Sam & Jan's Archived News from Nelson

This is our news going back from March 2007 to April 2004

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Tuesday 20th March 2007

I hope you are all well, and for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, enjoying the autumn.

Jan is off into hospital on April 5th to have his tonsils out. He is taking a bit over a week off work, ending with us being - Jan's recovery permitting - up in Wllg to see Tanja, Charles & Lars before they head back to Oz on March 10th & 11th.

Underwater Hockey, Jan's study and my triathlon training is still keeping us busy. At least the triathlon is on in less than two weeks time, so that will be one pressure gone very shortly.

Jan has had the results back of his first Stategic Management assignment, where he was marked at 100% and his paper was used as the model answer (which is pretty darn good!). He is currently working on his next assignment; the strategic analysis of a provincial white ware & electrical goods retailer/servicer. And I am finding it all very interesting too.

I am keeping busy with work - with largely strategic management clients! I have a board planning day coming up with a local Iwi Trust which will be very interesting; working with the board members, and with the Komatua and Kuia who will probably also attend. Quite a different challenge when working with a new client (for those non-Kiwis reading, Komatua are the male tribal elders and Kuia are the female elders - usually respectfully called 'Uncle' and 'Auntie'. They have no official standing, but their age entitles them to a place in planning and discussions, and they can have a lot of power and influence).

We did a garden make-over at Magda's place this last weekend, getting rid of weeds, putting down weedmatting and bark, and planting out some Kanuka and Marble Leaf cuttings from the land. It all looks much better - though it took the three of us six hours!

Also, for those of you who know Julie Crosswell, she is getting married on the 10th of June to a fellow fire fighter, Stirling (Stirl) x. They have been seeing each other for about eighteen months and are very similar in nature. I think they will make a good team.

Next Saturday we have are taking a walk into the Abel Tasman to help celebrate Frits Hofman's 50th birthday. Then, after the Triathlon the Sunday after, Karen, Jan & I are heading up Mount Arthur on Tuesday the 3rd. We are hoping that the snow will hold off until after then - but if not, we will just bail when we hit the snowline. And as I mentioned earlier, all going well with Jan's surgery, we are up in Wllg on 10 & 11 April. Then our next trip away will be sometime in May to Hanmer for a luxury weekend, which we won at the Orbit Quiz night last December (we are looking forward to redeeming that!). Then on June 15-17 we are in Chch for the for UWH Secondary School Regional Champs.

After that, I would imagine Jan will have an exam for his course, and then have to start planning what to do next.

Look after yourselves, everyone. Alles liebe :-)

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Tuesday 27th February 2007

May you all be rested, well and fit :-)

Jan has been to an ENT specialist today about getting his tonsils out as he has had on-going minor to major sore throats for about 18 months. The general consensus is that he should get them removed, so we are looking at him getting the surgery done. That means organising some holiday leave to recuperate. Not exactly Club Med, though, is it!

Well, be haven't managed to get rid of Underwater Hockey as the club members who promised to come & help haven't eventuated... and you feel quite a level of responsibility toward the kids who are playing. So life is frantic at the moment. That, work, the land, Jan's study and my triathlon training is ensuring that we are as busy as one-armed paperhangers at the moment.

Jan is enjoying the course - Strategic Management - so far. Going back to school certainly makes you look at a lot of things in a slightly different way, which Jan is  enjoying. His management questions have been really good at refreshing my memory too, and I have already learned a new management theory tool!

However, despite being busy, we did manage to get to the Suter's Degustation Dinner - a fundraiser dinner and auction for the Bishop Suter Art Gallery - last Friday night at Seifried's Vineyard. It was a fabulous evening out. All the Nelson congnoscenti were there, and Jan & I had organised a group of us to take a table. We had a wonderful night & Jan managed to win some flash chef's knives at auction.

We helped Karen T celebrate her birthday in Wllg a couple of weeks ago, catching up for some exercise and plenty of conversation. We attempted to drink a bottle of bubbly between us, but frankly, we lacked application - much of it went down the drain! We also caught up with Tina & Jeremy briefly for breakfast, which was great.

We are up in Wllg next on 10 & 11 April to see Jan's sister Tanja, Charles and Lars while they are here from Oz. Jan has bailed on the UWH Pro Reffing in Wllg in early March as there is just too much on.

However, we still have a long-promised walk up Mount Arthur and a quick tramp into Awaroa in the Abel Tasman for Frits Hofman's birthday (April 24-25) to look forward to.

Look after yourselves, everyone. Alles liebe :-)

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Wednesday 7th February 2007

I hope all you Kiwis had a happy Waitangi Day!

And we hope you are all in good health. My Uncle Eddie is at home at last, and appears to be on the mend. I haven't heard how my UK cousin Susan is going, but hopefully no news is good news.

We have still been busy-busy. Jan has been at TradeMe again (for all of you international people, this is a VERY well used second-hand NZ trading site) and has bought a safe - a mere 600kgs of it - in Chch. On Nelson Anniversary weekend we drove down to Chch to pick it up. At least we had an uneventful trip there & back, but the short duration of our trip meant that we only caught up with Megs (by picking her up & taking her to the airport on our way into Chch) and Jenny (whom we had a delivery from Nelson for). We stayed at Megs' place overnight & babysat Jimmy. Or perhaps, as a 50kg Rottweiler, he babysat us! Coco liked him, anyway, but Jim thought she was the dust beneath his chariot wheels.

I am still not eating wheat (proving very easy) and trying to keep up with my triathlon training (very hard). Karen wants to enter the Triathlon run, not the walk. So last weekend I walked the triathlon run circuit and cycled the bike circuit and now don't feel quite so worried. Jan has been incredibly helpful, continuously making no end of suggestions and giving me instructions on how to change nearly every aspect of my run, my cycling style and my drowning style. Luckily I have been able to tune 90% of the suggestions out before I get the urge to get the knife out of the drawer :-)

Last weekend Jan was up in Wllg for the Rugby Sevens. He had a great time but came home utterly exhausted. Pat & Marjie were here from Thursday night to yesterday for Pat's brother Matt's wedding, so I babysat Pat & Marjie's two older short people on Saturday night while they went to the reception and I am exhausted too! Yesterday we took Pat & Marjie to the land and showed them what had been accomplished so far, before they headed off home with their family.

The Adam Chamber Music Festival is great - we have been to four concerts so far, with the last two to go this week. The standard is very high, and some of the pieces have just been fantastic. I have been really taken with work from a New Zealand composer called John Psathas, but Jan finds it too modern for his taste.

Coming up this weekend, 10-11 Feb, we are both going to Wllg to help Karen T celebrate her birthday. On March 9 Jan is back in Wllg for some UWH Pro Reffing (which may well only be for the day), then we are up in Wllg again on 10 & 11 April to see Jan's sister Tanja, Charles and Lars while they are here from Oz.

Then we are going to be slowing down for the next few months... aside from a long-promised walk up Mount Arthur and a quick tramp into Awaroa in the Abel Tasman for Frits Hofman's birthday!

Look after yourselves, everyone. Alles liebe :-)

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Tuesday 16th January 2007

Hi and Happy New Year!

I hope the silly season has been kind to you all.

My Uncle Eddie is still struggling - he was transferred to Princess Margaret hospital on Monday last week, he's been under 24 hour monitoring and has had to have an endoscopy amongst other things and may well be having a CT scan this week. He's not likely to be out for at least another week or so. Very hard on my Aunt Diana - our fingers are crossed for a speedy and less troublesome recovery.

Well, our lives have been full of much smaller things. Jan has put all the cables for his new overhead projector into cable trunking (plastic box stuff that screws onto the wall to hide the cables). I have painted it all to match the walls and the timber ceiling beams so you would hardly know that it was there. We have watched a few relatively recent movies, including 'Munich', which was much slower and l-o-n-g-e-r than I had anticipated.

Also we have finished our bench seat, and I think it does the trick perfectly (mind you, we haven't quite completed the polyeurethaning yet - the pins to hold it together haven't been done). Check out our photo :-)

Jan's arthritis has been fairly stable lately, but he hasn't been sleeping very well. He has just been to the Doctor about it. She has suggested that he keep a pad & pen by the bed to write things down when he wakes up in the night thinking about work (very perceptive of her to know that is likely to be his problem!). I also think that the heat at night is affecting him - it is making me sleep far more lightly than I normally do. I have been keeping well, and have not been eating wheat for a bit over a month. I was finding that the more wheat products I ate, the hungrier I got, so I finally decided just to stop eating it altogether. I am feeling much better for it.

A couple of the Streats guys, Mike and Jax, came up to stay on 3 January, and then kindly took us out to dinner at the Green Room to say thank you (and very nice it was too - and they have lots of wheat-free menu options, which is great).

Karen Trotter has lost loads of weight and has got really fit going to the gym and by having a personal trainer to keep her working hard. She has been boxing, which she reckons has made a huge difference to her fitness and weight loss. I was talking to her last time we saw her about a low-key women's triathlon which is run each year here in Nelson (run, cycle, swim). I told her that I had been thinking about doing the triathlon as a walk, cycle and swim; with another friend of mine, who has since piked out. However, Karen emailed me last week & suggested that she came down to Nelson for a few days & we did it together, but enter the run, not the walk.

Unfortunately, we only have ten weeks to prepare, which is a bit tight when you are me and aren't fit! While I started running in the mornings again before Christmas, I am only at the 'not quite dying' stage on my circuit of 2.5k. Now I have the added pressure of getting up to doing a competent 5k with enough energy left over to complete a 14k cycle; all in only ten weeks. So I still think I should do the walk, cycle and swim... but we don't have to put the entries in yet, so we can put the decision off for now.

Jan & I went out on Saturday in the pouring rain for a hour on the bikes to trial the 14k road cycle. It is do-able, not comfortable, but do-able (without the run first and the swim after!). There will be lots of work between now & April to prepare properly, on the road running, cycling and walking... & in the pool.

This weekend we are tree-felling at Montrose Drive; we have a couple of troublesome eucalypts that are going to be chopped down, the logs made into firewood, and the gaps replaced with some native hebes. Then we will chuck the leafy greenwaste on the trailer and take it with us to the land on Sunday when we head over there to do some more gorse control.

Starting at the end of this month we have the Adam Chamber Music Festival, and we have booked tickets for four concerts, which will be brilliant. We are also supposed to be catching up with Warren, Tracey & baby Erica sometime this month, but we haven't heard from them yet to tee up a time.

On Nelson Anniversary weekend (28-29 Jan) we are driving down to Chch on the Sunday to pick up yet another of Jan's TradeMe purchases - a 600kg safe!  The weekend after that, Feb 2-3, Jan is coming up to Wllg for the Rugby Sevens with some Nelson Pine people. Then the following weekend, 10-11 Feb, we are both coming to Wllg to help Karen T celebrate her birthday. Then we get a couple of weeks at home before we are off to Coco's first dog show on March 3-4 and on March 9 Jan is back in Wllg for some UWH Pro Reffing (which may well only be for the day).

Hmm. I thought we were supposed to be slowing down?!

Look after yourselves, everyone. Alles liebe :-)

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Wednesday 27th December 2006

Hi All,

My Uncle Eddie has had a trying time of late, having had a tumour discovered on his liver. He has had several surgeries and looks like he will make a good recovery now after some more investigation on Boxing Day. Also my cousin Susan in the UK has had breast cancer surgery this month, and undergoes chemo for the next six months. I can only send them our very best wishes and let them know our thoughts are with them both.

Uncle Norman was surprised on Christmas morning by an alarm going off in his pacemaker/defibrillator. He called the hospital for an ambulance to pick him up. Unfortunately, when they got him to hospital, there were no cardiologists on duty, so the one person who is expert in reading his device was dragged out of her Christmas celebration to find that the device had just been set too sensitively on the last check, and there was nothing wrong with him after all other than a bit too much fluid on his chest (which has corrected itself).

Whew. So we picked him up from his adventures at the hospital at lunchtime. and we had a lovely, relaxing and sunny Christmas day at Montrose Drive. Jan & I got a pair of walkie talkies for $9.93 from my brother - now we need to see if they might actually work at the land (but probably not, for a tenner).

Last year Jan's grandmother, Oma Lieselotte, sent us some Christmas linen - a tea towel, pot mit, a heat protector and some napkins; they were all used on our table for Christmas day. Eberhard, can you please show Omie the photo?

Our calendar is fairly full with work at the land, trying to ignore the garden at Montrose Drive and playing with the new overhead projector (although Jan does the playing - I think I might get shot if I touched the data projector without permission!). We watched 'Borat' tonight & it is an absolute scream. Talk about utterly non-PC. I heard that the students who were filmed in the campervan were trying to sue for mis-representation...

Jan & I are working through this Christmas, but the pace is quite sedate. Rather enjoyable actually - like working on a Sunday morning!

Our trip away to Wellington to celebrate Tina's birthday was really great - we had a great time and managed to stay up until midnight (hah!). Tina had arranged to have Sebastian act as a barman and had another lady come & help with setting up, passing around food, answering the door, cleaning up etc. That was really good planning as it meant that Tina & Jeremy were free to talk to people and mingle. Karen came along too so she, Jan & I had a really good catch up. We also managed to catch up at Clarks in the Library with Doug & Morv, Guy, Sam & Moose, and Karen.

Our next event will be a couple of the Streats guys coming to stay on 3 January, and catching up with Warren, Tracey & baby Erica, Sam & Moose & their family, and Yi & Paula sometime in the New Year.

And speaking of Yi & Paula - happy anniversary you guys!!

Look after yourselves, everyone. Alles liebe :-)

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Wednesday 6th December 2006

Hi All,

We are well, and have just seen Brigitte & John off to Ngakuta Bay to celebrate John's mother's 94th Birthday.

They came down on Sunday & since then we have gone out to the land for a picnic to show them the changes since they went last, called in at the Riverside Cafe to have coffee in the garden, went out to the Green Room for dinner, had dinner with my folks at Smugglers and watched a couple of Miss Marple movies. A very relaxing time.

We had a quiet time in Auckland. Amazingly we went to no art galleries or museums, but we did do lots of walking and window shopping and caught up with Janet & Robert, which was lovely. We also went to Waiheke on the ferry to have a look as neither of us had been before.

The round of Christmas functions have started; we have already been to two, with a third on tonight. The first one was great fun - a local Travel Agent holds a fund-raising Quiz Night each year for the hospice, and Nelson Pine enter a team each year. I have been lucky enough to be a ring-in each year on the team. This year the theme was the Twelve Days of Christmas, so we bought recorders from the $2 shop and all learned "The Little Drummer Boy" (most entertaining teaching a load of 40+ blokes to play a tune on the recorder, I can tell you!!). I would also like to point out that the $2 shop is probably not the best place to purchase musical instruments from - from flat to sharp in half an octave!

The second function was a formal dinner, and that was very nice as well. Last night we had my German Class' Weihnachten celebration, to which we took German dishes and a $5 present for one of the others. Brigitte very kindly made us a lovely potato salad to take, and Jan took some bratwurst and sauerkraut. Not exactly Christmas fare, but brussels sprouts are out of season and I don't know where to buy a goose!

Tonight we have three Christmas functions on one night, so that is going to be interesting (and I turned down a fourth)! A bit of a gallop :-)

Having looked at all sorts of small cars, we have bought a new one - a Diahatsu Sirion. Small, compact, good visibility, great town car, but not such good fuel economy as we were promised, unfortunately.

The local farmer has been grazing his rams in the orchard at the land, but has taken them out again now as the feed has dried off. It is amazing how much gorse that has exposed, so Jan & I aim to get out there this weekend with the grubber and see how much gorse we can hack out of two hectares before our arms fall off!

Our next trip away is to Wellington to celebrate Tina's birthday with her - and catch up with any of you who are about & can do lunch on Saturday the 16th (weather dependent: either at Doug's or at Clarks in the Library).

Then we are looking forward to a a quiet  Christmas BBQ at our place, which will be very relaxing.

Look after yourselves, everyone. Alles liebe :-)

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Wednesday 15th November 2006

Hi All,

We had a big fright recently with Jan's niece Melissa coming down with bacterial Meningitis & being hospitalised in critical condition. Luckily she has recovered, and we understand that the long term effects should be minimal. Phew. A very tough time for Jörg, Cherry and Tamara.

In addition, Hui-Ping's father, who, with her mother, has been staying with Hui-Ping this year with a view to becoming resident, died after a short and intense illness this past week in Wellington. I understand that Hui-Ping & her mum are flying to Taiwan on Friday for a funeral there. Our thoughts are with them.

So, with all that in mind, I hope that the rest of you are all keeping well and making the most of life & health that you have.

As usual we have been quite busy in the last few weeks. Jan & I went with Murray & Julie to see Al Gore's movie 'An Inconvenient Truth', which is OK viewing, but I would have to say that I would prefer a far less sentimental and more scientific approach. In fact, I feel that the BBC Horizon programme on global dimming/warming was infinitely more alarming (and definitely worth a watch, if you can get a copy, called "Global Dimming"). But the whole global warming thing is something we should all be doing things about - go to http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/whatyoucando/ to see what you can do.

Coco has graduated from Puppy Plunket & is now waiting to go to Junior School. She is a handful - and is so quick at seek & destroy on things that you don't quite expect her to go for - like telephone headsets and full boxes of tissues (Q: how many tissues can a wee puppy gobble down at one time? A: as many as there are in the box!). However, she also tries very hard to please, so once you can catch her doing something you don't want her doing, she doesn't do it again. But the trick is in the catching...

Wendy was in Nelson this weekend just gone. We caught up with her, and Andrew, Jennie & Ella at the market & had breakfast & a walk around, which was great. Max also rocked up to join us with Rueben (Jaewyn's son) on an Uncle/Nephew day out. Wendy is thoroughly enjoying her job - she still calls it her dream job so she must love it - and looks really well. She has been doing a fair bit of travelling though & is looking forward to getting some more time with Jerry at home.

Jan & I have been to the Chamber of Commerce Business Awards again (crikey, the year comes around quickly!) and Jan yet again got to present the Nelson Pine Medium Manufacturing Award on stage... and his photo was in the Nelson Mail. He is famous!

We have finished the fence around the orchard at the land. The wires have been run & strained, tread-ins done, the electric unit is connected, the earths in, the trough is done, the old oil drums are around the trees, the gates have been temporarily hung... but Jan tested the fence and feels that there is not enough current to keep the sheep in. So I guess we need to get a larger electric fence unit. Don't you hate these jobs that just keep on & on?

Jan has been to the specialist this week and has been told to slow down. We need to take weekends OFF. I have been saying for ages that our weekends need to be for recreation, not work, but David Porter is saying that they need to be entirely for rest. I am not sure that Jan would be able to cope with that. But maybe we can aim for one day of absolute downtime each weekend.

We are just about to put together our plan of what we want to achieve for the coming year, so our list of jobs will get calendared in that to make sure that we have plenty of time to do everything that we need to do.

