jan can be found enjoying some peace.

Tania's surgery seems to have gone well and she has now moved into radiotherapy treatment. The reports on clear margins and the progress made seem very positive, which is very encouraging. Tina has done a stellar job as Tan's advocate. Thank goodness she was able to be there.

My mother is well too - and long may all that last. She is still driving out to have lunch with us a couple of times a month, and we have been catching up with other members of the family in between in Nelson for family birthdays and celebrations.

The neighbour has finally milled all of the pine plantation at the end of the valley. The image below shows the view of the last dozen trees being felled, taken from halfway up our driveway.

John has started his tour around North America on his trusty old Norton Commando and almost immediately ran into engine trouble. However, the network of past customers, friends and vintage bike afficionados have seen him right and off, enjoying the views up the east coast of America and into Canada.

We caught up with Jenny L this month when she was up in Nelson; and with Tracey, Erica and H.

Hartmut and Uta came to stay on their way down to the island to attend a conference in Queenstown. It was lovely to see them both. They came for a few days on their way down, then called in for a few days on their way back. Hartmut left us with some of his skillful woodworking - both Jan and I are the lucky recipients of some gorgeous turned pens.

I have been rationalising some of our stuff around the house: I got rid of a whole load of old kitchen stuff to the Salvation Army shop in Nelson. However, I have also been doing a little bit of purchasing. I was reading that cheap china is often cheap because the clay itself may have heavy metals contamination... and once it loses its glaze, it can contaminate whatever it is used for.  So I dumped our crappy old cups and bought new porcelain ones on sale at Farmers for $2 each. Then I decided that 17 years was enough time to wait for bedside tables, and ordered two flatpack ones from 1-day deals for $49 each. I hope when they arrive they aren't too junky!

As usual, we have been lucky enough to see some spectactular sunrises and sunsets:

In October I will be presenting some research at the CDANZ Conference in Wellington, so hope to catch up with some Welly people then (though I am only there for two nights).

Hope to catch up with you all again soon


Sam (& Jan)

If I had words for Saint-Saëns Symphony No.3 and Gareth Farr's Ripple Effect

Yesterday I attended the opening of the refurbished Nelson School of Music, which was a delight. I found the end of the first half and second half stronger than the beginning, which was interesting in itself, with the first half having two pieces played by the New Zealand String Quartet (a Beethoven and a Bartok). 

However, the first half ended spectacularly with Gareth Farr's composition gift to the school, "Ripple Effect", played by Nelson music students alongside the New Zealand String Quartet. This made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I would buy a recording in a heartbeat. It was fabulous. What a Taonga Gareth has created for Nelson. The percussion sounded like the bells of Pikimai ringing through deepening fog to bring our ships safely to harbour...

Then into the second half, Nelson City Brass opened with the Fanfare for the Common Man; pianist Matteo Napoli with Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 alonside the Nelson Symphony Orchestra; followed by the NSO with a very polished rendition of Saint-Saëns Symphony No.3 in C minor featuring the Cawthron organ, which itself has had a close to million dollar upgrade. Ha, ha: I kept wanting to sing "If I Had Words" (taken from symphony's maestoso by Scott Fitzgerald and Yvonne Keeley way back in 1978, and it is famous itself for loads of mondegreens, including "Sister Moonshine", "if you are not deeply moved, child", and "If I had words to make your dream come true"). A couple of videos below:





If I had words lyrics were by J. Hodge, a UK jingle writer:

If I had words 
To make a day for you 
I sing you a morning golden and new 
I would make this day 
Last for all time 
Give you a night 
Deep in moonshine 

The concert closed with the Hallelujah Chorus form Handel's Messiah, sung by the Nelson Civic Choir with the NSO. 

It was a wonderful opening for the rebuilt school, but I would like to have seen a deputation from Wakatu Marae there, particularly for the investiture of the Taonga Pūtātara. 


