News from Nelson - August 2 2013

Hi all,
We are both well - the temperatures are warming up, and we have had a good dollop of rain.

We have been busy transplanting more of our trees over the past couple of weeks - as I mentioned previously, we have loads of macrocarpa and eucalypt seedlings coming up where the sawmillers pulled our mature trees out five or more years ago, so we are moving them to places where will have room to grow - mainly around the hairpin bend on our driveway. Eucalypts on the inside of the bend, macrocarpas on the outside.

Jan has been having a great time using the hired digger to dig the holes for the trees!

Bonnie & Coco are both well, though Coco is still missing Fliss. She is quite tentative and very clingy with Jan.

Jan & I had dinner with Jax, last week, which was great, and Richard from NPIL. We went to a local Thai place in Richmond that proved very good. We also managed to have lunch with Jen the next day, as she was up seeing her folks, prior to starting her new job at UC. She has just had her first two days, which hopefully went well.

At the beginning of August we had a mid-winter Christmas with Kathleen, Frits and Amy. We had a lovely, relaxing weekend, and were amazed to find it 4pm on Sunday suddenly, with everyone needing to head home. I have no idea where the time went to.

Amy was - unexpectedly - our Father Christmas, and a damned fine one she was too! The dogs found it all rather scary to start of with but soon realised that there were doggy treats and became quite commercial about the whole costume thing.

The weekend after that we had the Children's Concert, which went well. Jan was in the paper in the lead-up to the event (an earlier post http://klinkehoffen.blogspot.co.nz/2013/08/news-from-nelson-august-2013.html and http://klinkehoffen.blogspot.co.nz/2013/08/beauty-and-bugs-real-treat-nelson-mail.html). 

Jen was up this last week again, and we managed to catch up for lunch in Richmond, which was great.

I have set up a new blog for my musings on leadership - and anything else that takes my fancy - at http://actsofleadership.blogspot.co.nz/.The Masters study is going well - my experiments on my students start next week. I can't believe how fast it has come around.

Next month Jan is off to Rotovegas to give his presentation at the WoodExpo. He has it all prepared already so he only now need practice it.

Also as previously mentioned, I will be in Christchurch four days in the middle of October - 17-20 - for a Careers Symposium and CDANZ AGM. Would be good if we could perhaps catch up with a pile of the Cantab people on the Saturday night? Let us know if you will be in town, because it would be great to see you all.

The weekend after Jan is in Welly for the Naenae Reunion. I am not going, but will stay home with the dogs.

Jan is off to the US in November, leaving on the 5th of November for the US, then taking a side trip to Germany on his way home. He will be in touch with the German family to tee up catching up with as many of you as he can on his train trip from Frankfurt to Ottobeuren (where the next piece of NPIL machinery is being made). He will only have a couple of days, but wants to see as many of you as can perhaps get to one place to say "Hi". He is aiming for a weekend arrival - he will get in to Frankfurt on Friday 16th of November but has to be Ottobeuren on the morning of Monday the 19th. I think he will go up to Oma Friedel's on the Friday, then take the train straight to Ulm on the Saturday. But, as I said, he will be in touch. Unfortunately he won't get back to NZ by our wedding anniversary, and he will also miss the next NSO concert. I am sure he probably won't miss either!

Right - there is nothing else that I can think of at the mo. More news later :-D

Jan & Sam