However, at least Jan has taken some time out to start the model helicopter that he bought many months ago, and has had some problems with it. He is yet to do a proper test flight as some linkages appear out of balance & he has no desire to crash it on the maiden flight :-)

At the end of this week we head off to Auckland to celebrate our wedding anniversary, then we head off to Wellington on December 16th to celebrate Tina's birthday with her - and catch up with any wellie-ites who are about & can do lunch on that day (weather dependent: either at Doug's or at Clarks in the Library).

Then we are looking forward to a Nelson Christmas - probably a BBQ at our place, which will hopefully be very relaxing.

Look after yourselves, everyone. Alles liebe :-)

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Thursday 26th October 2006

Hi All,

Hope you are all keeping well. It is warming up here by leaps & bounds, but we would like some more rain (having had the dryest September on record).

Coco is growing even faster, is lanky, bite-y and thoroughly entertaining. Fliss continues to be very patient with her.

We had Karen T to stay over Labour weekend, which was great. Unfortunately her flight home was delayed by bad weather in Wllg so she couldn't leave. We had to resort to drinking yet another bottle of wine and catching a couple of movies! We also carted her to the land, and made her do fencing stuff (slave labour!). Ran wires, put in a trough etc etc. We also put the old oil drums around the trees to prevent ingestion by sheep!

Speaking of sheep, we are hoping that they will soon be on the job in the orchard for gorse control. We are going to the land tonight to finish off the fence; just a matter of slapping on some more insulators, running a bit more electric wire, putting in the cables under the gates, installing the electric fence unit, the battery, the solar recharger, putting waratahs into the drums around the trees to hold them in place & putting the gates on. Hmm... so with that list, I guess we will be finishing it all on Saturday!

We were down in Chch, staying at Megs for Saturday and Sunday of Labour weekend. We all (Jan, me, Karen T, Fliss & Coco) had a great time & caught up with Jenny, Pat, Marjie & Bertie as well as with Megs & Jimmy. Coco didn't disgrace herself too often, thank goodness. We went to Yi's birthday party as hippies because we couldn't find any suitable "space" gear here in Nelson... so we kaftaned about, waving lemon tea doobies and wearing Birkenstocks. Ahh, people from the provinces are so pathetic, aren't they?! Never invite them to a fancy dress theme party because they will never follow instructions!

At last! We have trimmed our hedges! But we still have to finish our bench seat, finish painting the hall, build some shelves in the kitchen, find some new light fittings & shades for the kitchen, refloor the kitchen and laundry, regib & plaster one wall in the laundry and paint the laundry. Then we need to get an bulldozer in at the land to tidy up the skidder site and the wetland road and close in the 4th bay in the shed (that'll be a biggie). Hmm. I think the list is getting longer again!

Jan's refs course in Rotorua went well, although he still has some work that he needs to do from it; which he hasn't gotten around to yet.

A big congrats to Warren & Tracey on the birth of their daughter, Erica Rose. Well done guys!

Well, our only engagements for the rest of the year are in November we head off to Auckland for a week for our wedding anniversary & a Nelson Christmas.

So, Nelsons, Davidson-Schüttes & Kuwilskys: what is happening with regard to a certain person's 40th birthday in early December?!!!!!

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Tuesday 3rd October 2006

Hi All,

Hope you are all keeping well - it is spring down at our end of the world and we are enjoying the warmer temperatures and the start of daylight savings.

Coco is growing, biting, playing, running, teething, snoring and eating her way into our lives. Fliss thinks having a little puppy around is great for the extra food opportunities, but is horrible for the ankle-biting. However, she is very, very patient with the puppy.

We had Paul & Bridget here to stay a few weeks ago. They coped beautifully with the puppy (being cat people). We took them out to the land and we moved the long drop from the far side of the building site to beside the shed (for our convenience!). We had lots of lovely food while these guys were here - dinner out at the Green Room, picnic at the land, a waffle breakfast cooked by Jan and a lovely dinner of pasta & salad prepared by Paul & Bridget. Excellent. We love guests who cook!

Speaking of the Green Room, this a new Nelson restaurant where Ribbets used to be at Tahunanui, It is owned by Norbert Platzdatsch who used to manage the Rutherford Hotel. We went for Jan's birthday and were impressed, so took Paul & Bridget there. A great new place - and busy, which is fabulous!

Well, our gorse control project at the land is going well. Jan & Richard Barry (Technical Manager at Nelson Pine, and excellent mechanical-auger-operator!) put in the gatepost holes at the land a couple of weekends ago, using a motorised auger. They managed to get 9 & 1/4 fence posts in; the last hole was just rock after rock after rock... so Jan is threatening to crowbar it out. Well, it's cheaper than going to the gym for a workout, I guess.

Last weekend we hammered in all the waratahs, and completed the run of fence across the building site, but still have to run the two long sides down to the bottom gate. We have put in all but four of the gate posts - three for the gate at the bottom of the orchard, which has been really churned up by the tree felling. This not-quite-yet-in gateway includes the hole which still needs to be crowbared. We also have another posthole which is not quite deep enough, so we thought we just might throw a couple of bags of ezycrete in the hole instead of digging it out some more!

Last year when we planted some fruit trees in the orchard, we to put some old oil drums from Nelson Pine, cut down to half height, around the trees to protect them from being eaten by rabbits. However, we have realised that we will need to get some full height drums, as the rams will be tall enough to just stand on the edge of the half-drums to eat the branches. Luckily for us, Nelson Pine is not able to recycle their oil drums, so we can get some more for nothing. And there is one of those little 'nibbler' tools in the Nelson Pine workshop that Jan can use to cut out the drum tops and bottoms.

The weekend before last we caught up with Robbie & Janet for lunch, which was great. Robbie gave Jan lots of advice on fencing, which was also very useful. Fergus has grown so much, and Mac is an amazingly happy, smiley baby. We had a lovely afternoon, ate too much and wanted to come home & go to sleep! This was one of those days where you ask yourself "Why don't we do this more often?".

This weekend just gone, on our way to the land, we also called out to see the Ladleys and raid both their tool supply and Donald's fencing knowledge. We have realised that we have hardly been out to see them of late, either. However, Jenny is up in a couple of weeks, so we will have a good catch up with everyone then.

We still need to borrow the hedge trimmer from my brother, as when I went around - as arranged - to pick it up, he had gone out! Sometime this week, I hope.

We still have to trim the hedges, finish our bench seat, finish painting the hall, build some shelves in the kitchen, find some new light fittings & shades for the kitchen, refloor the kitchen and laundry, regib & plaster one wall in the laundry and paint the laundry. Finish the fence at the land, install a trough, put the new drums around the trees, get an bulldozer in to tidy up the skidder site and the wetland road, close in the 4th bay in the shed (that'll be a biggie), and keep the gorse under control. Hmm. I think the list is getting longer again!

This weekend Jan is off to Rotorua to do a Level 2 Referees course, and, when Jan gets back on Sunday night, Pat & Marjie are coming around with Isla and Mhairi for dinner. Apparently the short people like fruit & jelly. I think I can have fun with that!

After Jenny L's visit, next up we have Karen Trotter coming to stay at Labour Weekend (including a fast trip down to Chch for Yi's 40th - a 'spaced out' dress up theme no less - on the Saturday, staying with Megs), and in November we head off to Auckland for a week for our wedding anniversary. Christmas this year is in Nelson.

   Mr Tunley - have you got some photos and a book for me? Please send!!

   Karen T - Note the spaced out theme for Labour Weekend. Yi's party is on the Saturday night now, not on the Sunday. We drive down to Chch on Saturday morning, leave Sunday lunchtime.

And, Nelsons, Davidson-Schüttes & Kuwilskys: what is happening with regard to a certain person's 40th birthday in early December?

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Tuesday 12th September 2006

Well, we went to look at a puppy and came home with one. We have a new addition to our family called (and what a mouthful this is) 'Glenmorne Coco Chanel at Klinkehoffen'. Or Coco in the vernacular.

And boy, is she a little madam. Cute as a button until you cross her, and then she turns into Torquemada! She has Jan wrapped around her little paw already :-)

We flew up to Wllg on Saturday morning, picked up a rental car, drove to Palmerston North, met Coco, decided we liked her, popped her in the car, drove back to Wllg, said 'Hi' to Karen T briefly & dropped off a nice bottle of Pinot for Hui-Ping's birthday, called in at Jeremy & Tina's to attend Otto's 2nd birthday party, roared off to the airport 20 minutes late, dashed in, checked Coco on the plane & dropped the rental car and flew off home with about a minute to spare. Phew.

Otto has grown heaps, and is very excited about mechanical things in any shape or form. He got lots of lovely toys for his birthday; a Tonka truck, a wooden fire truck, books, puzzles, a push-along bike (with helmet) and a lovely hand-made windmill with blades that can be turned with a handle (from Hartmut, of course). And Lara did very well at correcting my German!

It was great to see everyone, even if it was far too brief.

Karen T looks utterly amazing. She has lost lots of weight, by going to the gym and by boxing. Nothing like working out your frustrations on an inanimate object, eh?!

With regard to gorse control at the land, we met Peter Moore (the farmer down the road) & got his input. He suggested we talk to another neighbour, Ian Benbow, so we got his input into what fencing, gates & troughs we need, and we are going to go with a temporary electric system. Ian is going to use our orchard to graze his rams, which is great, as he is just across the road from us. He can keep an easy eye on water and the fence, and we get to keep the gorse down by natural means. We now need to pick up some gates, fence posts and other supplies on Saturday and get them out there and installed, ready for putting in the movable electric fence units. And we still need to plant some more fruit trees, but that will have to wait until we have done the fence.

We also have Paul Tunley coming from Chch this weekend, and I am volunteering for Rotary to help at the Nelson Boatshow on Sunday, and we have to UWH on Sunday night. There goes the weekend! Oh, and we need to trim our hedges at Montrose Drive - we are borrowing a hedge trimmer from my brother, so that should be a good play!

Jan's TV satellite dish & decoder now works very well. We have 8 channels of crap to watch on TV (how useful!). Also at last we have a new light shade over the dining table; we finally managed to reach an agreement between aesthetics (me) and power efficiency (hmmm. Now I wonder who that might be?!).

We still have to finish our bench seat, but Jan has managed to get some new belts for the Deutsche belt sander, so we can get back onto it; great now that the evenings are getting lighter. Then we only need to finish painting the hall, build some shelves and find some new light fittings & shades for the kitchen. Doesn't seem so much now that we have a couple of things gone from the list already :-)

After Mr Tunley's departure next Monday, we have Karen Trotter coming to stay at Labour Weekend (and a fast trip down to Chch for Yi's 40th on the Saturday - Megs, will you be home for THREE visitors and two dogs, as Karen will be with us?), and in November we head off to Auckland for a week for our wedding anniversary. Christmas this year is in Nelson, though we were going to try to get to Wllg for a weekend in early December... hopefully the Nelsons & the Davidson-Schüttes & the Kuwilskys will let us know when suits them all best.

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Tuesday 22nd August 2006

Hi All,

Phew - at least that weekend is over!

We spent the weekend in Rotorua with the College UWH teams, and had a pretty clear run. No concussions, no tantrums, no one going missing, no one sneaking off. The kids played their hearts out & all have said they had a great time. We did a wee bit of sight-seeing; taking them all to Whakarewarewa on the first day (now known as Te Puia because it is easier to say!!) where we had a personalised tour & being just in time to see the geyser go. Both teams came 7th in their grades, with one of our girls being named, by the Elite Women's selector, for the Tournament Team; so she is in the top 8 Senior girl players in the country. Now we are trying to get her organised to apply for the Under 19 Training Academy.

This Friday we are organising a Prize Giving for the kids, with everyone getting recognition for where they have improved most. We are having it early as our assistant coach is heading off to Australia to live in a couple of weeks (got made an offer he couldn't refuse). Now there will only be the two of us again for 17 of them. Never mind - the end of the UWH year is in sight. Roll on Friday the 22nd of September!

We still have to get onto our gorse control, but we have talked to a man about fencing the orchard so we can get one of our neighbouring farmers to put some stock in to help eat the gorse down. Hopefully we will meet Peter Moore (the farmer down the road) out there this weekend to get his input into what fencing, gates & trough system would suit him best for a small mob. We also still need to plant some trees at the land. And we still haven't got onto triming our hedges at Montrose Dr, finishing our bench seat, painting the hall, getting Jan's TV satellite dish & decoder to work, building some shelves or installing some new light fittings & shades. But hey, what's a few hundred hours of work?!

While away in Rotorua, half the kids had colds, so now we both have yet another one. Seeing as we have both been taking multi-vitamins and trying to eat really well, it is a bit annoying (to say the least). The only saving grace is that this appears to be a relatively light cold. More irriating than debilitating.

Tomorrow we have either one or two German Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars coming to stay for a couple of days; Andrea Stabel and - possibly - Glen someone. I said we had one spare room, so I don't know if I am getting a couple or a singleton. I daresay I will find out when they arrive.

Our next trip away will probably be to Palmerston North as a Boxer breeder has a baby bitch puppy up there for us to look at sometime over the coming fortnight. Then we have Karen Trotter coming to stay at Labour Weekend, and in November we head off to Auckland for a week for our wedding anniversary. Christmas this year is in Nelson, though we were going to try to get to Wllg for a weekend in early December... hopefully the Nelsons & the Davidson-Schüttes & the Kuwilskys will let us know when suits them all best.

Unfortunately, our local Airline, Origin Pacific, folded a bit over a week ago. I expected, with no competition, that AirNZ would cut flights & put prices up slowly; but they have not been at all slow in doing both! Where we used to have 10 direct flights per day to Chch, there are now 3; and costs have increased by probably 20-50%. Our days of easy, cheap flights appear to be over; which will mean that we get away to see you all far less often :-(

Oh, well, perhaps Virgin Blue might come here. Bring on Mr Branson!

Take care all. Alles liebe & hugs

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Monday 31st July 2006

Yep - you guessed it; we are still flat out. However, I am keeping my eyes on the end of the third term. This is the end of the School's underwater hockey year, and the end of our involvement.

The last three weeks have been playing catch-ups for work and trying to get some projects complete (none of which are anywhere near it, but at least we are trying!)We have got back to some gorse control, but need to plant some trees at the land, get a fence up so we can run some stock to try & keep the gorse at bay in the orchard, trim our hedges at Montrose Dr, finish our bench seat, paint the hall, purchase and install Jan's TV satellite dish & decoder so we can watch more free-to-air crap, build some shelves and install some new light fittings & shades.

We have been out to a few functions, and have had a few late nights which are eating into our personal harmony as well. Jan still has that cold & has been to the doctor about it ("it's a virus. That's $50, thanks").

I got offered an Operations Manager's job, paying reasonable dosh, but, looking at the job description, probably wanting my soul for 60-70 hours a week, and taking me away from home at lot. I turned them down. So they came back with offering 30% more dosh & a car. After lots of soul searching, I again turned it down.

However, the job offer has forced us to think about what we really want to achieve. As a result of that thinking, we have decided to build at the land (we had been wavering a bit). The timeline was always 5 years from land purchase to house, which takes us to July 2008. Realistically I think we will build over the summer of 2007-08. That will keep us very busy for the next year, & get us to focus on getting the projects finished at Montrose Drive in preparation for sale.

It was great to see Jenny L this week when she was here visiting her family. We want to catch up with most of you more regularly, but there are just not enough hours in the day at the moment, for which we apologise. Megs, Tina, Brigitte; we intended to call you all on the weekend & it just hasn't happened; sorry!

Our next trip away is the UWH Nationals in Rotorua, August 17-20. However, Jan is currently planning on going off on a boys' fishing trip the weekend before we take the kids off to Nationals, leaving me to sort out all the last minute details. Yay.

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Wednesday 11th July 2006

Hi All,

Just a short note as we are still busy! Since we been back from Christchurch with UWH we have been flat out organising the National's trip to Rotorua from August 17 to 20. Every night there is something else to do & my list seems to be getting longer, not shorter! But not for much longer, as we have made the decision to pull out next year.

However, we did manage to get away to Wllg to see DJ & Dilani, Guy & Sonia and Doug & Morv which was fabulous. We didn't think we were going to get there initally as there was fog at Wllg airport. However, that only delayed us by an hour & a half.

We went to see Hui-Ping's new restaurant & bar which was really great. There is lots of potential, and she knows her market, so it will be really interesting to see how it all shakes out over the next few months.

We also got to see Hartmut & Uta - who gave us a fabulous book of desert photography - and also caught up with Wendy & Gerry, who have a great place up on top of the Kelson hills looking straight down to Wllg harbour, with an assorted menageries of two boss cats & one joyously submissive border collie.

John was kind enough to put us up for our fleeting calls in & out (!) and we caught up with Brigitte for five minutes, Jeremy and a sleepy Otto for half an hour as he took us to the airport and Tina & Lara for five minutes on their way back into Wllg.

Since then both of us have had colds & been feeling pretty grungy; but the worst is past and we now have spring to look forward to! Jan will be off on a boys' fishing trip sometime shortly & when he does I am planning an intimate affair with rather a lot of chocolate, a nice fire & some DVDs! We still need to get stuck into our sadly neglected home & land projects (gorse control, planting trees, trimming hedges, finishing our bench seat, painting, purchase and installation of a fancy new satellite dish & decoder thingy to watch more free-to-air TV crap, shelf-building and new light fittings); but after we have done the firewood for the UWH fundraising!

We also have a spare boxer living with us at the moment, Bonnie, whose folks are off in the US until the beginning of September. She is fitting in so well with Fliss that we hardly know she is there... aside from the chewing, that is!

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Wednesday 22nd June 2006

Hi All,

Well, we have still been busy. In Chch the girls' team were top seed going into the final but were just pipped by a golden goal in overtime - at the prizegiving the MC said that the final could have easily gone either way at that both of the finals teams had deservedly qualified for the Nationals. The boys' team hammered their opposition in the final and they look good to get into the top three or four teams in the country.

So since we came back from Christchurch for the South Islands we have been flat out trying to organise getting the UWH Schools teams to the National competitions in Rotorua.

We have got stuck with (a) it being all New Zealand Colleges' 'Sports Week' - the idea being that all National competitions are held then... so all vans everywhere in the country are booked out so we are having trouble getting two 12 seater vans for hire (b) one of the Cook Strait passenger ferries being in dry dock so there are no night crossings of the Strait, (c) a bad winter that makes driving very dodgy anyway and we would have to drive one of the worst stretches of road in the country, (d) Rotorua having a tiny provincial airport with very few flights, and most of those are aleady booked because (e) the International Mountainbiking competition being held in Rotorua with an overlap with the UWH competition.