Sam (& Jan)

News from Nelson - May 2018

Hi everyone,
Another month rolls around, and here we are, officially heading into winter. The fire is now on most nights, it is dark in the morning, and then dark at dinner time! Our house remains warm and cosy though, thanks to the high levels of insulation we invested in the building process.

Tania has had surgery, a lumpectomy and a lymphectomy, and is at home - and still working, though remotely to save her the added stress of a commute. In early June, once she has recovered from this first round of surgery, she will have a mastectomy and have the lymph nodes removed. Crikey, this is such a process for her. Thankfully once again Tina has travelled to Brisbane to be Tan's advocate, and to be our international correspondent. Hopefully everything will go well.

My mother seems to be well at the moment. She has been getting out and about a bit, having come out to us a couple of times for coffee or lunch. She had to go for a good long drive each week due a problem with her car where the reversing camera was permanently on and draining the battery. The issue took a bit of tracking down, and is now satisfactorily mended. Hopefully she will still want to come for a drive regularly, as it has been nice catching up at cafés around the district. With us focusing on paying off the mortgage over the past eighteen months we haven't been out much.

Jan has been in Auckland at a work-funded Safeguard conference, where he attended a workshop given by one of his safety gurus, Sidney Dekker (which he really enjoyed). Jan had hoped to catch up with Doug & Morv while there, but unfortunately was still feeling pretty low with a cold, and decided not to inflict his germs on the Booth family. A wise decision as he still had the cold when he got home, and it is only just tailing off now (in early June). I caught it from him, but mine, aside from losing me my voice for a few days, was gone pretty quickly. My voice was affected - I think - because the day it all started I had five hours of lectures from 8am to 1pm, and by the end of that I was down to a whisper. I was croaking for a week before I returned to normal, but that was my major symptom ...and not that much of an inconvenience.

John had left the country again, and is now preparing to ride across the USA on his trusty old Norton Commando. It has been shipped to the US and awaits his arrival. This has been one of John's bucket list items for many, many years... let the dream realisation begin!

Our neighbour, Ian B, has purchased a forestry block - but not the trees - at the head of our valley. However, Cyclones Fehi and Gita felled a number of the trees, and the tree owner is currently felling them. This means that Ian will be able to renew his pasture sooner than he had planned. The loggers have been working all month, starting at 5.30 every morning; but not on the weekends, which is nice. They have been doing major repairs on our driveway, having put in two new culverts already, and packing out the softer sections with loads of rock. We will have a very solid pan once they have finished... and all without ny of our own expense. Mind you, I have had three flat tyres this month, so perhaps not entirely without expense.

I caught up with Tracey a couple of times this month for coffee, and have had Warren and Erica come to stay, and Erica on her own. When Erica and Ollie came to stay, we took the dogs right up to the top of the felling area, watched Men In Black and had homemade fish and chips for dinner. Jan lost his broccoli plants (eaten by rabbits or birds), but planted some more under netting on the Western side of the lounge where the tomatoes were. Amazingly Ollie caught a bunny in the front enclosed garden while he was here. Jan now agrees that we need to tear up the front garden netting and re-lay it around the garden beds alone, as there is incontrivertable proof that the bunnies are getting in. 

Warren and Jan put in a base for Jan's set of recovered steel stairs to be footed on, which is what they are admiring at the top of the bank. We aim to have a party at some point where we get our guests to collectively lift the steps into place.

It is cold enough for winter shoes, and the Fluevogs are out again. I do so enjoy them, though am a bit sad this year as New Zealand's only retailer, TimelessSoles in Tauranga, is closing. They are apparently not getting the option to purchase much of a range and it is being limited more and more as time goes on, so have decided to pull the pin.

The limes and lemons are growing well this year: too fast for us to eat them. I might start taking them into work and selling them.

Tessa had her 30th birthday this year (seems outrageous!), and brought Izzy to Nelson to help her celebrate on what would have been my Father's 84th birthday. We had a memorial lunch in his honour, complete with ice cream sundaes, at Smugglers, followed by a shindig at Quebec Road. My voice was non existent, but I still managed to build castles with Izzy using the box of blocks that Mike had made for him.

