News from Nelson - January 2018

Hi everyone!
We kicked off the New Year with our traditional New Year's Eve BBQ... which finished after 3am on the 1st of January 2018. We slept almost until midday after that! Even Boo and Bonnie didn't stir for breakfast at 7am. We had a fairly small turn-out this year, but the neighbours were total stayers, bless them! There wasn't much to clean up as before we hit the hay, I had had run the dishwasher once while I tidied the place up, got the recycling ready to go out, then loaded it again when we went to bed, and had the last load ready to go in when we got up. New Year's day was a lovely day too: we took the dogs for a nice long walk.

Murray and Leigh came around at 4pm on New Year's day for afternoon tea with Lexie and Isaac… they played pool, and we chatted for a couple of hours before they headed back to their rental to get ready for the return to Christchurch tomorrow. Nadine is currently staying at our place, and Nane is now taking the current tour with John.

Then on the 4th, we hopped in the car for our first road trip of the year, along with my Mum: heading off to Dunedin for my cousin Sarah's wedding. My Aunt from Christchurch and my sister both came as well, so it turned into a bit of a minor family reunion, which was really good. Nadine kindly house and dog-sat while we were away. We had a lovely trip down to Christchurch, and had lunch at the Nor’Wester Café in Amberley before going to visit Erik and Jacky and meeting our soon to be new puppy, Finn. After that we cruised in to stay with Jenny, who is in very good form. My Mum stayed with Diana. We caught up with Gary and Karen, and Jan caught up with an ex-DHB colleague in the cafe at Moeraki Beach on the way down. The trip the next day to Dunners was pretty uneventful, and we got to check out Warren's place, which is brilliant! He has done so much to the place already. It is light-years more organised than our place, and we have been here coming up eight years... <sigh>. Erica was staying, so we got to see her as well.

The wedding in Dunedin was great: though the weather was not very co-operative. The ceremony was held out at Wal's Plantland in Mosgiel, with the reception just on the other side of Mosgiel, in a local hall. Sarah and Allan's friends had done a great job of decorating the hall, with everyone doing a little, to share the work around and make the day easy for them.

 

We also got taken up in some wee two seater planes for a scenic flight from Taeiri Areoclub by Geoff and his mate Gerard. We had a blast, with Geoff trusting Jan enough to fly his baby. We went out over Port Otago and Larnach's Castle and it was wonderful.

And below you can see bits of our flight from Taeiri along the Otago Peninsular and back. It is almost ten minutes long as I made this for myself, so I remember it!

All in all a great trip. Except on our first night in Dunedin we got a call from Nadine to say that Bonnie was unable to put any weight on her hind leg, and didn't want to eat, move, or otherwise. John was away with his tour, we were at the other end of the country. We got Nadine to call the vet, and she contacted a good friend of John's who knows Bonnie well to go with her. The vet rang me after she had seen Bonnie, and said that she had broken her knee from the weight of the tumour on her hind leg. It was time. She was in her 13th year: not bad for a dog with a heart murmur and a very malignant tumour. And full of joy for all but the last day of her life. So very sad though. And terrible for all the main people in her life to be away, and to not be able to say a last goodbye.

Aside from that terrible news, Finn is doing well, and settling in with Boo. She began with a face like "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest" (Henry II 1133–89 about Thomas Becket, Ratcliffe, 2006) and has now shifted into resigned mode. Even sometimes now moving into running interference mode: when Finn is getting told off, she pushes in to protect him. She is such a nutter when considering the amount he hangs off her lips, ears and cheeks. She should, by rights, simply abandon him to his just desserts. 

Finn is not that conducive for good PhD writing (which is what I am supposed to be doing!), but he is a joy to have. He has certainly helped to fill in the huge gap left by Bonnie.

Jan is back at work, and I am trying to write. NMIT starts again at the end of February, and I want to get a lot more done before then. All my prep is complete, and my supervisory team is ready to go, so hopefully things won't be too difficult this year.

Our new couch arrived two and a half weeks early (thanks Smith's City) and so now we have it. The really strange thing is that the one we saw in the shop was less... 'bouffant' than this one. I guess from all the bums on seats the couch had packed down a bit, whereas our one is still pretty puffy. We need to apply some serious backsides to this to flatten it out to our expectations! I don't think I have ever said that before about something new...

We had a BBQ down at Miranda's at number 99 on the road, which was a lovely way to spend a glorious summer afternoon. We got a date for Cards Against Humanity out of that session, and found out about a huge eucalypt that had come down on Zig & Lib's place, which Jan could get enough wood out of to make an outdoor seat.