Man alive, trying to organise this is driving me bananas. At this stage the most likely way we can get into Rotorua is to charter a plane at $11,000. Seeing as the kids have to pay to go, that will mean a cost of about $1100 each (including flights, vans, accommodation, entries, food and fuel). I think that the cost will make it too much for them to be able to afford to go; which is a real shame as the boys in particular look great for a placing at Nationals.

Jenny Ladley was here last weekend, being famous (in the local council newsletter & all!) and delivering a speech on Mistletoes out at Dovedale. We caught up with her for lunch at the Suter Park Café and then we all got a shot of culture by visiting the Len Lye exhibition; which was really, really interesting.

Ooo and we have our new mattress! It is lovely :-)

My folks are still away in Australia - they come back Friday week and are having a great time, from the brief emails I have had. They are currently in 'BrisVegas'!

Quick reminder that we are coming up to Wllg on July 1 & 2 to see Hui-Ping's new restaurant, see Stomp at the St James, hopefully see Wendy & Jerry, stay with John & then catch up for lunch on Sunday with DJ & Dilani (who are in Wllg briefly), Doug & Morv, Sam & Moose, Guy & Sonja. Look forward to seeing you all.

This weekend Jan is off on a boys' fishing trip & I am planning an intimate affair with rather a lot of chocolate, a nice fire & some DVDs! We plan on getting stuck into our sadly neglected home & land projects (gorse control, planting trees, trimming hedges, finishing our bench seat, painting, shelf-building and new light fittings) after we get back from Wllg, which will be great. And busy of course!

And we may or may not be going to Rotorua from August 17 to 20. Will keep you posted.

=======================

Wednesday 31st May 2006

Hi Guys,

Wow, have we been busy recently. Hardly any time to take stock and smell the roses, unfortunately.

Our trees are down and we now have only devastation remaining. We have also had a huge delivery of gravel to de-glug our road, and have had a truckload of timber delivered to a mill for turning into site building materials. So all has been done, ticked off and we are now ready for the gorse to start growing.

And speaking of the gorse, we have spent a couple of days out there recently pulling gorse out. I thought it slowed down in the winter, but ours apparently doesn't!

We have found the reason for my earlier sore back - our mattress appears to have passed its use-by date. We slept on the double futon in the spare room to see if I got better (and I did). Aha! Time for a new mattress! We are currently still sleeping in the spare room, while awaiting the delivery of our new queen mattress. And I have advertised the old one in the Buy Sell Swap to see if someone else wants some backaches!

Schools UWH is still keeping us busy, busy at the moment - three nights a week of training and then lots of time chasing up togs, uniforms, funding, payments, information lists, entry forms, etc etc. I will be heaving a huge sigh of relief when we get to the end of Term 3 and it is all over again until February 2007 (if we volunteer for next year, that is).

Tessa has gone flatting & is working fulltime. She has two jobs - one as a supervisor at a New World supermarket and the other as a Nurse Aide at a resthome, which appear to be keeping her out of trouble! However, she has plans to start an exercise science course that starts locally and then transfers to Lincoln; I hope she manages to get a place on the course and keep at it. Fingers X-ed for her.

My folks are away in Australia at present for six weeks or so, touring about and visiting friends & family. I think they will have a great time. It should be what retirement is all about!

Again, Chch people; we are coming down on June 9th-11th to babysit the UWH kids at their competition. We will be at the QEII Pool on Saturday 10th. If you are able to swing by & say hello it would be great.

We are coming up to Wllg on July 1 & 2 to have lunch at Hui-Ping's new restaurant, see Stomp at the St James, hopefully see Wendy & Jerry, stay with John & then catch up for lunch on Sunday with DJ & Dilani (who are in Wllg briefly), Doug & Morv, Sam & Moose, Guy & Sonja. It is amazing that weekend that Karen T is away in Auckland, Brigitte, Tina & Lara are in Germany and Jeremy & Otto are in Australia. Never mind, next time.

Aside from those two weekends away over the winter, we are planning on mucho gorse control at the land, and taking a week away some time at the Hannah's bach up at Lake Rotoiti. We also hope we will be having Karen T down to visit us for a week, which would be fab.

This weekend we are taking the UWH kids on a window-cleaning expedition (fund raising), having dinner and a movie with Andrew & Jennie, doing some more gorse control and picking up a trailer-load of freebee pallets to store all the milled timber on in the shed (once it comes back from the Mill) and finally getting back to some projects at home that have been sadly neglected (like our bench seat). I think that will fill three days about twice over!!

Take care all & back to you soon. Alles liebe & hugs

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Tuesday 09th May 2006

Hi Guys,

All is great here. The weather has been quite settled again after some long-overdue big rains at Easter. We are back watering the plants, which seems odd for May, when we should be getting our first frosts!

Our trees are coming out at the moment - the land looks like a bomb-site with dirt, mud, pine tree root-balls, logs, diggers, bulldozers, trucks and branches everywhere. Jan marked our back boundary with bright orange hazard tape so the logging gang doesn't take any of our neighbour's trees by mistake, while I went to the pegs and yelled out whether he was in line with the last marker or not. The gorse, fallen trees, bush lawyer, pig fern and regenerating native bush certainly added to the complexity of the job for Jan; and doing all this in the rain was not the most exciting work either of us have had to do lately!

But apparently the first timber cheque is due to arrive today, and that IS actually exciting :-)

I hurt my lower back on Friday; I awoke with it sore, then went off to play 1/2 an hour of tennis, which made it much worse; oops! This injury comes hard on the heels of a weird back-of-knee/thigh strain which had me limping - and very peeved - for a month. At least both felt more muscular than anything else, so I have been conscious of keeping sensibly active.

Jan & I had planned on walking up Mount Arthur on this Saturday just gone, as Jan has talked about going for the last three years, and as no snow has yet fallen we thought that we could take advantage and finally go. However, it seemed a bit foolhardy to go climbing with a sore back. So, as walking on the flat seemed to free me up, instead of Mount Arthur on Saturday morning we took Fliss for a walk along the waterfront into town and to the Saturday market, bought bread & cheese for lunch, had a coffee at a street-café and walked home. It is great to take the time out to enjoy those simple things in life; a walk to the market, enjoying the sun, the sea, & personally selecting a delicious lunch from the food stalls. Once we got home, Jan & Fliss had a sleep in the sun and I went to start getting my tax accounts organised. However, by the evening my lower back was driving me bonkers again so I had to pull out of going to catch up with Wendy Saunders & Gerry who were here for the weekend (a real shame, but at least we caught up on the phone instead).

On Sunday morning I felt much better, so I finished my tax, and we went to the supermarket & to play a bit more tennis. Well, after slugging a tennis ball around, my back stiffened up no end, and Jan pulled a tendon in his foot!

So I have avoided tennis and have walked yesterday and today, which is still seeming to free it up. Jan, however, is finding that walking is aggravating his foot, but he is coping. What a pair of old crocks we are :-)

We got our new Agee Preserver cranked up a couple of weeks ago and have bottled two loads thus far. We will do some more, but hopefully will leave it until the weekend after next.

Next weekend we are going to the land to support-mark all the wooden boundary pegs with steel waratahs which we will paint bright pink for easy visibility. We will also have lunch with Murray & Julie before they head off to Europe on their cycling tour; and maybe Sunday, injuries allowing, we might get up Mount Arthur before the first snows hit.

To all you Chch people; we are coming down in a month on June 9th-11th, to babysit the UWH kids at their competition. We will be at the QEII Pool on Saturday. If you are able to swing by & say hello it would be great; unfortunately I don't think we will be able to get away on Saturday or Friday nights to meet up with any of you (we can't really abandon our 17 teenagers to the perils of Chch!). However, if we get extra parent volunteers coming down, we might be able to organise ourselves a night off and have a get-together at our motorcamp.

Will keep you posted.

Alles liebe & hugs

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Wednesday 19th Apr 2006

Hi Guys,

Andreas has gone back to Germany after a fortnight's stay. The time, as always, was too short. We had some good nights while he was here, but one of the exceptional ones was a Kiwi Movie Night with all the international contractors at Richard's place. We watched Stickmen over a few beers and fish & chips.

Currently we are having a brief break from the apple production line. We currently have frozen apple puree, frozen apple juice and dehydrated apple chips. Coming up will be bottled apple puree once we get our new Agee Preserver cranked up.

We have just had a lovely trip to the Hawkes Bay to visit Warren & Tracey, Sam & Josie (and pick up the Agee Preserver). They have a great place up there in Havelock North & we had a very lazy time. As we took Fliss north with us, we took all the dogs for walks, did some shopping, lunched out, breakfasted out and indulged ourselves.

Jan & I also had a great time roaring around Napier/Hastings/Havelock North to try & find some public tennis courts (there aren't any, although the Council think there are, having directed me to some locked club courts. There are lots of club courts) before descending on Havelock North High School and playing there. That school is so well set up, it is amazing.

Bertie arrived at Napier Airport on Saturday morning & so all five of us went out wine tasting etc and having a great time. Actually, our wine tasting efforts were fairly feeble. I think we only did four vineyards!

We called in overnight on the way north at Tina & Jeremy's in Wllg, had a fish & chip dinner with Doug, Morv, Mike, Birthe, Sam & Moose (and assorted short people). And coincidence of coincidences; Karen couldn't come because she was hosting a Tupperware evening that night, and Sonya couldn't come because she was facilitating a party... yes, the same one. And neither of them realised!

We caught up with John & Brigitte as they were kind enough to have us to stay overnight. Unfortunately we didn't get to catch up with Hartmut & Uta as Uta was giving a Eurythmy performance, but never mind, next time.

We also got breakfasted in style at Hui-Ping's in Paraparaumu. She went in late to work in order to feed us (read "took the morning off"!). She has a great spot out near the beach.

So, as we have picked up our Agee Preserver from Hawkes Bay, I am waiting for Herr Kuwilsky to start making noises about bottling! I am sure that at some point in the very near future he will want to get on with it. But, as the trees at the land are supposedly being felled at present, I know we have an outstanding job over there - that of marking our back boundary with tape so the logging gang doesn't take any of our neighbour's trees by mistake.

So, want to take any bets on who's going to get the wet job of clambering through the gorse bushes?!

Alles liebe & hugs

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Tuesday 27th Mar 2006

Hi Guys,

One of my Uncles (Ian) died on Saturday, and our family is trying to get in touch with old friends and family members before the funeral tomorrow. Also, my Uncle Eddie is in hospital in Christchurch, having just had surgery to remove a tumour in his chest (thankfully benign). All a bit grim - and not a great reason to get the family together. Weddings and naming ceremonies are a far better reason for the gathering of the clans.

The funeral is at 2pm on Wednesday March 29th at Marsden House on Nile Street.

?

Well, we had our first rain in weeks yesterday, on the same day that Andreas arrived back in New Zealand. What a warm welcome we put on for our visitors!

As a newly caught Rotarian, I hosted a billet this weekend as well for a Rotary fellowship group, the International Fellowship of Cricketing Rotarians (!). We had a really nice guy to stay from Wellington called Paul Gini. The aim of the trip was a North vs South Island Cricket match which is apparently held each year. Thank goodness that the Tropical Cyclone in the Tasman Sea held off until they had all left for home.

At Rotary there are a number of rotating tasks: "Soapbox" where you talk about something of interest for five minutes, being the greeter for all the arrivals, "Parting Thought" where you are supposed to say something inspirational to close the meeting, and organising a main speaker, acting as "Speaker's Host". On Friday just gone I had to do the "Soapbox" speech. I found out on Thursday morning completely by chance that I had to do this - whew! - so had to then cast around for something to talk about - thank goodness for news sites on the internet. Also, as there was a group of people who were coming from a US Rotary club (Missouri) who were going to talk about serious matters, I was able to keep things very light & funny, based on some silly internet headlines and some research just completed. It must have gone over well though as half the time I couldn't hear myself for people laughing, and the visiting Americans thought the Club had wonderful energy.

Jenny L was here again briefly the week before last, and I caught up with Fleur & Neil by chance in the street the other day. They are heading away at Easter for a couple of weeks and are looking for someone who might want to stay at their place for Easter. Get in touch with me if you are planning on heading to the Bay.

Our friendly local orchardist has indeed donated heaps of apples and nashi pears. We have processed about 25 litres of juice, and probably 15 kilos of puree so the freezer is completely full already. Currently we are dehydrating apple slices in a borrowed dehydrator (brilliant machine borrowed from Donald Ladley). We made a wonderful new purchase this year, an apple peeler/corer/slicer. Plug your apple on a set of little prongs, turn the handle, apple peels, slices and de-cores. Now in 15 minues we have filled our preserving pan with sliced, peeled and cored apple, where it used to take us a couple of hours. It is a WONDERFUL wee mechanical gadget, and has been made the same way for a couple of hundred years (there is an identical one on display in the kitchen a local historic house, Broadgreen House). Jan is very happy - all that efficiency without any electricity consumption!

Also, Warren & Trace have purchased an Agee Preserver for us in Hawke Bay which we will pick up when we are up there at Easter.

So, speaking of Easter, we are coming North & staying the night of Tuesday 11th April in Wllg. It would be really great if we could organise a Wllg get-together that night with as many of you as are about then. We get in early evening, so could even do a snack somewhere before dinner... I am not sure if Clark's at the Library are open in the evenings, but that was great venue as you were all able to bring the kids. Anyway, come back to us & let us know.

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Tuesday 7th Mar 2006

Hi Guys,

It's getting darker in the mornings and daylight savings comes off in a week or so. While it's still too hot to leave Fliss in the car, the temperatures are definitely getting cooler. I guess that all means that we are heading winter-ward!

Speaking of Fliss, she appears to be coping with life on her own. She has been reluctant to play with other dogs, which has been a bit of a worry, but we were out at the Ladley's last night and she started playing with one of their Jack Russells. Relief - normal service has been resumed!

Mind you, we have been taking her for lots of walks down to our local park. Our time at the park goes something like this; we take the frisbee or the ball. Fliss looks all excited. We throw the frisbee or the ball. Fliss looks at us as though we are bananas. We run after the ball or the frisbee and bring it back. Fliss gets all excited. We throw the frisbee or the ball. Fliss looks at us as though we are bananas. We run after the ball... get the picture?!

Jan is feeling fairly good at present. He biked to work yesterday and on our dog 'walks' in the evenings he often takes his bike and I walk. That works out well on the hills; he can put as much extra effort in as he feels like. Murray has also got the part for his wind surfer and Jan is going around on Saturday morning to give him a hand to put it all back together again. Jan is VERY keen to get back on the water again!

We have loaded all our wines into our new wine rack (and it works splendidly - just like a bought one!). A couple of weekends ago Gary Rae kindly came out to the land and helped Jan split all the pine rounds that we had stored in the shed (cut from the wind throw pines). It was a brilliant day's work by the two of them. Then in the evening we hurtled off to a Housewarming BBQ at Andrew & Jennie's. On the Sunday we had a housewarming BBQ at Bob's place (Juliet from UWH).

Then last weekend we were invited to the opening of Bob's sister's native plant nursery out in the Moutere. And yes, we bought some plants! Got a really nice bronze cabbage tree and a hebe hybrid - Wiri Prince - that we hadn't seen before and is just lovely.

Last week I was officially 'invested' at Rotary; the Whakatu Branch. Many people have tried to get me involved in Rotary over the years, but I have not been keen; mainly due to the timing of the meetings and the formality of proceedings. However, this Rotary club is a bit different. They have breakfast meetings on a Friday morning, the club is run on very informal lines, and I know so many of the club members that it seemed silly in the end not to join them. I can get quite a few business meetings set up without having to pick up the phone :-)

Over the past few weeks we have had a few visitors. It was lovely having Brigitte & John here, but far too short. We have seen Jenny L briefly on a couple of trips to Nelson, which has been lovely. Fleur & Neil called in for one night, and Birthe & Mike stopped in overnight on their way back to Wellington on their holiday (and told us that, once they sell their house, they are planning on living in Denmark for a couple of years; a big change for them).

We still haven't seen Andreas, as the trip was postponed again. Hopefully the American contingent will complete their fault-finding on the equipment in question and he will be here shortly. Fingers Xed!

Underwater Hockey is in full swing again for the colleges, and we need to start funding applications for gear and the trips away. And over the next few weeks our big projects at home will be finishing off our macrocarpa bench seat and getting some apples stewed and juiced for winter. Our friendly local orchardist has been kind enough to allow us to get seconds again this winter. So production begins this Saturday at our place. Anyone keen to volunteer a peeler?

Dii - glad to hear you are coping and keep writing. Great to hear from you.

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Tuesday 14th Feb 2006

Hi Guys,

Hope you are all OK & coping with whatever the weather is throwing at you in your area at the moment.

We have had a pretty full on few weeks; but our major reportable news is that we had Drew put down this Saturday just gone. And it was just at the last possible moment that we could have done it too, as she stopped eating the night before, and didn't eat breakfast on the day, despite the drugs she was on to control nausea and pain. She is now at rest under a Southern Rata at the land behind the shed, which should eventually shade our water tank.

Fliss was fine with the whole thing while Drew went to the big sleep at home, was wrapped up and put in the car, but when Jan put Drew in the hole, she got all anxious and jumped in with her (we had a good cry at her anxiety too). We let her walk around in the hole for a bit, then she got out and seems to have got over it. We thought that Fliss would look for Drew when we got home from the Moutere, and she was fine. She was very quiet though until this morning, when she suddenly appeared to have returned to her old self. We have had to play two lots of ball chasing games this morning before I could start work.

The trees are going well at the land - we have two walnuts & four peach trees that seem to be coping OK. Jan has got all keen at home on growing avocado & plum trees from pits; we will have to see how his experiments work - he might have a new career!

When we were in Germany, Eberhard showed Jan & I his wine cellar, which gave us some inspiration for our cellar at home. I contacted an engineer who came around, measured up & designed a unit to fit onto one wall of our cellar; so tonight we have just become the proud owners of a new 400 bottle wine rack. Phew! Now we only have to take all our wine out of the spare room & organise the whole thing...

Jan & Murray have been out wind surfing just up the road from our place (and just down the road from Murray & Julie's). They had a great time & are looking forward to having a few more sessions. Of course, that will be after Murray gets the board repaired... they managed to split the rubber foot for the mast in half & Murray is trying to get a new one.

We have been out to Donald & Bunty's place in 88 Valley a couple of times recently & they have had their share of problems too; however, as with us, things are now settling down. Here's hoping for a clear run for a few months!!

We have Brigitte & John arriving on Thursday this week for four days, and then I think we are expecting Birthe & Mike for a couple of days next week. This weekend coming we have a friend's 50th birthday party to go to & I think that will be enough to keep us busy until the next time I haul out the keyboard to get in touch with you all.

Hopefully Andreas will be coming to Nelson shortly for a week; his Waitangi Day arrival got postponed at the last minute, which was a shame. It will be great to see him again - and hopefully he will get here this time!

Dii - best wishes to you with all that is going on in your life at the moment; I hope all goes well and please keep in touch.