Jan has completed his first Graduate Certificate in Safety Leadership paper and is waiting to hear if he has passed or not. He is about to enrol on the next paper. He is also currently practicing for two concerts: the NSO's Vienna concert, and then the reopening of the Nelson School of Music (which is now been renamed the Nelson Centre of Musical Arts - NCMA - for some totally obscure reason. People will keep calling it the School of Music until they change the name back, I would imagine).

I have been keeping busy too, with vocational opinions, teaching, research and study. My lectures have now finished and marking is yet to come. My research students are all well-underway with their projects, collecting their primary data, and I am currently almost finished planning for semester 2's intake (where I will have around 50 students enrolled at present and so will need to manage a team of four supervisors - two of whom are new and have never done a paper like this before... that will be another challenge).

Finally I have rewritten my research review article, and will resubmit it to the Australian Journal of Career Guidance early next month. My PhD research proposal is on-going, well-supported by an excellent Skype session with my supervisors mid-month. My next draft is due back to them mid-June, which should go OK as I have time to get the changes made before the last avalanche of marking descends.

Finn continues to grow, still very lean despite shovelling food into him, and now getting very strong. He is a sweetie though:

...and once more the sky has been providing us with a feast for the senses:

I have decided to go dark on Facebook. I will repost the family news on FB, but will not be monitoring, replying to or reading any threads. If you want to read why, my reasons are here. I will still use Messenger, and will repost articles and the family news, but other than that, expect silence.

This month between study and both doing our taxes we have watched Broachchurch series 3, which was very enjoyable, and firmly recommended. We have also watched a Spanish movie about a 'secret agent', called "Anacleto". It was slapstick but quite funny. I have discovered the books of Mavis Cheek, which I am finding a little like an uneasy marriage of Wodehouse (whom I like) and Danielle Steel (whom I don't). They are worth a read if you can get them from the library - as I am doing.

Hartmut and Uta come to stay next month, which will be lovely. 

Righto, time to do my GST. More next month :-)

Sam (& Jan)

An easy correction to sour or bitter soup

I don't usually put cooking tips on our family blog, but I ran into a doozy of a tip today. I was making vege soup, and added too many greens. The soup was bitter when I tasted it.

Gah!

So I went searching, and found a great post by Karen Ahn that went into the ph of everything, and explained what a pinch of bicarbonate of soda would do... and supplied this handy chart to show where items sat on the ph scale.

Two pinches of bicarb later, the soup is spectacular!

• Reference: Ahn, K. (8 July 2014). Use Baking Soda to Neutralize Bitter & Sour Flavors in Food . Retrieved from https://food-hacks.wonderhowto.com/how-to/ingredients-101-use-baking-soda-neutralize-bitter-sour-flavors-food-0156750/

News from Nelson - April 2018

Hello again everyone.

I hope everything is going well for you all.

Jan's sister has not been going so well: she has been having chemotherapy prior to having surgery, and it has made her very sick. She ended up in hospital at the end of the month, and in CCU (the Coronary Care Unit) with a heart murmur and palpitations. However, once the stopped the chemo, she seems to have started coming right again. It is all a pretty horrible process. Better than the alternative though... we hope she will be out of hospital soon.

Although Tan has been so sick, the process has been smoothed by Tina having been over there for a few weeks. She has been sending regular updates, and helping Tan to ask the right questions. I know myself it is hard to even be bothered to ask when you feel rotten, and I am sure that with what Tan is going through that she feels a damn sight worse than I ever have.

My Mother had an angiogram this month, and they found everything is ticketty-boo. This was both good and bad news. Bad news because I had hoped they might find a couple of blockages, and be able to clear them with stents, so she would recover her fitness. Good news because we have ruled out one more thing as being a problem. It is a slow process in getting to the root causes... I wish there was a fast forward button!

