Hi All,
May this
find you fit and well! At least it is already starting to get noticeably
lighter in the mornings, so you can feel like winter is already nearly over.
Except for the cold, of course!
A couple
of weekends ago we met Pat & Marjie, Sam & Moose and their families
down at Hanmer for the weekend. It started snowing before we hit the Lewis Pass
and snowed pretty much straight through to Hanmer. Pat & Marjie hit snow at
Waipara on the way up to Hanmer & it snowed from then on for them as well.
The kids and the dogs had a great time in the garden the next day playing in
the snow. I put another layer on and lolled about in front of the fire!
We had a
couple of trips to the hot pools which was a good opportunity to get warm (!).
However, the trip from the concrete floored changing rooms is still out into
the wide, wide open over concrete pavers; fearfully unpleasant. I hear though
that they are planning on upgrading that area of the complex. Will be good to
see what they do. Even wooden duck boards would be much nicer on bare feet than
concrete, in winter, in the snow!
It was
great to see everyone and to appreciate how incredibly busy they are with five
children under four between them. Sam & Moose also came up to Nelson the
weekend before last. Sam went to the Rugby with Jan (we had been given some
tickets to the Tasman Mako vs Southland game), and I went to the beach with
Sam's Mum, Moose, Noah and Louie.
Jan has
had his results back on his Strategic Management course. Not only did he pass
with an A-, but he also came top of the class. Not bad, eh? He has started
lectures for the Management Accounting paper, which are three hours long on a
Tuesday night. He did quite a lot of reading on the weekend to prepare for
tonight (which was great because I got a lot of my reading done too).
I have
started lecturing for AUT's Sports Degree 'People Management' paper this
semester. The students are really motivated and we have got off to a really
good start. I have told them that I will be picking one person at random per
reading, per lecture to summarise the five key points of that reading, to
provide a bit of added incentive to actually do the readings. They were really
OK with that, so it will be interesting to see how it works out. It also
ensures that I too do the readings carefully to make sure that I can guide them
if I think they are missing the key points; so a good safeguard for me too.
Hui-Ping
went back to Wllg on Saturday after having worked for Murray Staite out at TDC
for five weeks or so. We caught up with her for breakfast on Saturday at
Lambretta's, and later caught up for lunch with Jenny Ladley at Founders later
on (Jen was up here to check on her mistletoes). I like this not cooking thing
:-)
We have
been to several performances over the past week for the School of Music Winter
Festival; Nairobi Trio, Deidre Irons with violinist Jan Tawroszewicz, and the
Nelson Civic Choir singing Rogers and Hammerstein. A great way to brighten up
winter!
Murray
Hartley rang from the UK on Sunday morning, and we had a great catch up. It
sounds like he and Leigh are having a fab time in Oxford, lots on the go and a
change in jobs for Murray taking him back to a London commute... not to mention
having a puppy called Bella to keep them very busy and entertained. Torn up
toilet rolls, anyone?
This
coming weekend we are heading off to Golden Bay for a surprise birthday party.
At some stage in August or September, we are off to Hanmer weekend for a luxury
weekend (we checked out the Heritage while we were down a couple of weekends
ago). We may be heading up to Wllg for Otto's birthday at the beginning of
September if things work out, then we are off to Oz for our wedding anniversary
in November, to Sydney.
OK, I
think that's all I have time for now - look after yourselves, everyone. Alles
liebe :-)
Sam & Jan