A big happy birthday to Steph and Karen Trotter today; I hope you both had a WONDERFUL day :-)

=======================

Tuesday 24th Jan 2006

Hi Guys,

Well, the year has zipped off at five gazillion miles an hour, hasn't it!

Aside from doing firewood and gorse control at the land, we haven't done so very much. We have caught up with Andrew & Jennie & their folks for a quick evening, been to the movies to see Narnia (don't bother going - there is too much CGI showing off by the director in it, which gets in the way of what should be a nice story), had a nice lunch at Vesper's (new restaurant in Brightwater) with Janet & Robert who are currently down from Auckland, then had a dinner at Hopgoods with them & Murray & Julie (Mmmm!), and had a lovely lunch with the Nayland Old Girls at the Mapua Boathouse.

We have also started making a bench seat for the back side of our dining table. The bench is looking very sharp, made out of macrocarpa in a rather monastic style. I have lots of sanding to do, and I have to source some big cast iron pins/spikes to hold the cross-brace for the legs in place.

Sadly, Jan's Great Aunt Clara in Germany has died. She had some stomach surgery and didn't really recover after the operation. I met her last August and really liked her - she was very fiesty and liked her gin!

Drew is still going - she is now building up fluid in her abdominal cavity; and eventually all her organs will be compromised. We have her on diuretics to see if this will help (and still no pain, so that's great). The vet has given her one to two months, so we will see how we go.

All the rest of us are very well. Tessa has decided to go back to school this year, which is excellent news. Fingers Xed!

This weekend we are heading to Kaiteriteri for a barbeque and to the land to salvage some more of the wind-throw timber for firewood before the loggers get into it. Waitangi weekend a crowd of us are heading over to the land with chainsaws and a log splitter to load up trailer after trailer of wood...

And Andreas is due here in Nelson on Waitangi Day (February 6th) for a week. It will be great to see him again.

Well, I think that's it for now. Take care, all!

=======================

Thursday 06th Jan 2006

Hi Guys,

In the dawn of this New Year, we would like to wish you all a wonderful 2006; may it be a year that gives you all new opportunities, productivity and success.

Hui-Ping came down to Nelson again for the New Year, and came to our New Year barbeque. We were really lucky with our guests as we also had Warren & Tracy here, on their way back to the Hawkes Bay from Xmas with Warren's folks in Waimate; Jenny L and Megs who were both up spending Xmas with their families; Bertie, who came to have Xmas with Megs' family in Nelson; Ella and Andrew & Jennie (who all live in sunny Nelson). And half a dozen assorted overseas hangers-on of Megs who came along for the ride. The weather was too hot, but Jan & Warren strung one of our trailer covers over the pergola which kept the sun off us, while we quaffed local organic beers and lemonade.

Everyone else went on to a party at Max & Karen's, but we turned into grannies and went to bed at about 11.15. We were lying in bed talking, speculating about what various friends and family members would be doing to celebrate, when Andreas rang from Germany to wish us a happy New Year. Most kind of him to remember us!

On December 28th, we went to the wedding of a confirmed bachelor and a party girl; Ieuan (ex-colleague of Jan's from Streats) and Paula got married at Brancott Estate Winery in Blenheim. It was a great day, fabulous weather, and we all looked like a flock of peacocks with everyone all gussied up.

We went up to Wllg on Christmas Eve & had a great celebration at Tina & Jeremy's place with everyone. On Xmas day, some of our friends were generous enough to allow our intrusion on their family celebrations, and we caught up with Doug & Morv and Guy & Sonia; Helen B; and then had Christmas lunch with Karen & Hui-Ping. I flew back on Christmas evening so as not to leave my Mother looking after Drew for too long.

On December 17th we went over to Aorere to help Merrill & Colin celebrate their 10th Anniversary at Stonehouse, and caught up with Fleur & Neil at Rangihaeata, who were kind enough to have us stay, dogs & all. We had a great time cruising around the Bay, and while the weather wasn't that kind to us, the hospitality certainly was! We had lunch on Saturday at "The Naked Possum" which is out past Rockville on the way to the Kaituna Track; what a fantastic place. We bought some Southern Ratas - our first donation to Project Crimson - for planting either at the land or at home ...can't decide!! (for all you overseas readers, Project Crimson is about reforesting our native New Zealand shorelines with Ratas in the South Island, and Pohutukawas in the North. These trees flower at Christmas with gorgeous red flowers - see our website picture).

We have been over to the land a couple of times to do a bit more firewood and check on the trees (we have four lovely Black Boy peach trees and two strapping walnuts). We haven't yet moved the outhouse, so that remains on the list, but I have got back onto the gorse again. While it has grown a lot, it is not as bad as I expected, so that's good.

Jan & I called in to Waimea Nurseries to talk to them about suitable fruit & nut trees for our home orchard. We have taken their catalogue & now have to decide exactly what other trees we want to plant in the gully. I would like avocadoes, lemons, lemonades, tangeloes, mandarins, limes, cherries, nectarines, apricots, almonds, plums and eating grapes. Jan has not yet disclosed his wish-list (it's still percolating!).

Uncle Norman is looking really well. His hip must have been giving him an awful lot of pain before the operation, as his face is showing so much more colour now. While his recovery will take time, each day looks (from my external view) like it is bringing an improvement.

Drew is still keeping on. She is getting thin, but is still in no pain & is really enjoying life. However, we were planning on going for a week to Brisbane in February to celebrate Steph's birthday with her, but as Drew's care is becoming more intensive, don't want to have to leave her with my Mother for a whole week (she would do it, but it is quite a lot of work, and doesn't feel fair). We can't put her in the Kennels - no kennel would accept the responsibility. So we will only travel where she can come with us until she is ready for the long sleep.

Alles liebe & hugs

=======================

Tuesday 13th Dec 2005

Hi Guys,

Well, as usual, we have been quite busy.

We have painted the downstairs bedroom, bought some new curtains and sorted through our books, furniture and soft furnishings so when all you people start arriving in the New Year, it will be a comfortable home away from home.

We have both been to a quiz night as members of the Nelson Pine "Pine Trees" team; and let me tell you that if you think that Jan's competitive, he has NOTHING on the Chief Engineer from Nelson Pine, Lew Solomon. We were all allocated areas to study, assigned areas of expertise, etc etc... bit of a forced route-march, really. However, I managed to answer some questions so I didn't face the firing squad!

Tiffany Venz is off to Europe. Jan & I went to her farewell party a couple of weekends ago at Founders. We were feeling a bit granny-ish when we arrived and had thought that we might go home early, but Tiff had a great crowd there & we ended up staying for five or six hours... Jan was drinking radlers (shandy) all night, made with the Founders beer, which is very fine stuff, I can tell you. Their ginger beer is pretty nice too.

And speaking of local produce, we have a new local Nelson restaurant called Hopgood's. It specialises in local foods and beverages, and is absolutely fabulous. This is the first restaurant here to aim for totally local supply. One of the Boards I am on went there for our annual Board dinner; and Jan & I had a whale of a time. Not only was the food superb, but the environment was really relaxed. Hopgood's have even managed to find a local bubbly which is very palatable indeed (Golden Bay's Petros).

We caught up with Adam Saleem and Hui-Ping who were both in Nelson a couple of weekends ago for brunch, with Jan & myself, Murray & Julie T & Magda. We had a two hour catch-up which was supposed to be followed by wind-surfing for the boys last weekend except Murray was ill so they had to cancel (Jan was very disappointed).

Another piece of news is that Julie T has passed her PCE2 exam for her Chartered Accountancy qualification. She will be very happy to have this long year of very hard work behind her!

We have also been to the Chamber of Commerce's Christmas party out at the new Monaco Hotel. This was a great event, held in a permanent marquée that the Hotel have set up in their 'village green'. It's a lovely place.

On Saturday night we were invited to a Christmas Party at Gary & Nicki's place. We went, expecting to have a few of our common friends turn up, but none of them did, so we made some more while we were there instead :-). We spent a chunk of time talking to John & Melissa Van Gosliga who own a hair salon which featured briefly on a recent doco about the weather. For the few seconds that they were on screen, it took about 4 hours of production time at their premises, talking about humidity and having a bad hair day! Jan also took the opportunity to have a good talk to Ross Alexander who is the Sealord's Engineering Manager (and a lovely bloke). I hadn't met Ross' wife Bronwyn before, so it was nice to meet & talk with her.

We got over to the land on Sunday to do a bit more firewood and check on the trees (which are growing really well). We also moved the caravan into the shed to keep it out of the worst of the weather. Next time we go we need to move the outhouse, do some wood splitting and get back onto the gorse again, but that will have to wait until next year. We have something on each weekend for the next three weeks, so will have to wait to get back to the grubbing...

Uncle Norman is doing really well after his surgery now. Initially he had memory problems; he couldn't remember where he was or why he was there for a few days until the anaesthetic wore off fully. However, the nurses had him on his feet from day one and as a result he is now at home once more. His independence has been dented slightly by having to accept meals-on-wheels, but he has consoled himself with the thought that he only has to accept this outside help for a few weeks (crikey, can I have meals-on-wheels?!).

Jan, my Mother & I went to 'Wichteln' on December 6th for our conversational German class. We all had to take some German food with us so I made Jan's mother's Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte recipe (and it got hoovered by the attendees in double-quick time).

Our German classes have ended for the year, but my Mother is keen to keep meeting twice a week to go over what we have done this year as our tutor wants us to go into the Advanced class next year. I will need to learn a lot of grammar before then.

And Drew is still keeping on keeping on. She is still relatively normal, in no pain & is enjoying life. You should see her leaping around like a loony when we pick up the car keys... nothing like the excitement of "going in the car"!

Alles liebe & hugs

=======================

Tuesday 22nd Nov 2005

Hi Guys,

Well, things have been very busy at our end.

At last the stairwell has been plastered, sanded and repainted. I have rehung our pictures and things look normal once more (at last!). Alongside all the insurance work, we had one of the walls in the downstairs bedroom insulated and re-lined, and the plasterer has finished that and sanded it back. I am half-way through putting on the sealer coat, prior to the top coats going on.

I have bought some test pots of paint and we have chosen a nice warm yellow (Resene Sweet Corn). So this weekend we will go and buy a few litres of paint & we will get started. After that, it's just a matter of new curtains, getting our double bed back from Max & Karen & then we will be ready for visitors once again (just in time for summer!).

It was our first wedding anniversary on the weekend just gone, and we went away to a friend's bach at Lake Rotoiti, which is about an hour south of Nelson. Jan had never been there, so it was really nice to show him around the Lake - I have lots of very happy memories of time spent there. We had a lovely weekend, and did some useful work as well - planning what we would like to achieve for the coming year as well as reviewing what we have managed to get done during the past year. That was a very good process to go through, didn't take us long & now we know where we are going for the next twelve months.

Jan's ex-work colleague from Streats, Ieuan Attewell, is getting married this New Year, so he held a blokes gathering in Queenstown a couple of weekends ago. Jan went down to help him celebrate. They went gliding, lugeing (luging?) and generally didn't get into too much trouble. Jan also managed to do a loop-de-loop in the glider that he was most impressed with (I have posted the mpeg clip to the website - click on the photo of Jan in the glider to download the mpg to your PC to play it). Jan was jolly tired when he got home though, as he shared a room with Mark Heath - and apparently Heathy snores! I did ask Jan why he didn't put his earplugs in, and he said that it hadn't even occurred to him...

The weekend before that, we had the Chamber of Commerce Business Awards - a black tie dinner. This was a great evening out as well. Our social calendar is hotting up at the moment; we have a Quiz Night tomorrow night, a friend around to dinner on Thursday night, the Board dinner for the Business Development Company next Wednesday night, charter fishing AND a bon voyage party on Saturday, the Chamber of Commerce Xmas Party on the Monday after, German Wichteln on Tuesday and friend's Xmas party on the Saturday...

All in all, we haven't gotten over to the land in a while. So we are hoping that we can get some of the painting ticked off at home this Saturday and get over to the land on Sunday. But we will see how things go & decide on the day.

Adam Saleem is in Nelson for a few weeks so it will be good to catch up with him for a bit of a chat on how things have been for him in the past year - particularly since he was in the Maldives during the Boxing Day Tsunami.

Tessa is half-way through her exams. Hopefully she will do OK, but no-one will really know until the results come out in January, as usual!

My Uncle Norman is going back into hospital once more; they have found room on the list to do his hip replacement. So, poor man, having just recovered from his successful pacemaker wiring surgery, just after having recovered from his successful pacemaker replacement surgery, he gets to hopefully recover well from his hip surgery! Fingers crossed anyway. He goes in on the 28th of November.

Hartmut's wife Uta is going well post-pneumonia, so that's brilliant. They are heading away to Australia for a nice warm Christmas, which will hopefully do them both a lot of good.

Everyone in the family is keeping busy. My Mother & I are going to conversational German classes together, and she is doing very well. The German grammar etc that she did at school has stayed with her and that knowledge makes it much easier for her to form sentences. I really need a good grounding in grammar as well, but the classes we can take here don't address that (and if I have to do it on my own, I lack the discipline to do it). I am far better at getting the work done if I can do it interactively. But I will continue trying... every new word or concept I can add helps.

Well, our old dog, Drew is still surprising the vets. She still appears relatively normal, still isn't in any pain & is enjoying life. We will continue to play things by ear... but perhaps we won't be losing her too soon. So while we are going to get another puppy, we will leave getting another until Drew goes. Three dogs would be too many for us.

Replies in brief:

   Pat & Marjie: wow, Isla & Mhairi have grown so much! And glad to hear that they are both well again. Hope to see you sometime soon

   Warren & Trace: looking forward to seeing you at New Year

   Jenny, Megs & Bertie: a get-together while we are all in Nelson close to New Year? We will be in Nelson from the 29th onward & it looks as though Warren & Trace might get over our way as well

   Justine: Happy birthday, baby! Hope you had a lovely day :-)

   Steph: Will check out the motel etc & get back to you on what we think

   Andreas & Katrin: Vielen Dank - die Pullmol Dosen sicher angekommen

   Eberhard & Uta: We have bought ourselves a wedding present using your $; sechs schöne Arzberg teetassen und untertassen, und eine Edelstahl thermosteekanne. Herzlichen Dank! Hope both Oma Lieselotte & Oma Friedel are still keeping well

Well, I had better get to bed. Take care all.

=======================

Wednesday 2nd Nov 2005

Hi Guys,

Hope you are all coping with the ramp up to the Silly Season!

We flambéed our gorse piles at the land, with our fire permit in one hand and our hose in the other; a very successful burn, if I might say so myself. Since then we have been at the land every weekend, grubbing, slashing, brush cutting and spraying. I think that at last the rate of gorse growth is slowing, and we might be able to take things a bit easier shortly... but I do enjoy, after a week of driving a desk, being able to wander about at the land with my grubber, dealing physical death & destruction to gorse seedlings!

We have the plasterer here today, doing a superb job of getting the walls ready for repainting. He is amazingly economical in his work; that ease of motion is a wonderful gift (he probably wouldn't like grubbing though!). Then, though the hall will be painted, Jan & I will be painting the - now vacant - downstairs bedroom.

And why is the downstairs bedroom vacant, I hear you all ask? Because Tessa is now living with my brother Mike. We decided, after finding out that she had been absent from school for 45 classes while we were in Europe (two weeks of school, nearly!), that she didn't really want to be at school. And as a result, we felt that she could leave school after her exams & get (a) a job and (b) a flat. However, my brother Mike & his partner Donna put up their hands to take her at their place to carry on through to the seventh form, next year. So rather than leave her in limbo at our place, we officially moved her to Mike's place two weeks ago.

It feels like a failure in many ways, and I have to remind myself that we have helped her to achieve some things that she wouldn't have achieved otherwise - she has passed NCEA Level 1 & 2, which means that she could go to a Polytech, get into the Armed Forces or be accepted for a Trade right now; and she has represented her school twice in regional competitions and twice in National competitions, and represented the South Island twice in National competitions. She has her learner's driver's licence, has sat a baby-sitting course and has done a referees course. She is also likely to hear in the next couple of days if she has been awarded her sports "Colours" at Nelson College for her commitment to Underwater Hockey. All achievements that are not to be sneezed at.

My Uncle Norman is back from Wellington after a successful surgery, and recovering slowly at home. The surgeons had told him that his recovery would take a good six weeks, and to take things easy. He seems to be following the advice he has been given, so that's good.  Hartmut's wife Uta is also recovering well from pneumonia - and without antibiotics - so that's good too. Everyone else seems to be in pretty robust health at the moment - long may it continue!

Drew - our older dog - is surprising the vets, as they thought that she would have gone downhill quite quickly. She appears relatively normal, despite her blood work being pretty bad. She still isn't in any pain & is obviously enjoying life. We will continue to play things by ear. But we have made the decision to place an order with a boxer breeder for another puppy, so I guess that means that we won't be moving off-shore in the next decade.

Right, well I had better carry on with my work.

=======================

Wednesday 12th Oct 2005

Hi Guys,

Hope all is well with you & your families.

Plumbing is all nearly up to snuff once more: we have replaced all the piping downstream of the leak, but have yet to replace the laundry piping (waiting for the plumber). The builder has been & cut a hole in the laundry floor so that the plumber can do the replacement... so for the moment we there is a only set of fold-out steps preventing a midnight plunge into the unknown when letting the dogs out! However, the wall linings are back on downstairs and we are now only awaiting the gib-stoppers and the painters to get that back to normal.

Underwater Hockey has finished for the year so we now have our weekends to ourselves again. So just when we have some time to relax, Jan has got immensely keen on gorse control. We have been out at the land every weekend hacking away at the new growth & making piles which Jan plans to flambé. He has applied for and received his fire permit so the ceremonial burning is going to take place this weekend. I had better go & buy some marshmallows!

My Uncle Norman is in Wellington Hospital today having surgery to properly fit his replacement pacemaker/defibrulator. Hopefully the surgery will go well and he will be able to come home soon. My Mother is there with him - staying with Tina & Jeremy - and making sure that he doesn't upset the nurses too much :-)

Our dog Drew is not so well - the vet suspects early stages of liver failure. We are treating her with drugs at the moment & will see how she goes. She isn't in any pain at present & I guess we will deal with that when it arises. She will be twelve in January though, so she is already a pretty good age.

Tessa has passed her Level 2 NCEA (Year 12), so all that she gains in the external exams are a bonus from this point. She did miss a couple of units in her mock exams (cells in Biology and algebra in Maths) so she knows what she needs to work on. Her Maths teacher this year is very good, running a weekly lunchtime tutorial for those who need extra work.

We had a great weekend in Christchurch at Meg's place & caught up with nearly everyone. I am currently investigating a couple of places big enough to fit all of us for the 2006 mid-winter Christmas so will get back to you when I have some details.