Erica, Tracey and H came around to dinner one night and brought Ollie. They got to eat the scraps of the BBQ, and even Finn got the hang of how to sit politely for Erica.

An ex-workmate of Jan's gave us some tomatoes that weren't quite ripe yet. I lay them out on the rug inside the sliding doors in the lounge to redden up, and once done, I bottled 22 litres of tomato puree. It was a race between me and the puppy, as the tomatoes just fitted nicely in his mouth, so, if not carefully watched, he kept stealing them and taking them outside to chew (obviously much nicer mouth feel than the actual toys we have lying everywhere!).  I need to find some more tomatoes as ours have hardly grown this year, and I do like tomato soup in winter.

Jan won second prize in the Sarau Festival jam competition this year, with another crack at blackcurrant and lime. But it was a bit too firm, and he knew that when he entered, but still got placed pretty well. We caught up with Jan and Renate, Killian and Sarah, spent lots of time with Sue, saw Gary and Nicki, had a brew with a few of the neighbours, and generally had a great time.

The sunsets and sunrises continue to give us much to be grateful for, even out of a zippy wee car on the way home from the fair.

Back to you all next month

Sam (& Jan)

• Ratcliffe, S. (2006). Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (5th ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

News from Nelson: January 2015

Hi everyone,
We have had a busy month or more since I last sent a report. To see much of it in video, watch here:


We have had Lara and Otto to stay, had our New Year's barbecue, been to the Mudcastle Christmas Party and had the Rose Road Christmas Party at Daniel & Diana's. We went up to Wellington for Christmas, and John dog-sat during his tour (very well organised!). We stayed with Brigitte and John in Wellington, and had Weinachten and Christmas lunch at Tina and Jeremy's.

Hartmut & Uta are with us at the moment, visiting us and attending the Adam Chamber Music Festival. They have been on a tour of the West Coast, and have filled their hearts with lovely places, and now that the concerts have started, get to add a musical score to remember their trip by. It is the first time that Uta has visited our house, so has been quite special.

 We have the Sarau fair from mid-afternoon, which is more or less our local harvest festival. It celebrates the blackcurrant harvest. Although it is raining very, very lightly - what a blessing after a month of no rain! - I think the event will go ahead as planned. We will all go later in the day and wander around the grounds enjoying the local sights and sounds and catching up with our neighbours from further afield.

Jan, Warren and Mark (an NMIT colleague of mine) did a big day on the chainsaws and felled, split and stacked enough wood for three families for winter. Warren and his brother have, between them, a wood splitter which we were able to use. Fantastic. Otto & Lara were here at the time and helped for the day. It was a BIG workday for everyone. Mark has since been out for another session with Jan. I forgot to take any video - and some of those trees coming down sounded pretty dramatic!

When Otto & Lara were with us they went sailing with Craig and Katherine and Craig's two children, went to Tahuna beach for the day, went to Warren & Trace & Erica's, Lara made a charm bracelet with Erica - her Christmas present from us - at the Bead Gallery (while Otto helped Tracey weed the tunnel houses).

We had Magda and David to visit.We caught up with KT, KB, Bootie, Megan and Will.

We have booked our tickets for Brazil and leave NZ for Sao Paulo on 2 April, returning to Nelson on 20 April. Yay!

A busy month, having lots of fun. Talk soon!

Jan & Sam

News from Nelson - December 2014

Hi everyone,
In the past few weeks we have been a little less busy at work, which has been wonderful. it is the time of year where we have had several Christmas work functions to go to. Most of my work functions have been lunches, which have been a great time to catch up and talk - almost for the first time this year. Very enjoyable.

We have managed to get some jobs around the house done, particularly Warren and Jan flattening out around the house, putting down weed matting and covering it in shell. This means that there will be no great ocean of waist-high grass right up to the back door in summer; no more knotted hose-pipes tangled up in the weeds; no more hidden bark berries ready for unwary jandalled feet. I even got enthusiastic and bought a petanque set so we can enjoy the crunch underfoot outside in the lovely long summer evenings. I do need to buy one of those old hand lawn rollers though to flatten it all out (you know, those ones full of concrete ;-D). The work that Jan & Warren did is viewable here:


I have completed my Semester two marking, filing, and getting ready for moderation... just in time to start teaching summer school online (one day cross-over only). Additionally, my workload is not too bad as I have just discovered that there is a FAQ page function in NMIT Online/Moodle (I wish I had known about this three years ago!). I have been posting Q&A from my current and previous students, and asking my students to check here first before posting new questions. The FAQ page is proving to be a fantastic resource, and I think has already reduced my email load by half (despite there being 34 students enrolled).