When my Mother got out of hospital, we went shopping. I did vicarious shopping: in other words I helped her spend her money on herself! This is the BEST kind of shopping (unless it is shopping for Fluevogs of course, which is something quite different again :-D). She is now set up with a complete winter wardrobe, with lots of layers and some very nice - and extremely reasonably priced - bits and pieces. All mix and match. All easy care (my favourite). So then I bought her a coffee, and damn the expense... al fresco on a park bench in Richmond!

Had dinner out for my birthday with Jan, Mike and Donna, and my Mother at a new Thai fusion restaurant, Miracle. I don't really rate it. My green curry was absolutely fine, but the Peking duck that Mike ordered was rubbish. Greasy, tough and grey. Jan's pork didn't inspire either.

We got invited to Sue's place to celebrate my birthday as well, which was rather nice (I had a whole weekend of birthday!). Sue had carefully prepared all things that I could eat: what a stellar woman (thank you, Tina, for teeing us up with Sue!). We lazed away the afternoon in the sun, under her lovely sun umbrella alongside the Brook Stream. For those who wished to avoid the sun there was shade, and for those who wanted to soak up the rays there wasn't. On the way home, we connected with John, Aniko and Lilla, so they came up to have coffee and to help us eat the dark chocolate mousse we had taken to Sue's and not eaten enough of.

Simon's house build has started next door, and his place is already nearing roof time. Staggering how fast they go up. He will have spectacular views right into Golden Bay, and over to Mount Arthur. Of course, his wind loading increases as well, but he has designed for that: same builder, same designer as we used. Love going local.

Jan finally finished the eucalyptus and pine seat, and we took it down to the hairpin bend and hauled it off the trailer, installing it on my birthday. He says it is my birthday present. However, I have told him that is a nice try. There are Fluevog shoes winging their way from Canada, ostensibly from him, I organised my own present, and the seat is a darn good creative bonus :-D.

Finn is growing up fast. He is now just taller than Boo, though still lighter. He is getting skinny and gangly. He remains very willing, and a real smoocher. He can high five, shake and do most other required commands, but my main difficulty with him at the moment is teaching him to walk on a loose lead. He is a bit of a puller.

I found out halfway through the month that my Griffith email had not been forwarding to my home email, even though I had set it up to forward. As a result, I found 481 emails awaiting attention. Gulp. It took me more than a day to work through them all, and I found to my horror that I had missed a reporting deadline - my annual progress report - by two weeks in the process. Bigger gulp. I emailed them straight away, and everyone seemed pretty chilled about it, but I was appalled. Needless to say, I have put reminders in my diary to ensure that I get everything together in future.

Jan is getting on OK in his new workplace, and his course is proving challenging enough to be a stretch, but not a stretch too far. His first assignment has gone in, but he hasn't yet heard back about it. Each week the lecturer does an online webinar, which he attends, and finds those very useful.

I heard back from the Australian Journal of Career Development that they would like to print my article, but have some reviewer comments for me to take in. I will need to find time to wedge in the changes, but the editor was very encouraging. Awesome: all that work might pay off.

We have consumed Babylon Berlin this month (most enjoyable) and have started season 4 of Death in Paradise. I do like Netfix!


Sam (& Jan).

News from Nelson - March 2018

Hi all,
Another month ticks around: I don't know where they all go. Here we are, a third of the way through the year already, and I can't understand where the last ninety days went!

All the health and family issues over the past year have been weighing heavily on me of late, especially with Tania not progressing in her treatment. It has been hard to make good progress on my research, or to do anything other than to simply get through each day's list of tasks. I have been losing my mojo. So I decided not to keep trying to soldier on, but to take a leave from my PhD for three months. Hopefully that will get me back on track and feeling like I have something constructive to say. I will keep working on slowly, but at my own pace and as I feel like writing.