   DJ & Dilani: Jan called around at Tosswill Road on Saturday night on the offchance and managed to pick up the postcard - thanks. And please change your address books to read "32 Montrose Drive, Atawhai, Nelson"!

   Eric: I have compiled some CDs for you & they will be posted in a couple of days. Enjoy!

   Eberhard & Uta: Is Oma Friedel is doing OK?

   Oli: Have you received back-ups in the post? If they play OK, we will write some more, so let us know

Right, well I had better get on with some work.

=======================

Monday 19th Sep 2005

Hi Guys,

We are all relatively well here, in Kiwiland again with noses back to the grindstone!

Jan & I have been trying hard to get into the swing of things - we arrived home to find the plumbing had sprung a leak while we were away... Jan spent the first three hours back in Nelson ripping the gibraltar board off the walls and tracking the leaks.

We think we have it all under control now (two weeks later!) after three plumbers visits; having the drying company in with all their industrial drying equipment, blowers and dehumidifiers; and having had the insurance assessor through. Phew. Now that the walls are dry enough to re-line, we now only have to wait for the builders, the plaster, and the painters! Oh - and the next lot of plumbers, who are going to replace the last of the old plastic pipe while the wall linings are off so that this can't happen again...

Our trip was fine - no accidents, losses, missed flights or other disasters. London was great fun thanks to Justine & Gareth's personalised tours - and going to the Globe to see Pericles was fabulous! However, I got a cold on day five in the UK that had me laid up at DJ & Dilani's place in bed (how much of Oxford did I see? None. And what a horrible grumpy guest for Murray & Leigh & DJ & Dilani to have to put up with!). I was toast. And I still have the cold & sore throat.

So enthusiasm was not high for anything much in Germany because of the cold. But we had a schedule to keep to - according to my husband! - so we did all that we were supposed to. We met all the relatives who were about in Germany, which was great. I now have the faces and personalities to go with the names that have become so familiar. And we got fed like pâté geese - wow, these German relatives of Jan's certainly know how to have their cake and eat it too!

Unfortunately, my ability to speak German is still abysmal (never mind, the conversational classes start again soon). Not that it really mattered as everyone was very good at ensuring I understood what was going on.

The time that we had at the lake house at Edersee was far too short - we effectively only had three days as we went to Besse, Celle and Kassel during our "week" at the lake. Next time (yes, we are planning a next time already) we will aim for 10 uninterrupted days at Edersee - providing the Schütte's bookings allow.

Singapore on the way home was great because (a) we had a four hour stop-over and used the time to swim in the Transit Hotel pool and (b) we flew the leg from Singapore to Auckland Business Class. They had a yummy dessert wine on the plane - a Montana Virtu Noble Semillion which was just lovely.

The main highlights for me were Pericles; the Langen Foundation's Museum Insel Hombroich near Neuss (a German textile magnate's art, music, poetry and architecture collection set in about 20 Ha); and getting upgraded to Business Class!

Re Tessa - she has just completed Year 12 mock exams. We will see how she goes in those to see what she needs to concentrate on for the remaining two months of the school year. And the Girls' & Boys' UWH teams both placed 8th in the competition - two placings worse than last year. However, they are both young teams, and next year should be much better.

   Beth & Rob: Congrats on the land purchase! Alles Gut Glückwünsche!

   Justine & Gareth: Hope all is going well on the new job front. Thanks for the guided tours and the special places of interest

   Susie & Peter: Thanks for having us - really great to meet Jo & Steve. Next time for a bit of sailing, perhaps?!

   DJ & Dilani, Murray & Leigh: We will come back & visit Oxford again. This time JAN can get sick & I will come & see everything!

   Simone & Michael: Thanks for picking us up, and the inhalator! I bought one at the Apoteke and it is now safely in our bathroom ready for the next time!

   Andreas & Katrin: Thanks for all that you organised for us with the rental car & getting us to Frankfurt! And the pump spray bottle was fantastic on the plane. I sprayed my face throughout the flight and it was just what I needed

   Eric: I have decided to compile & write some CDs for you. I hope to do that in the next couple of weeks - hope that's OK!

   Eberhard & Uta: Danke, Danke, Danke for your hospitality, your cake and your driving! There is nothing like having a rental car & not having to drive it! Lovely photo of Oma Lieselotte with both of us - thanks for posting it (and please give her our best wishes). Hope Oma Friedel is doing OK - and can you please give her our regards when you see her

   Oli: Thanks for your time, the interesting range of entertainment and the back-ups... there will be a few back-ups coming to you in the post shortly!

   Thomas: A thousand thanks for the use of your lake house - it was fabulous - next time we would like a bit longer! :-)

   Gerhard: Sorry our time together was so short - hope you enjoyed your viticultural holiday

   Ruth: lovely to meet both you & Peter. And thank you once again for your kind gifts

   Dieter & Gudrun: Great to meet you both and hope you enjoy your trip to China - what an experience that will be!

   Anne & Herbert: Great to meet you, fantastic lunch (recipe remembered & will be tried here in NZ shortly!) & lovely afternoon in the garden. Tessa's tongue stud is gone & we hope to see her health improve soon

   Heidi: Time was too short but we hope you had a wonderful time in San Torini

Right, well I had better get on with things. Thanks to all of you who have emailed us your news :-)

=======================

Tuesday 19th July 2005

Hi Guys,

We are all well here.

Jan & I have been busy trying to organise the UWH kids trip away to Auckland, getting coaching cover and trying to ensure there are enough supplies in the house so that everything goes smoothly while we are away.

We went out to the Ladley's on the weekend & got more firewood - some for fundraising for the UWH Nationals trip, some to top up our supplies as my mother finds our house cold. So, seeing as my mother will be here for three of the five weeks that we are away, we thought we were best to ensure that there's plenty of fuel for the fire.

Jan is also working hard, to get all his projects and maintenance work handed over for baby-sitting while we are away in Europe. He is not taking a phone or laptop away with him to Europe (yay!), though he is planning on spending a day at Dieffenbacher - machinery supplier - in Eppingen while we are there.

I have been investigating global texting on my cellphone, and finally decided not to bother, and go phone-less. However, if anyone needs to get hold of us urgently, both our mothers will have our itinerary & contact numbers.

Tessa has been working flat out at Briscoes for the holidays to save money. She needs to earn some cash because she has applied for a place at the Underwater Hockey Under 19 Training Academy, which will cost $2,500 all up if she gets in. We have said we are very happy for her to try for a place, and it will be good for her skill development in the game. However, to be allowed to go, she has been told that she needs to (a) ensure that she passes all NCEA credits - if she fails one, she is not allowed to go and (b) that she contributes some of the cost. So she is working hard. Good on her.

And our Europe itinerary for July-August is:

   1 - 7 Aug: UK (Auckland-Singapore-Frankfurt-London-Chelmsford-London-Oxford-Devon-London)

   7 - 31 Aug: Germany (Frankfurt-Langern-Eppingen-Ulm-Krefeld-Hannover-Gießen-Treysa-Edersee-Treysa-Gießen-Frankfurt-Singapore-Auckland).

And our trip to Germany & the UK's not far off now - less than a fortnight to go. So I guess that means that I had better get on with organising my work, so that I am ready to go too!!

=======================

Tuesday 28th June 2005

Hi Guys,

A very short catch up this time.

We had a great - if cold - weekend in Wllg, with a lovely lunch on Saturday, Opera Saturday night and a great brunch at Tina's on Sunday morning. Otto & Lara have grown heaps - with Otto now being in tooth-birthing mode.

We got back to Nelson on lovely warm Sunday afternoon, and clicked straight into organisation mode for the Schools' UWH Nationals and the players who want to try to get into the U19 Academy. I am currently writing letters for team Nationals sponsorship and support letters for the players wanting to attend Academy.

The rest of our time this month will be spent in organising fundraising, running & organising ref's & coaching courses, meeting with parents & players, getting chaperones, planning travel routes, confirming accommodation, rental vans & flights and trying for some funding from the dried-up Pub Charities.

Jan's arthritis appears to be on hold at the moment - no improvement, no deterioration. I am still working on rehabbing my shoulder - the exercises continue and improvement is being felt (I have had my mutilation with Anne Macann already this week). Apparently, according to Anne, we are the only animal whose balance is governed by our necks as well as our inner ears. So the fact that my tennis has improved is understandable, but is all the more interesting as I am right-handed and the problem resides in my left shoulder.

And our Europe itinerary at this stage for July-August is:

   1 - 7 Aug: UK (Auckland-Singapore-Frankfurt-London-Chelmsford-London-Oxford-London)

   7 - 31 Aug: Germany (Frankfurt-Langern-Eppingen-Ulm-Krefeld-Hannover-Gießen-Treysa-Edersee-Treysa-Gießen-Frankfurt-Singapore-Auckland).

NB: this could all change yet again!

Notes:

   Big congrats to Adam & Lisa who now have a brand-new baby brother Toby for Louis

   Looking forward to seeing DJ, Dilani, Murray & Leigh in Oxford on Friday 6th August - thanks guys for organising everything & taking time off work to see us

   Thanks Justine for taking a week off work to play with us - we will make sure that you have plenty of time to play with Gareth too!!

   Susan & Peter Robinson - can you get in touch asap please & let us know if Weds August 3rd will suit you at your place or not??

Well, I had better get on & do some work. Take care

=======================

Wednesday 15th June 2005

Hi Guys,

Well - things have been frantic this past four weeks and I haven't had two seconds to call my own.

Aside from work, we have had Tessa's 17th birthday party, Jan has been doing a Day Skipper's course, I have been going to a German conversational group (at which I hardly say anything because my sentence construction is so painfully slow!), we been doing some long overdue work & pruning in the garden, have been organising the two UWH teams to go to Christchurch and taking them down...

Speaking of the UWH teams - they went to the Regional Champs in Chch, and we expected both teams to lose quite badly (this was a realistic expectation as there are a number of new players this year in both the boys' and the girls' teams). And Jan & I were also hoping that they would lose, because the Nationals are on in Auckland while we are in Europe.

Well, both teams qualified, didn't they. Both came second in their competitions. The boys' team did particularly well as they very nearly won their competition - the final against James Hargest High School from Invercargill was a draw at full time; going into extra time for a decider to be scored. Play went back & forth from goalmouth to goalmouth until the opposition just pipped them (exciting!). Very, very closely fought. Jan thinks that the Nelson College boys will beat them at the Nationals as the boys' team's newbies will get better, but James Hargest are all seasoned players already.

So. Now we are having to frantically organise everything for the teams for the Nationals so that everything is ready before we go away. Like finding out who can afford $600 per person, trying to find sponsorship, organising fundraising efforts, getting our assistant coaches to get their qualifications so they are legal to take the teams up, a ref's course (as we have to supply refs for the games & we are now a ref - Jan - down), parents to go as chaperones, plan travel routes, book accommodation that is going to be close enough to keep travel to a minimum, rental vans & flights...

And on top of that, all the players who qualified for Nationals have been invited to attend the NZ UWH Academy, and have to put in applications within the next two weeks. There is a flurry of interest in that, and Tessa is very keen to go (a cost of $2,500 all up with all the lead-up regional and national events that she has to attend, complete her ref's course, get her passport, apply, get accepted, pay for the course). So, so much for things slowing down.

I went to my doctor early in the year & complained of a stiff shoulder - I couldn't lift my arm that far up behind my back & my upper arm felt like it was burning often. He seemed to think that my mobility wasn't that awful & not to worry about it, but take breaks more regularly from work. So I got a programme on my PC which very annoyingly locks me out of it every five mins for ten seconds and every hour for seven minutes. This has helped, but not fixed the problem.

So I went to my chiropractor. And while I was getting a bit better, I was still not quite right. Then I went to see a rehab colleague of mine who is a physio & acupuncturist. She said that the muscle under my left shoulder blade is causing the problem and has given my some incredibly painful exercises to do and is mutilating me every week with the most excruciating probing through my armpit. I see spots (at least it's not dead people!). And at last it is easing and I am starting to be able to get my arm up behind my back once more. Interestingly, my neck is now feeling much better as well. The neck bone is connected to the shoulder bone... :-)

Work is also really busy at the moment for both of us. But that's OK - we haven't got time to worry about what we are going to do on holiday, so perhaps that's a good thing - we won't be organised at all!

Don't forget our Wllg midday lunch is on Saturday at the Screaming Turtle Cafe in Petone, on Jackson Street. Hope to see lots of you there.

And our Europe itinerary for July-September:

   30 July - 7 Aug: UK (Auckland-LA-Frankfurt-London-Oxford-London-Rayleigh-London)

   7 Aug - 1 Sep: Germany (Frankfurt-Langern-Eppingen-Ulm-blank-blank-blank-blank-blank-blank-blank-blank-Frankfurt-San Francisco-Auckland). Because so many of the people we were going to see are now going to be away (Gerhard, Eberhard, Rainer & Regina) we now have no idea where we are going to and have had no time to think about it yet. Maybe this weekend...

Well, I had better get on & do some work. Take care

=======================

Tuesday 17th May 2005

Wow, it's getting cold out now - we have had the fire on this week. I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised: it is May, after all.

Today is Tessa's 17th birthday, so we are having a family dinner here at home. That's kept me very busy today - organising food for 12 while trying to work flat out (things are crazy at the moment). I keep hoping for two seconds to catch my breath, but haven't had time to do that in the past couple of weeks. However, I am sure it will all level off soon, and then I will be complaining about not having enough on!

Jan competed in the "Blokes Day Out" Triathlon on Sunday. There is a Nelson Women's Triathlon each year, and this year the guys decided that they needed one (and I agree - if you are going to have this type of gender-exclusive event, then it needs to go both ways. Sauce for the goose & all that).

So Jan, Max, Murray & Andrew entered as individuals, but aimed to go together. However, Murray played "gunna" yet again and scratched on Sunday morning, so it was just Andrew, Max & Jan who fronted up on Sunday. Max had entered as a walker to keep Jan company, and they did a very respectable time - third & fourth in their age group and tenth & thirteen equal overall in the walking section. And it was a GREAT day out.

And aside from handling the extra gear, towels and togs, I wielded the camera and organised the picnic. Karen & Jennie were playing soccer and Jules was in Wllg doing PAS - her CA coursework, but we picnicked well anyway. Jan & I were the only ones who went along to the prizegiving, and of course, both Max & Andrew got called out for great spot prizes which we couldn't collect on their behalf. And Jan won a towel, anyway.

Jan's keen to do it again next year, so that's good. And he's not suffering too many after effects yesterday and today, either.

So what else is on the boil? Ah, our Wllg trip dates have been confirmed, we are now coming on June 24, getting in at 7.05pm. For our en masse for midday lunch on Saturday, we will be at the Screaming Turtle Cafe in Petone, on Jackson Street, so please feel free to rock up and join us for some good conversation, for as long as you've got!!

Karen, Jan & I are seeing Don Giovanni on the Saturday night. We would like to catch up with family on Sunday morning as we need to be at the airport at 1.30 - Tina, can you organise something?

Aside from getting 20 Nelson teenagers organised, paid up and geared up for the South Island Underwater Hockey regional finals in Christchurch (which is like trying to herd cats anyway), we haven't really been doing that much else.

We did hear about some people through some friends of friends who were in a very bad way financially so we went & got them some firewood to help them out a bit... and Jan has been making some UWH sticks for the kids (thanks for the loan of the bandsaw, Harmut!) - and look, see, back to UWH again already. And we have decided that the kids are going to raffle some trailer-loads of firewood outside Warehouse as a fundraiser to help pay for the trip to regionals.

Apparently the pub charities have dried up hugely this year - the excuse is that the smokers are staying away in droves. Having been out myself a few times this year now that the smoke isn't rampant, I would take issue with that. I rather suspect that think the pubs, via the pub charities, are stretching the truth - or telling porkies - to try & put pressure on the government to revoke the non-smoking legislation. But hey, that's me!

And we have given up on that lot of tree-fellers. We have talked to my friend Erik's father & he is going to see if he can come up with some other options for us.

And a reminder re our Europe itinerary for July-September:

   30 July - 7 Aug: UK (Auckland-LA-Frankfurt-London-Oxford-London-Rayleigh-London)

   7 Aug - 1 Sep: Germany (Frankfurt-Langern-Eppingen-Schwarzwald-Ulm-Gießen-Treyse-Edersee-Celle-Treyse-Frankfurt-San Francisco-Auckland).

Well, I had better get on & do some work. Take care

=======================

Tuesday 26th April 2005

Hope you all had a great Anzac weekend - we stewed apples & made green tomato chutney!

Last night we also had my old school compadré, Dii Moffatt-Valance, around for dinner with her family. She has been in Nelson with her husband Andrew and their two short people, Rose & Carl, for part of the holidays. Nick & Gary came for dinner as well with their two, and Suze came around for the conversation & wine. We had a great catch up and a highly entertaining evening. Here's to many more of the same... it never fails to amaze me how diverse and interesting our individual paths have been.

We had a great Saturday night in Chch the weekend before last, catching up with Paul T, Jenny, Marjie, Bertie and Dan. We also met Susan, Paul's new girlfriend (who is really nice). Had a cruisy afternoon at Megs when we arrived & after we picked up the bandsaw that we were getting for Hartmut. On Sunday we had brunch with Yi & Paula before heading off home. Relatively quiet trip both ways, aside from Jan getting an $80 speeding ticket on Tahunanui Dr at 6.20 on Saturday morning on our way out. Ouch.

And the weekend before that, we went to the land for the weekend. Chainsawed 1/2 a cord of trees into rounds & stored them in the shed, dug a trench around the shed to (a) keep the damp from the bottom of the long-run and (b) to drain rainwater away so it doesn't pool in the shed. We also met the neighbour, Lyn Redden, at long last. He seems like an OK guy. Grubbed the building site free of gorse. Sprayed the gorse around the banked edges of the building site. Ran another 5 kg of grass seed over the top of the basin (Jan bought a new seeder so I can do it). And the grass that we sowed is coming up - we are patchy verdant green! Yay! Very exciting.

And we still haven't seen any tree-fellers yet. Dunno when they are going to get their act together...

And we have finally put together our Europe itinerary for July-August:

   31 July - 7 Aug: UK (Auckland-LA-Frankfurt-London-Oxford-London-Rayleigh-London)

   7 Aug - 1 Sep: Germany (Frankfurt-Langern-Eppingen-Schwarzwald-Bad Dürrheim-Ulm-Gießen-Treise-Edersee-Celle-Treise-Frankfurt-San Francisco-Auckland).

And I have had an interesting day a couple of weeks ago. I (a) left my backpack behind when I had lunch with my Mum (b) went back to get it 2 mins later and it had gone (c) the girl (Susan) who was now in the seat that my Mum & I were having lunch in had seen who had taken it so (d) the girl in our seat & I hotfooted it off to the Police Station and (e) while we were waiting for Jan to come after filling in all the reports saw the guys who had taken it bringing it in minus the cash and (c) the police put the squeeze on the guys who handed it in and got the cash back as well!