We had a great wedding anniversary bash, with DJ & Dilani coming down for a few days. Jenny came up from Christchurch which was fabulous too. We bought ourselves an anniversary present of two sets of Katie Gold candle sticks:

Amy H did a stellar job of filming our wedding anniversary celebrations. If you haven't viewed this yet, check it out:

Oma Friedel's former neighbour, Frau Steinmann, was killed in a car accident in Germany yesterday (Saturday), which was very sad. There is an article here.

Eberhard sent us a photo of the Ulm Munster, lit up for Christmas:

Keeping it brief this time as we are about to head out to a Rose Road Christmas BBQ at the Whitten's.

We head up to Welly on 24 December for Christmas with Brigitte and John, Jeremy & Tina, Otto and Lara. John will be looking after the dogs while we are away. Lara & Otto are coming for a few days from the end of December to the beginning of January. I think Hartmut & Uta will be coming down to us at the end of January for a visit and to take in some of the Adam Chamber Music Festival.

Our next time away may well be April, heading for Sao Paulo!

Sam (& Jan)

News from Nelson - November 2014

Hi everyone,
Hope you are all well.

The last few weeks seem to have flown by. I have been up in Auckland at the CDANZ symposium and AGM. I just got back last night and am pretty bushed. I am supposed to be marking right now, but my head isn't in the right space, so I thought I would drop all of you an email instead.

John F is back, and is cooking again. Yay! Bonnie was very excited about John arriving, but took some time to migrate away from sleeping beside Coco at night. Now she is back with John each night, and now Coco sneaky-feets onto the bed with us so she has 'pack' to sleep beside. If I wake up and notice a canine invasion, I send her back to bed pretty sharpish. Jan is a whole lot softer than that.

We helped out at the Big Beach Cleanup with Nelson Pine a few weeks ago & got a reasonable haul of junk from around the cycle way. Jan has been building a new garden bed to the west of the house, which will be great for tomatoes, we hope. While progress is slow due to all the other things we have on at the moment, each week there is a bit more done.

Katherine's 1920s party was interesting (Craig L's new partner): I went as a bit of a middle class matron and was the only non-flapper there. Someone said to me "Oh, yeah - that's right: there were ordinary people too" (!). I felt like a bit of a nit anyway, and that certainly didn't make me feel any more comfortable. Jan wore his tux and a red fedora (which was a little large so looked more like a stetson). He also had a machine gun which he had a bit of fun with for a while. We had a good catch up with a few NMIT old hands.

Last weekend was Dawn's birthday party, which John also came along to. There was lots of lovely food (including lots of vege things), and it was really nice to catch up with everyone again so soon after Dawn & Neil's house-warming.

We have caught up with Warren & Tracey at least once a week since they have been here, which has been great. Wonderful to have them so close, but we are also a bit cautious in case we spend too much time hanging out with them and overload them (which would be bad :-( ).

This weekend is our Anniversary BBQ which should also be great fun. And there will be no costumery for it (with the loathing that I have for it being so recently reinforced!). There are a few out-of-towners coming in, which will be great, including DJ & Dilani and Jenny L. We are catching up with the Boots on Friday night at Warren & Tracey's for drinks as they are in Nelson this weekend for a family function of their own.

We will be in Welly for Xmas, then Lara & Otto are coming for a few days from the end of December to the beginning of January. I think Hartmut & Uta will be coming down to us next January or February for a visit and to take in some of the Adam Chamber Music Festival. Then next April we aim to be in Brazil (back to Kiwiland in time for Beck's wedding if we can manage it), and we will both be up in Auckland in May for my graduation.

I will write more after the weekend and post some pictures.

Keep well!

Sam (& Jan)

News from Nelson - October 2 2014

Hi everyone,
Here I am again.

Jan has been on a week long residential course in Christchurch. He caught up with Jenny & Bertie while down there, and has come back with lots of plans for work: so all good... provided he gets time to implement what he wants to, and doesn't get road-blocked too much.

While he was away, I revamped my website and got my marks back for my Master's (A). All good. Had a few storms go through, but most haven't touched us here in the Moutere:

Roses Road looking east, storm going along the Nelson ranges, Oct 2014

A couple of weekends ago, Jan had a concert with the Greenhill Community Orchestra at the Stoke Memorial Hall, which my Mum and I attended on the Sunday (photo of the rehearsal below). Warren swung by on Saturday and we gave him a hand to first load a trailer-load of his farm gear that he had been storing on our wetland, and to then off-load it at his place on Sunday. We even got dinner for our efforts (always stellar if I don't have to cook!).