This break has fallen alongside my supervisor being otherwise engaged (Commonwealth Games) and the start of a busy semester for me. The break also means that my next trip to the Gold Coast will be in September, rather than July. I will defend my proposal in September, I think, during the NMIT study break. What is also very interesting is that my Master's supervisor, Prof Brad Jackson, has moved to Griffith. My main supervisor, Graham, is thinking that Brad might like to come on as an associate supervisor, which might be good. It makes sense from Graham’s point of view: he doesn’t have the knowledge of Tangata Whenua or Pasifika that he needs to understand the context.

My mother and Sue came out for coffee. We were going to go to Michael McMillan’s sculpture gallery down Neudorf Road, but they weren't open, so we went to the Riverside Cafe instead. Then Sue and my mother both came back to our place for lunch afterward. It was a very enjoyable and relaxed afternoon.

With all the rain in spring last year, the neighbour had a number of his heifers die from magnesium deficiency. One of them dropped dead half in and half out of the offal pit, and bloated. Because it was so wet, he couldn't do anything much about disposing of the carcass, so it was left to rot for a while. And stink. I managed to keep both Boo and Bonnie away from it, but one of the neighbours' dogs hauled the head through the fence and it got covered up in the long grass. So this month, Boo was getting more and more sick over a weekend. We carted her off on Sunday afternoon to the vet, and various scans, x-rays and other things were done. Well, $1700 later we now know that Boo managed to eat the flaming eartag off the skull and get it lodged in the top of her stomach. We have the eartag as a fairly expensive trophy... and a dog with a nice neat row of healing stitches in her underbelly and a bald panel in her side for pain killer patches!

Finn is still growing. Almost getting to the gangly stage. He has also discovered pine cones in a big, crackly, satisfying, crunchy way.

We caught up with Sharon & Ian again, ahead of them heading off to Europe for a long break. I think they will have a wonderful time, as we head into winter.

Our courgettes, cucumbers and spinach have been growing well, and at last our tomatoes are starting to come through. They have been very late this year, I think with the early warmth, then the rain, the cold snap, the cyclones and now the warm again. Plants must be very confused! Our Granny Smith apples were ready early, so we have processed about 20 litres of apple juice and preserved it in 1 litre jars. All ready for Jan to drink over winter :-)

I have been going through my old clothes and shoes, and taking things that have not been used in a long time to the op shop. Jan decided to get rid of some stuff too. We had a shoe count-up: he was complaining that I had so many pairs of shoes that it was ridiculous. So we counted how many pairs we each had in the wardrobe. I had 19: he had 17. Yah boo sucks, Mr Kuwilsky! And yes, I did rub it in!

We had a great afternoon at Zig and Lib's place too: they are going to Europe for six months and wanted to introduce all the people on the road to their house-sitters (Rose and Russell). It was a good get-together for the rest of us too: Ian M; Hugh, Jackie, Logan & Lexi; Steve & Liz; Daniel & Diana. Didn’t see Ian B, Margot & Michel, Robert Coombes, Simon or anyone from Jimu’s old place. Hugh & Jackie are planning on having a mid-winter Christmas at their place sometime in June this year, which will also be fun.

The mornings are drawing in. Two shots below are from the sun just rising on our way to work towards the end of the month.

We caught up with Jenny this month: and she did more sewing for us. The woman is a genius! She picked up fabric on special at Spotlight as a throw for us on the couch, and brought it up with her on the plane. I picked her up, and we went to Tracey and H's for dinner. They planned their Heaphy tramp. Most entertaining! Jenny was here to keep an eye on her mama as she has been having cataract eye surgery while conscious (ugh!).

Jan's study is continuing, though he is finding it challenging. I think that is a good thing, because it means our mind is being changed! I go back to the office to carry on after dinner and a break, he tends to drift back in as well. Nothing like having regular time to throw at things to get them done.

Jan has being tutoring one of our neighbours' daughters in maths and physics, which has been interesting. There is so much which I have forgotten, to my shame! Jan & I did something else for the others on the road this month: we cleaned out the second ford which had been choked up with weed, gravel and flotsam after the two cyclones. Boy, that was a hard day's work. 