Amazing to get away with nothing missing. However, I had already cancelled my credit cards etc while running to the police station with Susan, using her phone, so i am still without plastic, but that's no biggie.

I bought the police a big box of Rosy Glow as a thank you for leaning on the culprits, and Susan a big Rosy Glow gift pack for being so helpful (well, Jan paid for it as my plastic was cancelled). So all's well that ends well.

Our Wllg trip dates have changed. We are now coming on June 24-25-26; we are seeing Don Giovanni on the Saturday night, will spend time with family on Sunday morning, but would like to catch up with everyone else en masse for lunch on Saturday... anyone got any ideas where we can to get together? Let me know.

Well, I had better get on & do some work. Will catch up with you Wllg people in a couple of months. Take care

=======================

Tuesday 5th April 2005

Hope you are all well - we have been pretty fine & dandy of late. And busy!

At Easter Jan & I finally managed to organise ourselves with a free and fine Saturday afternoon to take in my birthday present from Jan (2003 birthday, that is); a horse trek with Stonehurst Farms. We had a great afternoon with Stonehurst (not to mention sore backsides for the next couple of days). We would firmly recommend them; they matched the horses to the people really well and were safe but didn't wrap you in cotton wool. A good day out.

Saturday evening, Warren & Tracey arrived from Blenheim where they had been officiating (Trace was best woman) at a wedding. They were only with us for an overnight stay as they had to be back for a BBQ in Blenheim on the Sunday. So we organised a dinner out at Spices (that Malaysian restaurant again!) with us, them, Max & Karen, and Andrew & Jennie Ricciardi. We had a great night out & then had brunch at ours on Sunday morning.

We were intending to have an Easter Egg Hunt on the Sunday, but there were some early morning showers which lasted until about 7am so it was a bit too damp out to try & find (what would be) dissolving chocolate eggs! But we had a good morning anyway. And ate too much chocolate.

We took Warren & Tracey over to the land after brunch so they could see what we have done since we have had it (they saw it when we first bought it, with no improvements); and then it was time for them to go back to Blenheim. It was great to see them - if briefly.

Then on Easter Monday we went to the land bright & early to check all the survey points with the surveyor (so the forestry contractor knows where to start the felling - hopefully before winter). We had a picnic with Max, Karen, Andrew, Jennie and our surveyor; and ate some of the 'too many' Easter eggs we had left. I smuggled the last of them into Andrew & Jennie's car - which hopefully they found before the eggs went runny in the heat!

We have just had a great weekend with Karen Trotter down here for my birthday.... Jan & I, after Underwater Hockey on Friday night, managed to have a quiet dinner for two at Oceano, one of the restaurants in the local Heritage Hotel (the Rutherford). It was very nice too, I might add. Mmm; risotto with crayfish and prawns. And I should add that we left Karen at home with the dogs! Excellent hosts, aren't we!

Then on Saturday, Jan, Karen & I went on a boutique brewery tour to farewell Jan's just-ex-boss Rick Herd, followed up by an Indian in the evening at Little India (not very impressed by the food, but still we all managed to eat too much anyway!). 'The Natural Brewery Tour' is run by JJs Tours and was really good fun. Only $65 a head and was light-hearted and informative. I would definitely go again.

Then on Sunday we had a lunchtime BBQ at home. Lots of people, lots of talk, lots of jokes, the sun was full on and it was just a lovely day. We have been living on the leftovers since... though I might have to cook something tonight as I think we have only salad left!

This weekend coming we have a couple of days work at the land planned... <sigh>. Sowing more grass seed, grubbing some gorse, cutting up some more rounds of the wind throw pines to store in the shed for next winter's firewood. Gotta be good for you, eh?!

We will be coming down to Chch for a quick overnight on the Saturday 16th of April, dropping Tessa off to a school-friend of hers for the first week of the holidays and picking up a bandsaw for Hartmut. We will be returning to Nelson early on Sunday 17th as Jan is coaching UWH on Sunday evening. We are staying with Megs, but she is out on Saturday night, so... Paul, I want to see your lobster, baby! So can we organise a pot-luck dinner at your place?

We are coming to Wllg on June 10-12; we are seeing a show at Te Papa on the Saturday night, will spend time with family on Sunday morning, but would like to catch up with everyone else en masse for lunch on Saturday... anyone got any ideas where we can to get together? Let me know.

After those two tiny trips, our next time away will be the big one to UK/Germany in August.

Well, I had better get on & do some work. Will catch up with you Chch people in a few days, & Wllg in a couple of months.

=======================

Tuesday 15th March 2005

Hi Guys,

Hope you are all well - we seem to be managing to keep things together at this end! However, Jan is finding his arthritis is playing up once more, so I guess we will start the specialist round again.

We went & visited the Ladleys out in 88 Valley a couple of weeks ago as Jenny was up from Chch again. It was great to catch up a bit... but unfortunately we decided to get some firewood & I managed to get some wood fibres in my eye. So, after giving up after a good try on washing it out, we went  off to A&E where - after a relatively short wait of a bit over an hour - I managed to get two bits out of my eye and the two doctors seeing me managed to get one tiny speck out. I also had a nice millimetre square punch mark on the white of my eye which has healed up very nicely. You see, you can have lots of excitement in getting firewood!

Things are busy at the land at the mo, with (a) being disked & harrowed and (b) having the trees felled. The forestry contractor rang up at last & said he could fit in the felling before winter. So Jan thought we might as well get on with it. The sooner we get it clear, the sooner we can replant with some decent trees.

We went to the Rugby on Saturday - the Crusaders playing the Queensland Reds... and it was a VERY uneven game. I was glad I had taken my book along to keep me amused :-)

We also have had a lovely farewell dinner on Saturday night for Timo from Dieffenbacher in Eppingen who has been at Nelson Pine for three weeks working on projects. We went to Spices which was really nice - a Malaysian restaurant which is very pleasant.

We have a couple of very full on weekends, then some free time later in April. We are expecting to catch up with Warren & Tracey at Easter and Karen Trotter on my birthday.... a boutique brewery tour, are out for an Indian, have a quiet dinner for two, a BBQ; oh, and a few days work at the land... <sigh>

Tessa is still doing well at school; she has been voted as her class liaison person for the Student Council and has so far had two merits in her subjects. Her driving lessons are going well with the instructor, though Jan has not had time to take her out to practice much as yet.

Once more, congrats to Hui-Ping who now OWNS a house - check out her purchase by going to www.open2view.co.nz and searching for reference number 99842.

Well, that's all for now; I had better get on & do some work. Will catch up with you all again soon, I hope.

=======================

Tuesday 22nd February 2005

Hi Guys,

Hope you are all well and enjoying the run up to the change of season (regardless of your hemisphere).

We haven't been doing much of late aside from socialising (but doing it damned well, I say!). We have had Karen down from Wellington for four days, Hui-Ping here the previous weekend & Wendy Saunders the weekend before that. Ahh - what a fabulous excuse it was for all those lovely brunches!

I have been back to my doctor and am indeed on drugs; half a tablet of the least side-effect ridden medication (Cilazapril, I think it's called). So far things appear to be just fine & dandy; I have no headaches and have got good energy levels once more. Yay!

We have booked our holiday to Germany at last. We are leaving NZ @ 7.45pm on July 30th - via LA - arriving Frankfurt 31 July @ 10.35am. Leaving Frankfurt for London @ 3.25pm, arriving Heathrow Terminal 2 @ 4pm. That's Sunday, July 31st.

We are planning on being in London for a week, then returning to Frankfurt on Sunday 7th August @ 12.40pm for three & a bit weeks in Germany before flying back to Kiwiland - via Singapore - on August 30th.

We have emailed most of you in the UK about our travel plans, but if I have missed anyone, if you can get up/down/over to London to catch up with us while we are there, that would be great. We are staying in London for pretty much the whole week, only going down to Rayleigh to see some of my rellies for an overnight somewhere around Wednesday August 3rd (we hope).

Jan hasn't organised what we are going to be doing in Germany, yet. However, once we have t-ed up our itinerary, we will be in touch with all the German contingent asap to make sure we can catch up with you all.

Tessa is going well back at school; she appears to be doing all her homework on time and has so far managed to get her assignments in a day early. Long may that trend continue, as the workload will ramp up for her this year. Tomorrow she has her first driving lesson with a professional instructor, which will be entertaining; not quite sure who will be more entertained though...

Jan's new car is continuing to prove much more exciting than his old car. As we are keeping his old car for Tessa to take to Varsity, to keep it running well he was going to take it for a run to work each week. Thus far it has only been out on the weekends when I have reminded him that we need to run it!

And congrats to Hui-Ping who may just have bought a house in Wllg - check out her purchase at www.open2view.com/viewimg.php?propid=99842&imgNo=1&referer=

That's about all for now - catch up with you soon

=======================

Tuesday 3rd February

Hi Guys,

Hope the second month of the new year finds you all fit & well.

Jan has been undergoing a new drug trial for his arthritis which, six weeks in, doesn't really appear to be working particularly. So we will be traipsing off to the Rheumatologist again to see (a) what to up the dosage to and (b) discuss the next lot of drugs to try in the event of the next six weeks bringing no change.

I have been to the doctor as well - but for high blood pressure. The BP readings were picked up on my annual check up in October, so I have had to go back every couple of weeks for another check. I had no symptoms initially, but now am starting to feel like I have a really sore upper neck (atlas & axis) & think that might be the headaches that the doctor warned me to look out for. I am going back next week to see him again and will probably have to go on some sort of medication. I am not at all happy about that... but this is a problem that both my parents struck in their late thirties; I have tried to ensure that both my diet and exercise are sound, but that hasn't really made any difference. Heredity, eh?!

Tessa starts school tomorrow & has confirmed all her subjects. She has also passed her learner driver's licence test and will start lessons this term. She has started to learn Karate, which I think will be good for her, and is continuing with Underwater Hockey. I think she will find this year pretty full on, but hopefully, now that she has caught up, the hard yards are behind us all.

The Adam Chamber Music Festival has been going for the past two weeks in town, which has been fabulous. We have been to four concerts so far; 'Viva!'  Nelson's very classy Chamber Orchestra with the members of the NZ String Quartet (Helene Pohl, Douglass Beilman, Gillian Ansell and Rolf Gjelsten); 'Classy Brass' presented by NZChamberBrass - just fantastic; 'Packed with Power' which had too much 'plinky-plink' music for me and nowhere near enough power!; 'Visions of Foreign Lands' listening to Nabuko Imai on Viola and Deidre Irons on piano. We still have 'Sizzling Strings' to come on Wednesday, and then Crescendo on Saturday night with the NZ Sting Quartet, Nabuko Imai, Christoph Richter and Viva's Martin & Victoria Jaenecke. Should be great.

We have also been having the Foreign Film Festival on and went to see 'Goodbye Lenin' this past weekend. This was a fab film and we would both firmly recommend it to anyone.

Andrew & Jennie arrived a touch over a week ago from the US of A to live in Kiwiland - at last! Andrew got a job at Waimea College in the Math Department, so all is now go. They are staying with Max & Karen while they get themselves sorted out with buying a house. They have bought a car already so are mobile. We went to their 'Welcome to Nelson party' at Max & Karen's the weekend before last and then this weekend just gone we had a picnic at Queen's Gardens with them on Sunday morning, which was really great. Ella is very cute - already eight months old. She fed the ducks.

Jan has bought a new car, which he will pick up on Thursday or Friday this week - a Subaru Lancaster. Very smart. But I am sure that it won't change Jan's habits of leaving his fruit peels on the floor and rubbish all over the seats ... which drives me bananas. Ha ha (that was a very bad pun, sorry). This is a stationwagon, and has these dinky little grille thingies that you can pull up to keep stuff in the boot, in the boot. This will be VERY useful for actually keeping the dogs in the back.

This week is a short week - yesterday was Nelson's anniversary day. Jan is going to UWH tonight, then tomorrow we have Sizzling Strings. My cousin is coming for dinner on Thursday as she is moving to Wellington this weekend. Then we have a nice Friday night in front of the telly (probably watching Sunday Theatre from a few weeks ago as the programmes are just rubbish).

A few quick notes:

   Tina & Jeremy / Tanja & Charles: don't worry, we now have a photo. Jacky sent one up on the DVD

   Fleur & Neil: good to hear you & glad that your family/pregnancy/etc is/are all OK

   DJ & Dilani: any news from your family?

   Brigitte & John: got your postcards, Vielen Dank!

   Hui-Ping: Congrats on the house purchase! Lambretta's is booked for 9.30 Saturday 12th. Julie, Murray, Jan & myself, Andrew, Jennie & Magda have accepted . Waiting to hear from Max, Karen, Jenny C & Dawn. Table is booked under "Young"

   Warren & Tracey: how was Chch?!

For wedding photo images, check the archive page at http://www.samyoung.co.nz/Sam_Young_Family_Image_Archive.htm .

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Monday 10th January 2005

Hi Guys,

Bit of extra news from the email - Tessa has just found out that she has passed her Level 1 NCEA with 125 credits - so that was jolly well done. So, now that she has proved that she can apply her brain to learning her school work as well as learning the Rode Code (!), she can now go to book her learner driver's licence test - which, needless to say, she is off to book tomorrow!

We had Xmas with my family this year - a quiet family brunch that was all over by 1pm. No fuss, pot luck and $5 presents (chrissie presents are only allowed to cost a maximum of $5 per person and you have to leave the price sticker on to prove the cost is $5 or less; children get the full deal but only have to buy $5 presents for everyone else).

In fact, the low cost puts the fun back into buying for people as you haunt the sales through the year & find the most entertaining things. Because you are only spending $5, you can get something that is really frivolous - like the tiger-striped slinky my brother bought me one year that entertained us all for the entire day, then was given to another member of my family the next year. We have a trophy that a family member wins by popular vote; last year my father won it by giving my brother a clockwork spider from Nelson's Saturday market & this year he won again by giving Jan a Father Xmas tie which plays Jingle Bells and has red flashing lights.

Then Tessa went to her boyfriend Dylan's house after lunch so Jan & I watched a movie in the avo, ate leftovers and took the dogs for a long, quiet walk along the Boulder Bank. Bliss!

We caught up with Jenny out at her folk's place in Wakefield on Boxing Day which was great (and we got to bore fresh people to death with our wedding photos!).

The Rosepine Cycle Trial was held on Tuesday 28th of December & was - as far as cycling goes - pretty limp! Bob, Jan, Gary & cousin Karen all had a crack, but the rest of us - Sandra, Megs, Bertie, Max, Karen, & Karen's cousin Scott & his wife Karen - lolled about, ate, drank & talked instead. The rain held off until about 4, when we were pretty much done anyway, so that was perfect. Check out the photo...

Norvil & Rose Gibson are here in Nelson for the holidays & came out to see us at the land (photo too). We caught up with them for dinner at Lambretta's a few nights later which was great.

We have also caught up with Robert & Janet for lunch at the Grape Escape - also boring them to death with photos. I had bought their boys a book for Christmas but my reading skills were obviously far to amateur as they drifted off after about a paragraph!

At NY, Jan & I were even more crusty as we went to bed at 11pm... then were woken from a nice deep sleep at 12.15 by Andreas & Katrin calling from Germany to wish us a "Frohes Neues Jahr"!

I bought the director's cut of LOTR & we have watched all the movies using Nelson Pine's data projector (flashing the film up onto a big sheet on the wall), which was fab. Jan is nearly keen enough to buy one for home as we have borrowed it every weekend & the sheet on the wall now appears to be a permanent fixture... except for the $2k cost, of course!

On NY Day we watched the Return of the King with Tessa & her friend Katy, Max, Karen, Megs, Bertie & Jenny... a four-hour movie marathon starting at 3! Overall I would say that the director's cut LOTR was much better than the pleb version, though I still take violent exception to PJ's portrayal of Faramir.

While we are trying to have a quiet start to the year as well, not doing too much, of course we had friends arriving from Chch here this weekend, then tonight we have dinner with Murray, Julie, Janet & Robert, then Underwater Hockey on Tuesday night...

We did firewood at the land last weekend - chopped up a trailer load of wind-throw for Audrey (our celebrant), delivered it to her place and stacked it in her woodshed as an additional thank you for marrying us. This weekend we wanted to go & do some firewood for Donald & Bunty as a thank you for letting us have so much firewood from their place - but again the rain caught us out. So we will try for this weekend coming. We also want to go to the land this coming  weekend to do some weed control - the rain has meant that we have not been able to do any for months... and the weeds are as high as an elephant's eye...<feel free to sing along, those of you who know "Oklahoma">

A few quick notes:

   Tina & Jeremy / Tanja & Charles: do any of you have a photo of Brigitte & John speaking at the reception? We don't have a photo

   Andrew & Jennie: thanks for the NY card & looking forward to seeing you REALLY soon

   Adam Saleem: glad to hear you & your family are OK

   DJ & Dilani: any news from your family?

   Brigitte & John: hope Germany is being kind to you both, despite viel Schnee

For wedding photo images, check the archive page at http://www.samyoung.co.nz/Sam_Young_Family_Image_Archive.htm .

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Tuesday 21st December 2004

Hi Guys,

Wow - all has been pretty busy still. Looking forward to having a break at Xmas and chilling out a bit.

We are having a family brunch at our place this year and then that is IT for celebrations. Nothing else special for the whole weekend. And we have the director's cut of LOTR 1, 2 & 3 out. Ahhh... I feel a DVD session coming on.

Oh, except for the "Rosepine Cycle Tour" on Tuesday 28th - weather willing. This will be a BBQ, mountain bike and wine-drinking event at the land for anyone who is keen. I think we will have Max & Karen, Robbie & Janet, Ian & Linda, Tessa & her friends Katy & Dylan there, at least. Bring your own mountain bike, BBQ food, wine, folding chairs, and your sense of humour for a really fun day! And if you happen to have a folding table, please bring that too :-)

We have had the wedding photos back from Jack and they are AWESOME. You will note that I have taken down most of the images that were on the website & put up some of hers instead. I have put together our albums already, so for any of you who are in Nelson over the summer, swing by & see us for a private viewing!

Thanks much to all of you who have sent us your photos and jpgs. If anyone has any scans that they haven't yet sent through, please feel free to get 'em to us. We now have an ADSL connection so whack 'em all onto an email.

Also, if any of you want CDs written of all the images, send us 4 blank CDs & I will write them for you; I have 1.84 gig of photos image files so there are rather a lot :-). However, for those of you who only want the edited highlights, send us one CD & I will pull together some of the "best" images & send it back.

We are planning some more weed control at Roses Road during the Xmas - New Year time, as well as finishing off the irrigation system for our avocado trees.