Greenhill Rehearsal at Stoke Memorial Hall, Oct 2014

Labour weekend we went to three of the Nelson Arts Festival shows: Black Faggot, White Cloud and Davinia Caddy. Of the three sessions, Black Faggot was the most powerful, but White Cloud the most enjoyable. I was thinking, on our way home from seeing White Cloud, that there is probably nowhere else on the planet where you can go to a tiny provincial theatre and have one of your nation's music legends play music and tell conversational stories about their childhood and family. It felt like we were being hosted in Tim Finn's living room. Black Faggot was confrontational, full of pathos, funny and thought-provoking all at once. Both these shows were absolutely stellar.

Davinia Caddy was good, and, as this lecture was held in the Granary Festival Café, we enjoyed a good coffee and a stonking chocolate chip biscuit while listening. We also caught up with Derek Sherwood for a good chat (and briefly with Kate between her performances).

All in all, a great labour weekend. Jan even managed to fell some trees, and I got a chunk of marking done. Jan has been very busy in the garden, and has recycled an old door from Nelson Pine as cloches:

John Fitz returns in a couple of weeks, bringing with him Jan's new bike, a Triumph Tiger:

Jan's new bike: Triumph Tiger 800, 2014 Reg

Barb has been in the US (Maryland) for a few weeks, visiting Joe and his family, and got some great photos at Montego Bay & on Assateauge:

Barb showing us this is definitely Assateague, Oct 2014

Patience (Joe's sister) & Barb, Assateauge, Oct 2014

Awesome light at Montego Bay: Joe reads while carrying Barb's shoes (!)

Next weekend we are helping out at the Big Beach Cleanup, and doing some more gardening chores. The weekend after that, we have a 1920s party to go to (...I have no idea what we will go as!). I will be in Auckland from Sun 16 to Tues 18 Nov at a CDANZ meeting, Symposium and AGM; and the weekend after that is our Anniversary BBQ. Man, where has the year gone?!

We may possibly have a trip to Dunedin to visit some family sites of interest next February, but we are unsure as yet. However, Jan & I are definitely planning a trip to Brazil next April (back in time for Beck's wedding if we can manage it), and we will both be up in Auckland in May for my graduation.

Right, that's all for now: more in a couple of weeks. Keep well!

Sam (& Jan)

News from Nelson - October 2014

Hi all,
Long time, no post.

Things have been a bit chaotic, this last six months, really: what with getting the thesis in and then what has practically been two full time jobs. I haven't done a family update for a LONG time. Things have been so busy here this year, that all sorts of things have slipped. A bit mad.

So let's roll the clock back and tell the story of the last six months.

Jan had a lovely birthday celebration with friends and my family at a German restaurant in Nelson last month. He got spoilt with lots of lovely presents, including a MS Surface (tablet) from me, and a copy of Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide from 1913, complete with fold out maps. Very cute.

My Masters was submitted on 26 June, but I had not heard anything back by September. I then got an invite at the beginning of September from Auckland Uni inviting me to the graduand's dinner. So I contacted the PostGrad Co-ordinator and asked if my results were back yet - that I figured I would only be getting an invite if I had passed. Response was an "oops, that's a mistake", and a "sorry we haven't got your results back yet. As you weren't going to graduate until May next year, you got put [on the slow boat]". OK, so I have waited another three weeks, and just sent off a hurry-up email today. I hope all this delay doesn't mean bad news :-(

It was crazy in the lead-up to getting my Masters in. There were so many things to get done with the final report, my teaching, my brother's wedding in Rarotonga, my Father's 80th, meeting our 'lost' cousin, and the skullduggery of getting my Uncle here from Australia in secret for my Father's shindig, Joerg's birthday and having Otto & Lara here that I don't feel I have had time to draw breath since the gallop began in January. I have only been teaching one paper for NMIT, one for AUT per semester over the past two years, while I completed my Masters; that's about a half-time teaching load (as well as career clients). The idea was to have a staged return to work from July where I increased my revenue and got back up to full-time speed.

However, since the start of Semester 2 in July, I have been very, very busy working for NMIT. The Head of School resigned in February, and one of our Management lecturers, John, replaced him (a very good choice, too). John tried to keep teaching all his papers, but had to admit defeat due to workload, so a lecturer who was waiting for the bulk of his Postgrad courses to start in semester 2 (doing project work in the meantime), finished two of John's courses off. Planning immediately started on reallocating John's teaching and him only taking one paper per semester in future (he wants to keep thoroughly in touch with teaching practice, keeping it fresh and top of mind). This left three papers needing a home. One I coveted, and thought that would make a great addition to my two existing teaching papers. All good.