My mother has to have an angiogram at some stage: we are waiting for the appointment to come through. I will go with her, and stay with her when the procedure is finished.

This month we have been watching a Swedish police crime series called Borderliner. Very good!

Sam (& Jan).

News from Nelson - February 2018

Hi all,
So sorry to have been slow in getting back you again. Things have rather caught up with us again this year.

Jan's sister Tanja has breast cancer and the process of her getting started on chemo has been fraught with difficulty. I don't know why the hospitals and specialists in Brisbane don't seem to know what each other is doing, don't talk to each other and don't have a clear treatment plan, but I can tell you from the patient end the breast health service is fragmented and lacks cohesion.

We endured Tropical Cyclones Fehi and Gita without too much damage, though we did lose some bank by the water tanks and a dozen trees on our Western boundary to Fehi. No biggie though. Where our bank came down, a lot of  purple berry grasses (Dianellas) were dislodged. I helped Jan with transplanting them into our corner garden by the garage, and they were still doing well by the end fo the month. Epic!

As a result, we have lots of downed timber which has now been cut up and stacked to dry out, ready for 2019's winter. We already had this coming winter's firewood sorted. Nice to be ahead.

Golden Bay was isolated for ten days after Cyclone Fehi, with the Takaka Hill road looks like it will take a while to re-open completely, though they are running transport convoys across twice daily. Very sensible approach (I rather think we learned a lot of processes as a nation with the Kaikoura road being knocked out for nearly a year). The road has been very damaged by slips.

PhD is going pretty well: the Griffith Uni library is proving to be a bit of a treasure trove (I am like a kid in a lolly shop). I have had my first 'official' supervision meetings, and am progressing well with writing up content from my for my research proposal... I seem to be getting back on track.

Finn, the new puppy, is taking up a lot of time, with toilet training, obedience training, feeding, walking and having-eyes-in-the-back-of-your-head-ing... he is generally a very good wee puppy, but he does catch you unawares with eating thing at unexpected times. Usually my short sport socks. I can only thank goodness that I do tune in very quickly when he is quiet and go looking for whatever the trouble is that he is getting himself into...

We have been catching up with a few friends. Ian's tenant, Miranda, from down the road had a BBQ and invited all the families on Rose Road, which was a lovely way to spend a glorious summer afternoon. We got a date for Cards Against Humanity out of that session (we went with neighbours Steve and Liz to their friends', Gabriella and Nigel - place for that... and it was a pretty full on night). We also 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.

Jan worked pretty steadily on making the seat once we managed to grapple the weight of the block of wood that Jan had cut onto the trailer!

We had lunch at Sharon & Ian's with David & Sue on Waitangi Day. John has been around to dinner a few times, which seems weird and not weird without Bonnie here. I have been to the Suter Cafe a few times, and out to dinner with Jan at East Street (a really nice vegetarian restaurant). I went to a farewell lunch of my lecturer mentor, Chris, at the Slip Inn in Havelock. The lunch was held in Havelock so that NMIT Nelson and Marlborough staff could meet halfway. Nice idea. 

The old couches have been donated to the local scouts, for the Scout Den. We saw them off in the first weekend of the month. The new couches are very stylish, and I am really enjoying them. Jan is much slower to warm up to the change!

Jan has signed up to do his Graduate Certificate in Safety Leadership, also with Griffith. He was going to do two courses this semester, but found the workload too great - thank goodness - and has decided that he will do one paper at a time. Great choice. Jan is finding his work environment is lot more supportive than his previous role, so that's good.

Teaching started again for the year with me having two new supervisors, but all the paperwork and processes were pretty much in place for getting my newbies up to speed. So far, so good. First assignment is due in in the first week in March, so I will see how they go with marking!

And of course, we have had some lovely views from 190m:

Catch up with you all in March

Sam (& Jan)