A few quick notes:

   Tina & Jeremy / Tanja & Charles: Do any of you have a photo of Brigitte & John speaking at the reception? We are missing that shot

   Paul: Where are you? We STILL owe you some dosh for booze. Let us know $

   Jenny: Let us know when we can come out & visit you & your folkies, bringing things to look at with us & we can exchange $ & goods (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)

   Megs: Please send Jimmy up to stay. Would love to have him

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Tuesday 30th November

Hi Guys,

Just a quick note as I have actually caught up with a few of you lately!! Hmm. I wonder why that would be?!

Good weekend the weekend before last (according to many of you) and both Jan & I had a damn good time as well. I would like to say a very hearty "thanks" to all of you who managed to make it to our wedding - and particularly to those of you who came from overseas, and those of you who travelled with short people in tow! It was a fab day & I surprised myself by NOT crying during the ceremony... and Jan was surprised at how nervous he was on the day. I was surprised too as I had thought that he was going to be a complete legend by displaying no nerves whatsoever.

A big thank you also needs to go to Warren and Justine for being excellent best people (and that's why they were our 'best' people, of course!). Thanks too to Tracey & Gareth for looking after Jan & I so well on the day; photographing, videoing, provedoring and driving. And to Paul for providing Elvis. "Thang yew verrah mushh.."

We have been to another theme party this weekend - a "B" party at Angus & Belinda's place. We went as a Bride & Bridegroom!! I know it's cheating, but I figured that we need a low-rent weekend and Belinda & some of Jan's other work colleagues certainly enjoyed having a good look at our couture :-)

Tessa has gone to Wllg to stay with Tina & Jeremy for a few weeks. She should have a good time up there with them, be able to help out with Otto & Lara and have the chance to meet Melissa (Jan's brother Jörg's daughter).

We are planning on doing some weed control work at Roses Road this weekend coming. We might even get all enthusiastic & stay overnight. So here's hoping that the weather will be with us yet again.

A few quick notes:

   Brigitte & John: hope you have a wonderful time in Germany! Frohe Weihnachten :-)

   Jenny: thanks very much for posting the fabric samples, that's brilliant & will look forward to getting them. Fingers X-ed for something suitable in that lot.

   Adam & Lisa: congrats on the bump. Hope for your sake it's a solo bump not a duo... but hey, a bump's a bump!

   Neil M: Happy birthday for yesterday!!

   Neil L: Thanks much for coming over - didn't realise that you were only here for such a short time tho. Would have liked to have caught up. Never mind, next time.

   Paul: We owe you some dosh for booze. Let us know $

   Wendy: did you manage to sort out some accommodation in the Hutt for January? If not, email these guys;

       Doug & Morv - dougnmorv@paradise.net.nz

       Sonia & Guy - guymcindoe@paradise.net.nz

We don't get the wedding shots for a few weeks as our photographer is flat out going to weddings at the mo. However, Gareth, Wendy & Dawn took some shots which I have posted here. We have also got the disposable camera shots developed (some of which were utterly appalling - you drunken bums!).

Please send me copies of your photos!!! As you send your images through I will post the best ones on the archive page at http://www.samyoung.co.nz/Sam_Young_Family_Image_Archive.htm. Bit please send them one at a time though as we are still on dial-up here. Thanks!!

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Tuesday 9th November

Hi Guys,

Have heard from a few of you recently and hear that most of you are fit and well, which is great. I am making a habit of this, but again, just a quick note as things are continuing to be busy!

We got the water tank in at Roses Road this weekend just gone, with the able assistance of Max & Karen; so at last we are in a position to start trapping some water. And our arms are about three inches longer from all the clay digging and back-filling, shovelling and barrowing of sand and hauling of the tank... gotta be good for us, right?!

The forestry contractor, John Hornby, thinks that he may have a buyer for our 40+ downed trees, which would be good. There's a farmer who is wanting some trees for retaining some earthworks he is doing. Sad to think that after thirty years the dropped pines are only good for driving into the ground as retaining posts, but at least they can be used.

We are going to have the rest of the stand logged in Feb & then will replant in winter 2005 - probably in Lusitanica (sp?) - so that will be good. Then we don't have to worry about playing with trees for another thirty years (barring freak storms). I don't think it will be our problem in thirty years though.

We went to a theme party the weekend before last - a "Titanic" party run by the local dive club. There were engineers, a captain, officers, a Chinese coolie, steerage (third class) passengers... Jan & I went as first class passengers; Jan borrowed Max's tails & I wore one of my good frocks. A bit of entertainment (see photo).

Got another good panoramic shot of Nelson - this time from Princes Drive, near the lookout (see photo).

Tessa has now finished formal school for the year. At the senior prize-giving last week she was awarded two certificates; one for representing the school at Underwater Hockey, and the other for coming first in Computing, which was pretty awesome (and she got some book vouchers). She is now on study leave, getting ready for her external exams. She has her first - Math this Thursday. Fingers-Xed for a good result.

Wendy Saunders is on the move again - she is moving to Wllg as a Natural Hazards Planner with the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences. If any of you have a spare room up the Hutt way for a couple of weeks while she finds a flat, contact her on wendy.saunders@opus.co.nz

Hopefully we will be talking in person to quite a few of you in a bit less than two weeks :-). Right. Gotta get on with organising!

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Tuesday 26th October 2004

Hi Guys,

Hope you are all keeping fit and well.

This is a very quick note as things have been pretty busy over the past few weeks & look like continuing that way until towards the end of Nov!

We were at Roses Road on the weekend preparing the site for our 25,000 litre water tank to go in. We really want to get that in place as soon as possible or we are going to miss the end of the spring rains - and so not have any water for summer and still have to cart 20 litre containers every two days to water the avocado trees that we foolishly put in last year.

And let me tell you that levelling clay is very hard work, even with the digger that Jan so prudently hired. And then it rained overnight on Saturday so we had a nice mud puddle that we were unable to do anything else with until it dries out. Hopefully this week will be fine & we can get it finished.

In the storms that we had recently - which you may have seen on TV with the Takaka Hill & Collingwood main roads being closed - we have had a lot of our 30 year old pines drop, which is a real shame. Nothing much that we can do about it though, except call the forestry contractor & see if he can take them all out now - or if they are now unsalvageable and so we might as well leave them (certainly can't pull them out for firewood as there are too many other trees in the way and we would have enough burning power for a century with that lot!).

Tessa will be starting her external exams in a couple of weeks and she is studying hard, which is brilliant (yay!). Max Riley has been working really well with her & she is continuing to work well with him. Math should be a breeze for her now.

Jan's blokes celebration in Chch went well - no-one lost an eye! 15 blokies went out & had a great day playing paint ball, before charging off to the rugby, then having an obligatory curry before hitting the town. Unfortunately, they are all so crusty that they walked their legs off looking for a bar with no cigarette smoke (didn't find one, of course), and got in at about 1.30am.

Megs organised a very nice dinner for Bertie & I at the Bodhi Tree which was brilliant too. Margie came which was fantastic, it was nice to see Colleen again and I met another friend of Bertie's, Jenny (from Auckland), and also Liz, who was an ex-flatmate of Jan's as well (got good goss there!).

Right. Gotta do some work & some event organising! Back at you as soon as I get some time :-)

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Tuesday 28th September 2004

Hi Guys,

Hope you are all well.

This is just a quick note to catch you guys up on what we have been doing with ourselves over the past few weeks...

From 10th September we have had the Arts Festival "week" here in Nelson. Of course, this lasts for two weeks! Jan, Tessa & I have caught several good shows:

   Killer Comedy - standup comedy by Terry Williams. Interesting concept & quite good

   The Truth About Love - comedy theatre & song by Pinky Agnew & Lorae Parry (all you Kiwis will remember them as the pair who played Jenny Shipley & Helen Clark on TV). This was good

   SkinTight - a fantastic duo play with Danielle Cormack & Jed Brophy. A 'must see' if you get the chance

   Manic Opera - comedy songfest from Jenifer Calthrop, Fiona Moir & Anahera Higgins; superb as ever. If these women are ever performing anywhere near you, go & see them - they are fab.

   Wearable Arts - just absolutely bloody fantastic - as usual - & I am glad that we went to see it for the 'last time' in Nelson

Tessa has just completed her internal exams, which has pointed up some strengths (yay!) and some weaknesses. So she is working on some remedial Maths, Science & Geography through these holidays. Having just been to Auckland for her Father's wedding (second marriage, needless to say!), she is back to the grindstone, working through some Math work that Max Riley has set her. She gets on very well with Max & tries hard, so that's a plus. She also has some English literature assignments due at the end of the first week back at school, so needs to prepare this work as well. No rest for the wicked, eh?!

Then of course we were in Wllg this last weekend. We had a lovely time overall - pizza on Friday night at Tina & Jeremy's, caught up with Hartmut & Uta on Saturday morning, had a BBQ at Doug & Morv's on Saturday afternoon, had dinner out with John & Brigitte on Saturday night at Angkor (Cambodian Restaurant on Dixon Street - very nice), went to the Opera where we met - by chance - Hui-Ping and Merrill & Colin and wound up with Sunday brunch with John, Brigitte, Jeremy, Tina, Otto & Lara.

It was great to catch up with everyone at Doug & Morv's on Saturday; Sam & Moose, Guy, Karen, Hui-Ping and all the associated short people. And congrats are due to Guy & Sonia who have just added another wee girl to their family: Grace Elizabeth McIndoe.

Unfortunately, the Opera - Carmen - was disappointing... Escamillo didn't appear able to sing and Carmen herself lacked passion. And if there is one thing that Carmen should have in bucket loads, it's passion; being a siren with everyone whose lives she touches turning to custard, having such power over men that they practically climb over themselves like mad dogs to get at her. If the lead role is performed that way, then the story makes sense. But, sadly it was not performed that way, this time, so the story didn't make sense  :-( . Never mind - technically it was fine, the sets were interesting and the orchestra was great. And, surprisingly, Jan enjoyed himself.

Don't forget that we will be seeing you Cantabrians on 8th-10th October to (a) do a final clothes fit and (b) have some pre-wedding celebrations for Jan & myself on Saturday the 9th. Talk to Megs (minwood@kathmandu.co.nz) or warren (warren.b@inet.net.nz).

Right. Gotta do some work! Talk again soon

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Tuesday 7th September 2004

Hi Guys,

We are coping with life here - Jan has been back to the pool for Underwater Hockey - mostly coaching, but has managed to get his fins on, so the new drug regime is having some effect (yay!), I have been doing my usual - tennis once a week & walking four days a week. Tessa is over her cold and the virus that she has had & is feeling fit enough to bike to school again.

Tessa was feeling quite low for a while so we had some bloods done. They have come back as all OK. However, they also show that she has had positive contact with glandular fever recently; but she does not have the virus (phew). She is flat out doing her mock exams at present - here's hoping they give her a good guide as to what she needs to study for the externals in November.

But she is going to be having a good break away after our Nov event; she is going in Wllg for three weeks and staying with Tina & Jeremy. Their number two infant is expected shortly, so Tessa can help out. Jörg & Cherry's oldest daughter, Melissa, is going down to Wllg as well, so hopefully the two of them will have a great time. They will also have a 'Math & Science' time as they will both be doing a couple of hours study each morning to catch up ready for next year - I am sure the two of them will be thrilled about that!

We finally took up my Xmas pressie from Jan the weekend before last - we

flew to Karamea via our land. Had a wonderful time & took lots of photos on the way. We flew straight over Mount Arthur both ways which was BLANKETED with snow. Check out the photos in our photo gallery.

When we got to Karamea, we had lunch at the Karamea pub; the publican - who had just won the Monteiths "Wild Foods" national competition in Auckland on Weds nite - came & picked us up from the Airstrip. I had a whitebait sandwich & salad, Jan had fish & chips. Lovely!

But. Unfortunately the developing company has mucked up the D&P work on our land photos so we have sent them back to be redone (thank goodness we took 3 cameras with us - the digital photos are fine but the film cameras were both bad; proved that it wasn't operator error!).

Jan's is still only making noises about buying a weight bench to use his weights on. I guess that I need to buy a copy of the Buy Sell Swap and buy a blasted weight bench for him, the slacker.

Very exciting re the shed. We have post holes. We have posts. We have framing (see photo). We should have some cladding as I think it was delivered yesterday. So by the weekend we should have a shed! Whooohoo!

It was Jan's birthday on Monday so we celebrated it last Saturday night - we went out to dinner at "Flavour" over in Mapua. We both had garlic prawns & they were lovely. Sigh. Nice place & we spent the night talking about building the house over in the Moutere. After November we are going to get started on the plans.

We have also had Hui-Ping here for a few days - she is holidaying in Nelson & skiing at Rainbow for then days. She managed to jammily have her birthday here at the same time, so we had a breakfast for her here today. And Jan stumped up with his famous waffles yet again, while I incinerated the bacon :-)

Andreas asked me why I am always talking about eating in my emails. Hmm. It's a kind of social thing, I think - we get together & eat together. That and the fact that I LOVE good food!!

Jan, Tessa & I are going to see Super Size Me tonight at the movies with Max & Karen, their flatmate Jeff, and our two-day-a-week flatmate, Merrill. Am really looking forward to that.

See you Wllgns on September 24th at Doug's (contact them at dougnmorv@paradise.net.nz for details) for that lunchtime BBQ on Saturday 25th.

And see you Cantabrians on 8th October to (a) do a final clothes fit and (b) have some pre-wedding celebrations for Jan & myself on Saturday the 9th. Talk to Megs (minwood@kathmandu.co.nz) or warren (warren.b@inet.net.nz).

Right. Just going to have coffee with Magda & Julie C in town now so gotta dash. Talk again soon

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Monday 23rd August 2004

Hi Guys,

Hope you are all keeping healthy and living life to the max. I feel a dose of spring coming on!

We have been out & about a bit lately - we went over to see Fleur & Neil in Takaka for the day a few weeks ago; managing to coincide with Fleur's birthday pretty well. A good excuse to have some bubbly and a good catch up. They all appear pretty well (aside from the normal crapped-out backs, of course!).

I had to go down to Chch for a course in the first week of August & Megs kindly put me up for - what must have seemed like, to her - millions of years! We had some good walks and Megs fed me so beautifully that she is damn lucky that I wanted to go home at all! Jan drove down on the Friday night & we - Jan, Warren & I had more measuring for wedding glad rags, booked some suits and bought underwear for me (was told by the dressmaker to go and "buy a proper bra". Poop. What's wrong with comfy stretchy ones, is what I want to know!).

And of course, we caught up with Warren & Trace & doglets at Megs as we were all in Chch celebrating Paul T's birthday at Café Valentino (yummy food. Go there & eat). A great night & Paul ensured the evening was thoroughly well lubricated by bringing along a specially selected wine for each of his guests. Hic.

And on Sunday morning the braver amongst us went to The Globe for breakfast. Very nice. I also caught up with my sister Barb for lunch, on a bucketing down Thursday lunchtime at Vivace. She is working for a telemarketing outfit on the phones, and has been asked if she is interested in doing some more training, so that she can take some of the training courses. I think that is a "pick me!" question.

Tessa & I went to Wllg for UWH, and fitted in a lot on Thursday morning. After dropping her bags off at her motel, we headed down to Cuba Mall & had breakfast at Dixon Street Deli; met Tina at the City Council; had a good look around the City Gallery; went for a quick scout around Te Papa, then met Jeremy, Lara & an international visitor, Lea for a coffee in the Britten Lounge. Then I popped Tessa in a taxi to meet her team-mates at her motel, and even managed to squeeze in lunch with Karen T before I flew home. A very full-on day.

Tessa's team came 6th at the Nationals. They improved on last year's standings (9th) so that was good.

Two of the girls in her UWH team apparently have glandular fever, and we have just had blood tests done for Tessa as well. As she will be very busy over the next couple of weeks - she has mock exams starting on Sept 9th - I hope that she proves clear. Finger's X-ed that she is OK.

We finally managed to catch up with Robbie & Janet in Tapawera this past Saturday night. Janet cooked a lovely chicken potato bake and will hopefully send me the recipe! I have suggested a swap - with my lemon cheesecake one - so hopefully she will share. Fergus has grown heaps, and Janet is onto a really great thing - the Tapawera Toy Library. Man, they have some neat toys to hire out for kids. Jan had a nice time "working" with Robbie, worming and vaccinating sheep. He said that he nearly got run over several times. Dangerous things, sheep, when you aren't looking...

Jan's not doing well in using his Rebel Sports sale weights yet. But, after a session tonight, he is starting to make noises about buying a weight bench to use them on. So I guess we will buy a copy of the Buy Sell Swap this weekend :-)

The holes have been drilled for the shed posts today, so Jan is going over tomorrow after work to get some photos of the posts going in. It will be very exciting. I also get the exciting job of hunting down a deal for the 25,000 litre water tank.

We are in Wllg next on September 24th which will whizz by in zip time. We aim to catch up with all you Wllgnians at Doug's for that lunchtime BBQ on Saturday 25th. I think we will assume that still a go, unless we hear otherwise.

For you Cantabrians, our next trip to Chch will be on 9th October to (a) do a final clothes fit and (b) have a blokes celebration for Jan on Saturday (Warren will be emailing the more blokey amongst you on this mailing list shortly, telling you the deal, if he hasn't already).

Right. That's us for now. I know I have left out lots but I need to go to bed!

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Tuesday 27th July 2004

Hi Guys,

Hope you are all keeping fit & healthy and getting out there, living life to the full.

We have finally got the firewood thing done. Yay! We went out to the Ladley's and Donald - the younger - gave us a great hand by fronting up with the tractor and log splitter. What an amazing thing that is! We cut and stacked the trailer in zip time, followed by creating a wall of wood stacked with its back to the southerly to dry out for a week. Then we went back with the trailer last Saturday avo & loaded it up. Jan had to have another crack with his chainsaw and so cut some more logs, which we have stacked up ready to split at the end of winter - this time, for winter 2005, we will load up in spring 2004.

We have been to several Winter Festival performances here - Deirdre Irons with the Nelson Symphony Orchestra (Deirdre was fab, but NSO was slightly cat-gut at times), Tim Beveridge (great performer - a Sinatra-alike, tho, so not quite our cup of chai), "Phantom of the Opera" as a silent movie accompanied by a soprano and live organ music (fantastic, would go again) and "Strike in Motion" percussion group (fantastic too, would go again. Would also buy their CD if they made one). We missed a few things, due to timing, that we would have liked to have seen - Trio Con Brio (classical/jazz trio) and Goldenhorse (pop band); but you get that. And we enjoyed everything that we went to.

Jan's arthritis is easing off a little, but he is still very stiff. However, after doing a bit of reading, we felt that a free weight programme would be a good idea, so we went to the Rebel Sports sale and got some weights at a good price. Now all Jan has to do is start using them!

His work is going well, he is enjoying the challenge, but is still finding it hard to do the ongoing work. I could imagine that making the transition from project to "chronic" (!) work would be hard. I know that I would hate it.