Then suddenly in the semester break, another Management lecturer resigned. Eeek! This meant there were now 7 papers needing a home, a week out from the start of the new semester. But wait, there's more! NMIT is reducing costs - they, like most ITPs, are being starved of cash by central Government. So either through attrition or redundancy, costs must be cut. So we effectively have a sinking lid policy, and didn't get go-ahead to hire replacement lecturers. Three management lecturers left: seven papers. I took on two more papers.

Things went from having a bit of a rest after the madness of getting my Masters in, to total chaos. I had to rewrite two papers 'in my own image' so that I could teach them: one online, and one face to face (now known as 'F2F'!). One had been an online paper that I had set up originally, but the world has moved on since that was done three years ago. However, previous incumbent had left it un-updated, disorganised, not in the current teaching model, using old technology, and worded in a very autocratic manner. This took me until a month ago to get up to current standards, well resourced, friendly and for me to get my head around the new requirements of teaching online, and au fait with the new tools and policies.

My second paper, a 30 credit research paper, has me mentoring year 3 students doing their capstone management research projects. I love it! But John, who taught this before me, teaches by telling stories, and had few resources aside from the PowerPoints from the textbook: he was the resource, and had very little online on the course site.

My teaching approach is to have a blended course: lots of resources online so students can seek their own resources from the resource bank, which includes recorded lectures, readings, exemplars and software. It took until mid-September to get this course written, resourced and the lectures recorded and posted.

Oh, and I have an NZQA moderation to prepare for on one new paper, and an external moderation on the other, both for this semester. So things have to be absolutely spot on for both courses. No pressure! I am so thankful that I habitually tweak my courses as I go to keep them up to date, because the two I already had at the start of this semester needed very little attention from me aside from me turning up to deliver familiar material. They saved me from total overload.

And then, to top things off, both Jan & I got sick. We both got the flu that was going around, and each spent four days in bed. Luckily I got the flu on a non-teaching day, Thursday, and only missed one day of lectures; the Friday. I was walking wounded for my next teaching day; Tuesday. I think I under-performed for around two weeks - dog tired, coughing, fevers, headaches - before I shook it off. Jan too took a long time to recover - and in fact is still suffering from phlegmy throats.

A month ago, at last, I finally got some time to draw breath. I had worked 50 days straight from the beginning of the semester before I got a half day off that wasn't a sick day. Now I am able to focus on marking, teaching and small course tweaks to keep everything up to date across the four papers. I also have time now for my other clients and my role as the Treasurer and Comms Director of CDANZ. Things are still busy, but are now do-able.

Jan too has been very busy. With the changes in the H&S in Employment Act coming into force next April, Nelson Pine has lots of things that need to be planned and enacted. Jan is also heading away next week on a residential NZIM management course in Chch, out at the Airport Commodore.

Other news: Warren, Tracy & Erica have moved to Nelson, and are living 15 minutes away in Cotterel Road. We have caught up a few times, including a wonderful Election Night Special with them, Murray, Julie & Janet at our place with cocktails, pool playing, music and half an eye on the election with the sound off. Great fun was had by all. Hopefully Janet will email some photos other than the panorama photo I took from the top of Christian's driveway.

We had a great time at Jörg's birthday party in Morrinsville earlier in the year (and hopefully some who were there will email some photos); my cousin has been up to stay from Dunedin (and hopefully will email me her photos)... hmm. Sound like a theme happening here?

We have caught up with Jenny L a few times, which has been great, and Kathleen, Frits and Amy came out and we had a mid-winter Christmas celebration in mid-July before the semester started which was very enjoyable. Otto and Lara came to stay in the break as well, and it was lovely having them here (we are hoping to have them here again in late December, early January for another week).

Magda had a car accident in August, being struck by a 4WD driver on a one lane bridge on the Lewis Pass. Luckily she was unhurt, though her car was written off. As she was heading off to Holland to visit family soon after the accident, she decided not to replace her car until she got back to Kiwiland. She got back last week, and is now in the exciting phase of road-testing new cars. I hope her good judgement is on hyper-sensitive!

I am also about to have an article published in the Canadian Career's publication, and about to start some new research on Applicant Tracking Software with a local HR company. That too should result in an article or two.

Dogs are well. Jan has a new Motorbike on the way (Triumph Tiger).

Right. I know I have forgotten lots, but that will do for this time. More in a few weeks :-)

All the best

Sam & Jan