A couple of Saturdays ago we went scalloping in Tasman Bay with Angus (one of Jan's compadrés from work) and his wife, Belinda, in their lovely launch J&J. Even though the weather was fairly crap, ghastly grey overcast, we had a great day & got our quota of scallops (we also took some scallops out to the Ladley's to thank them for their generous contribution to our firewood supply!). I also collected lots of empty shells during the trawls and have rinsed those as well as cleaning out the shucked shells ready for a project later in the year. Zero waste!

And speaking of a project later in the year, I needed some golden sand for a publication I was working on. I went to every tourist shop in town looking for some golden sand, and I couldn't buy any for love nor money (what is it with tourists who no longer want to purchase exorbitantly priced tacky plastic containers full of sand?!). In the end, we were reduced to driving to Kaiteriteri to get some sand & take it home, dry it and photograph it <sigh>. While at Kaiteriteri we noted a duck sitting on the sand calling out to his mate across the inlet. It looked close enough to touch but when I took the photo, it looks miles away (we have great zoom on our eyes!). I tried to get closer, but it always waddled away (I must have looked like a dangerous duck-eater. Oops, I am!).

I have committed a gaffe. I have incorrectly advised a number of you of Karen Trotter's OLD telephone number. Sorry, her new number is +64 4 934 3131. Her email address is still the same (karen.trotter@horwath.co.nz).

Tessa is finding herself very busy with assignments and UWH practice (in the lead-up to the nationals next month).  She has just got the marks back on her big history assignment & got 2 Merit grades so that's brilliant too. Additionally, her soccer team have won their last few games by a reasonably broad margin, so she is feeling pretty positive about her involvement. She also has a boyfriend - seems nice enough. We will see how long that lasts!

This last weekend has been the weekend of the pot-luck dinner; Friday just gone we had the Ladleys around for a pot-luck dinner - and Jenny as she was up from Chch - we had a great time and it is so nice to return the Ladley's very generous hospitality. Then on Saturday night we had a family pot-luck "Midwinter Solstice" dinner (my Mother won't do Mid-winter Christmas as she says its NOT Christmas!) with my parents, my Uncle Norman and my cousin Karen. Though my Mother was a bit of a hypocrite as she provided Christmas crackers, which we enjoyed immensely (and I managed to prevent myself asking "Are these Mid-Winter Solstice crackers then?").

We had hoped to catch up with Robbie & Janet in Tapawera this past Sunday, but unfortunately they were busy so we will have to put that on hold for now. However, this coming Saturday we are hoping to catch up with Fleur & Neil in Rangihaeata for the day - providing that (a) the weather is fine enough for a trip over the hill and (b) they are home!

The shed plans are in at the council, so we are waiting on RMA approval - ten days apparently - before the builder can get underway. However, Jan tells me that the shed materials haven't arrived yet, either :-(

For you Cantabrians, a reminder that we are coming to Chch on 7th August to (a) celebrate Mr Tunley's 40th and (b) get Wazza & Jan's wedding clothes measurement done. It would be great to catch up - perhaps liaise with Megs about a get together on Friday night or something? Meg's email is minwood@kathmandu.co.nz

And we are in Wllg next on September 24th which will whizz by in zip time. Would be good to catch up with all you Wllgnians - I think that a lunchtime BBQ at Doug's was mentioned for Saturday 25th? Is that still a go?

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Wednesday 9th July 2004

Hi Guys,

Hope you are all fit & well still - not succumbing to the cold too much!

Again we seem to have been very busy over the past few weeks & haven't had much time to write; but here I am now so let's get on with it!

We hired a digger a couple of weeks ago which Jan drove & cleared the ditches along the road and tidied up the shed building site. Jenny L's folks came out to see us & have a picnic - the lure of the digger was too great for Donald to resist. He & Jan had a great time playing in a BIG sandpit. Check out the photos of Jan on the digger.

We have also pegged out where we want the shed to go, so now we are waiting on the Resource Consent to be approved so that the builder can get the construction started. We haven't yet purchased our water tank, but we will have to get that in pretty smartly too, otherwise we will miss the spring rains & there will go our tree-watering opportunities for the summer.

Since I last wrote we have celebrated a couple of birthdays - and, of course, they were both on the same day. My Mother's & Jan's brother Jörg's; we had lunch with my Mother at the Grape Escape in Nelson last Saturday, then hopped on a plane to Wllg and had dinner with Jörg at Eden at Greta Point.

It was great to finally meet Jörg; hopefully he enjoyed the experience too!

Then we had brunch with some of Jan's family Brigitte & John, Tamara, Jeremy, Tina & Lara) on Sunday morning and lunch with friends at Clark's Café at noon (Hui-Ping, Doug & Morv, Sonia & Guy, Mike & Birthe, Sam & Moose and assorted short people who zoomed like manic things in the playground & had a ball). We had a great weekend & an excellent catch-up at the café (unfortunately we didn't catch up with either Karen, as she was in Auckland, or Christél, as she couldn't find us :-( ). However, we have another opportunity in Sept when we come up for Carmen - don't forget Doug & Morv, we are having a BBQ at your place on Saturday lunchtime.

Jan & I have finally gotten to see "Calendar Girls" which we enjoyed. We realise that we are a bit slow with these things, but at least we got there in the end!

Following an article by Matt Lawrey, the editor of a free community newspaper here in Nelson (if you want to read the article you can click on it at the right of the page), I have gotten involved with a project to find a replacement for WOW for 2005. Initially I sent out an email to a load of associates & found that there were two meetings planned from two separate groups. I have cross-pollinated, adding some more people to both groups & will attend both meetings to see how the ideas pan out. Should be good fun.

In the past month, an old friend Jeff Hextall & his wife Colleen have just been blessed with a bouncing baby boy called Daniel, Tessa's stepfather Mike Dutton & his new partner Kara have had an as yet unnamed baby girl, and Jenny & Andrew Ricciardi in Monterey, California have had a baby girl called Ella. All are well ...and crikey, perhaps it's spring!

It is winter festival time again in Nelson - tonight we are going to hear Tim Beveridge singing light opera followed by a bit of a shindig for Nelson Pine; tomorrow night we are going to hear Deidre Irons on piano; next Tuesday we are going to see the silent movie “Phantom of the Opera” with Lon Chaney accompanied by real organ music; and then the week after that we are going to experience “Strike in Motion”, a percussion group. Should be good for our souls.

Also coming up on 7th August we are going down to Chch again to (a) celebrate Mr Tunley's 40th birthday and (b) get measured up properly for our wedding finery. Warren & Trace are coming down as well, so it is a mass-measuring for Jan & Wazza. And they get to go to town & order suits! Whoopee!

I have just booked tickets for Tessa & myself to fly up to Wllg on the Thursday of her UWH Nationals so we can go to Te Papa, the City Gallery etc before I leave her with her team & fly back to Nelson. They have three days of competition, then come back on the Ferry. Hopefully she should enjoy the trip. She is currently in Chch visiting friends for a week of the school hols; and as she has averaged Merit on her reports, I think she is well due the break.

Well, Jan is working again this Saturday, and I need to do some billing; so we have our fingers crossed that the weather holds fine for our firewood expedition this Sunday.

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Wednesday 23rd June 2004

Hi Guys,

Hope you are all fit & well. We haven't - touch wood - succumbed to any colds or flu as yet, but I am sure there is still plenty of time!

This will be a very short catch-up as I seem to have been very busy over the past few weeks, so haven't really had any time to write (very bad, I know).

We went to Melbourne at Queen's Birthday & caught up with Jan's sister Tanja & her family (husband Charles & son Lars) which was fabulous. Tanja devoted three days to showing us around and we had a very cruisy time. Didn't do much purchasing, saw some great sights - like the National Gallery - and had some very good & very bad coffees!

We plan on going again - we didn't want to try to cram lots of things in, so we didn't - to get to see those things that we missed.

The weekend before last we went down to Chch to organise wedding clothes & have been very capably sorted out by Maryanne Cathro, a friend of Jan's sister Tina. The only thing we need to do now is get Warren down to see Maryanne before too long for measuring etc. Megs had organised a gathering at her place on Saturday night to watch the rugby which was great so we caught up with nearly everyone in one go.

We went to visit Pat & Marjie with Mhairi & Isla too - what good wee girls they were too. And already look incredibly different from their first photos.

On the way home we called in to see Erik & Jackie which was great - they are well & now have a fabulous place about 10 mins down the road from where they were initially.

Tessa's team came second at the South Island underwater hockey champs, so she will be coming to Wllg for the finals in August. I am planning on flying her up on the Thursday & taking her to Te Papa & the Gallery etc before leaving her with her team & coming home.

We caught up with Magda last Saturday night (pot luck dinner - yum!) and had Mr Tunley to stay. A very good weekend for me, as I did lots of socialising and quaffing of wind (which is just like drinking only you spill more!). Unfortunately not so good for Jan who had to work all day Saturday. At least he didn't end up having to work Sunday as well. Instead we went out to the land and measured out for the shed. In the rain. And mud. Both of which the dogs loved immensely!

Jan still hasn't had a chance to run in his new chainsaw as our last firewood gathering mission is still on the postponed list due to rain. And it won't happen this Saturday, either, as we have hired a digger - which Jan is going to drive (!) - to clear the ditches along the road and do the final tweaking to the shed site.

With a bit of luck the builder will get the shed underway the first week of July & get the 23000 litre water tank installed. Yeehah. We will then have somewhere to start stashing big tools and timber - and put Myrtle (caravan) out of the weather. Oh; and we will get to move Myrtle's Turtle (aka the long-drop) so that it won't then be a 200m walk from where the caravan will be in the middle of the night...

All Jan's remote control helicopter parts have arrived now, so I bet this Sunday will be a "tinkering in the garage" day.

Jan & I saw Girl with a Pearl Earring at the movies. OK film but visually a treat - just like Vermeer's paintings, very Dutch, very sumptuous and VERY brown.

The weekend after next we are celebrating my Mother's birthday & coming up to Wllg for Jörg's birthday. Then I think we had better get that blasted firewood in!

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Monday 31st May 2004

Hi Guys,

Hope you are all fit & well. The weather is still holding up OK here, but it certainly has got colder in the past couple of days.

We are both keeping fairly well, and have celebrated a few birthdays recently! We had a quick trip to Wllg yesterday for John's 60th birthday; then the weekend before it was my father's 70th birthday (with the day before his birthday being one of my Aunts' birthday & the day after being one of my Uncles' birthday), and the weekend before that being Tessa's birthday. And it was Meg's birthday on Saturday just gone.

My father's birthday was brilliant as he had a couple of surprise guests that he hadn't realised were coming - his brother & sister-in-law from Brisbane and his sister & brother-in-law from Chch. He had no idea that they had even been invited, let alone that they were coming. The look on his face when they walked in to the restaurant was priceless (and of course, we missed that on camera!).

We also had Heidi - a Kuwilsky family friend from Germany - here again for a couple of days. She came to visit us last year, but this time she was accompanied by two friends, Rainer & Regina. The weather was pretty good for them which meant that they could get a bit more done during their short stay... but it wasn't long enough to enjoy the visit! It will be great to catch up in Germany when we go next year.

John's birthday in Wllg was great - with both Heidi and Rainer providing excellent entertainment. Rainer created an impromptu choir with us singing Bass, Alto and Soprano rounds of a special birthday song, written for John in German and English. Then Heidi treated us to an exhibition of her skills in belly dancing, with Jan, Lara & John all being lucky enough to obtain a veil each. Who needs to be an MD when you can dance like that?! (to the right are photos of the celebrations including - of course - some with me with my eyes shut).

We are coming to Chch on June 11, 12 & 13. Tessa has the South Island underwater hockey champs that weekend, so we are bringing her down. While she won't have much time for seeing anyone - stapled to QEII Pool, effectively - we won't be so hamstrung. We hope to catch up with as many of you as we can, so if can you all talk to Megs & try to organise some gatherings?

We held Tessa's 16th birthday the weekend before my Father's birthday. Prior to the event I had spoken to all the parents and told them that I would be supplying orange juice, soda and food only; that if their offspring were allowed to drink alcohol, they had to be sent along with whatever it was that they were allowed to drink.

So we had thirty 15 to 17 year olds invading the place. They all turned up so promptly (or early) that I was forcibly struck at the difference between their and their parent's generation (ie parents usually an hour to an hour and a half late).

Jan & I secreted ourselves in the upstairs bedroom and Jan watched the rugby while I read a book. We had absolutely no trouble from the young people - but we  probably ensured the lack of trouble by doing a "tour" every fifteen minutes - ostensibly cleaning up and putting out more food with the trouble-radar turned up to high gain! I couldn't hear the stereo at the beginning so I went down & told them three times that they were allowed to turn it up so that they could hear it. Tessa was also very well behaved and kept an eye on everyone. Good host responsibility - one girl got a little drunk and Tessa and her friends plied her with water, walked her around the garden for ages and then put her to bed with disprin and more water. That was it.

At 1am we said "Go home" to the ones who were left and "Go to bed" to the six girls who were staying here overnight. I think they went to sleep about 3! In the morning we got them up early and fed them lots for breakfast. Shipped most of them home by lunchtime and took the rest to the land to sow grass seed!

Our last firewood gathering mission is still on the postponed list... we couldn't use the trailer three weekends ago, then had wet Saturday mornings for two weekends; just enough to make driving across paddocks treacherous and chain-sawing a wee bit dangerous (I would rather keep Jan with all his limbs for now! ). Jan's remote control helicopter is still not operational - still waiting for a starter from the US.

Jan & I saw Kill Bill 1 on DVD. Crikey - will Mr Tarantino ever get less violent? However, I guess we will still see Kill Bill 2... but maybe not until it gets to DVD. There is a new mini cinema opening here in the main cinema complex here in Nelson soon - a 21 couch-seater theatre that, as well having regular showings of art-house movies, you can book out for private functions. Sounds like fun & both Jan & I are trying to think of good movies that we would like to hire it out for!

We have had some enquiries about what we are doing about wedding gift registers or what we would like for a present. Please - we DON'T want any wedding presents... we have everything that we want or need between the two of us and it just seems silly to get more things when we don't have room for the things that we already have. However, if you REALLY can't help yourselves, you can always make a donation to our German Travel Fund (and it can be anonymous if you prefer). Contact Karen Trotter for details on karen.trotter@horwath.co.nz or 021 495 662

Next up we are off to Australia for a few days, then down to Chch for Tessa's UWH Champs - then Paul Tunley comes to Nelson to visit, then we have a weekend off before celebrating my Mother's birthday & coming up to Wllg for Jörg's birthday. I think that takes us up until the second weekend in July! Phew...

Quick notes;

   Erik & Jack - would like to swing by and see your new place on the way home on Sunday; will you (a) be about and (b) send us destructions on how to get there?

   Pat & Marjie - glad you liked the blankets

   Tanja & Charles - look forward to seeing you VERY shortly

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Saturday 24th April 2004

Hi guys,

Hope you are all still keeping well. Weather remains good here, but it is getting noticeably colder, despite the sunshine. Jan & I are going out on one last firewood mission to 88 Valley today (Donald & Bunty Ladley's) & then we will have enough combustibles for winter & spring.

I have been well, but busy (& re-elected to the Chamber of Commerce board this past Monday), but Jan has been a bit sore & tired. This is despite the new drug regime, coming home from work at a reasonable hour, eating sensibly and getting to bed early. The only thing I haven't managed to do is to organise entire weekends off where he does nothing but rest... but whenever we have a weekend like that, he fills it with something (or goes in to work).

However. He does have a new passion too - he has bought a remote control helicopter. It isn't quite operational yet, but I am sure that he will be able to crash it in fairly short order! We had dinner at Kelly & Duncan's a few weeks ago. Dunc is a mad r-c hydroplane fiend. He & Jan disappeared into Dunc's workshop and from then on Jan was unstoppable until he found a chopper for sale on the Trade Me website. The cartons all arrived at the beginning of the week, and so the tinkering begins!

The last person we had to stay was Karen T who came down - ostensibly for an audit, but really for my birthday (!). We had a lovely few days, starting with breakfast on Thursday morning with a crowd of old friends at Zest. A very cruisy way to start the day - we didn't get away from there until 11. Photo of us attached.

We went over to the land that weekend as the bulldozer was clearing approx 2ha in the gully. And man, the driver was good. What really surprised us was how little vegetation was left in the windrow they made against the clearing boundary... that and how quick he was. Amazing. We now have a tiny earth dam as well, which is already full from the little rain there has been (it still needs some more work with a digger to enlarge it, which the contractor is going to do when he is in the area with the digger next). Photos attached too.

On the Thursday night before Easter we decided to have another crack at going to Herzog to celebrate my birthday. This time we took MY car. We had a fabulous night. I would firmly recommend it for anyone who is a passionate foodie... the food and wine was superb; but make it for a special occasion only - the price is pretty steep. For two of you, if you are both drinking, dinner is likely to set you back $400 plus.

Yi & Paula were here for Easter & we had dinner at Lambretta's, which was great (and Yi really got Jan going on r-c planes). They had pretty good weather while they were here, so I think they enjoyed their holiday. Unfortunately I told them about the whereabouts of Rosy Glow a little too late so they didn't have time to get to the shop. It is the loveliest place. <sigh>

Tessa has been on school holidays & is now getting ready to go back to school on Monday. She has - under duress - written up some History notes during the break & done some of her English reading, so hopefully she will find the new term a little easier. She was deeply peeved that underwater hockey wasn't on for the duration of the holidays & is looking forward to it starting this coming Friday night again. When Jan & I went to the parent-teacher night, we had pretty much glowing reports of her, except with the two hardest subjects for her (Math & Geography) which, co-incidentally, have two of the weakest personality teachers. She has been talking in class in both those subjects, where she can least afford not to concentrate. While the Geography teacher didn't really find it too much of a problem (she would just tell Tessa to "shh" & Tessa would), it was driving the Math teacher to distraction. So we had a talk to Tessa about it, & I have checked with her teachers just before the end of term to find out if her behaviour has changed (and it has).

As well as going to Wllg for Jan's stepfather's birthday celebration for the day on May 30, we are hoping to get down to Chch before that. But spare weekends are a bit thin... May 22 is my father's 70th, the weekend before is Tessa's 16th... so realistically, we are running tight for spare time. But we will see what we can do.

Quick replies to;

   Jeremy & Tina (glad things are improving. We should be home Sunday evening if you want to call)

   Hartmut & Uta (sorry we missed your call, try again Sunday night?)

   Pat & Marjie (how are you both?)

   Justine & Gareth (hope all is now resolved work-wise)

   Rachel & Micro (have you thought of a name yet?)

   Kent & Gill (what is your UK email address?)

Looking forward to seeing Neil Lee again today - he & his girlfriend Karen are here from Sydney for a week & we are all going out to the Boatshed for dinner tonight.

Sam & Jan