News from Nelson - October 2 2013

Hi all,
I hope you are all fit and well - we seem to be boxing along here just fine. Jan has had a cold though - and spent three days off work with it, but amazingly I didn't catch it. There is a first time for everything!

We seem to have been busy here again for the past few weeks: again, I am not quite suire what has been filling our time, but we have been busy doing it.

We have had the orchard cut, our tenants are moving out at the end of November so we are looking at putting the Montrose Dr house on the market once more, and we have caught up with a few people around the country.

Jan has been to Wellington for the Naenae College reunion this weekend - and apparently many beers were imbibed! Jan went with Tina on the Friday night, and together they caught up with lots of old friends - particularly from Jan's year, as loads of his old compadrés turned up. On Saturday, Jan had brunch with Brigitte and John at Tina & Jeremy's.and caught up with Hartmut & Uta. On Saturday night Jan went to meet his year people for dinner at a Chinese Restaurant, and they finished up at Helen's mother's house in Kelson. He had a great time overall, and I am really sorry that I forgot to send him with a camera!

On Sunday, Gary & Sandra - who have been in Port Headland (Oz) for the past five years - were here on holiday, and picked up Jan from his flight home from Welly, and came to stay. Jan made a massive lasagne for dinner, which he had better freeze, because he is off to the US next week, and he will never eat 3/4s of a huge, deep lasagne dish full of pasta, mince, cheese and tomatoes, before he goes.

On Monday morning, Pat, Marjie & their brood called in for a waffle breakfast on their way home to Chch. The McLarin's drove up to Nelson on Friday, Pat flew to Welly on Friday night for the Naenae Reunion with Jan, came back on Saturday for brother Matt's 40th, then drove home Monday morning with a segue to our place for brekkie on the way. It was lovely to see them again so soon (Marjie is very trim & fit after doing a 20 week challenge. I don't envy her the effort, but it has been very worthwhile because she looks great).

The weekend before that we went to Christchurch, I went to my symposium & AGM, which was great. We stayed with Jen, Jan had lunch, morning tea & afternoon tea dates every day (including Bertie, visiting Meg, Mr Tunley and my Aunt Diana. He had a great time being a lady who lunches :-D ). We had dinner with Magda on Friday night, too.

We caught up with Jennie, Pat, Marjie, Megs (& Will), KB, Gary, Dan, Tori and all the short people. We had a great night at Pat & Marjie's, which was, of course, way too short.

  

 

We called in to see my sister on the way home - and to drop off her birthday present.

The weekend before that we had a lovely, quiet time at home, doing some tidying up and me prepping materials for the coming Career Symposium and AGM in Christchurch. We did a few jobs outside, but the weather wasn't that flash for getting out and about. We had a bit of rain and the fords were pretty full:

Dogs are well. Playing. Lying in the sun. Sleeping. All normal :-)

So, Jan is off to the US and Germany next Tuesday (5 November), and returns on 24 November. Just in time to talk at another Rotary Club about Rotary Youth Exchange with me about the two tours we have taken around the North Island.

Next concert (which Jan will miss) is Sibelius. Magda is coming to Nelson to stay though instead, so I will have the pleasure of her company instead:

That will do for now - I had better do some work!!

Jan & Sam

News from Nelson – June 2011

Hi everyone,

Hopefully you are all fit & well?

We have had a few probs of late; for example, Jan dislocated his finger at Volleyball. He decided, after having snapped it back in himself, then getting all light-headed and having to lie down for a bit, that he might take a week off. Bear in mind that this was the first time he had played volleyball in the better part of two decades.

So after he went back to playing again after a fortnight off, he thought the ouchiness of it deserved an outing to the physio; who promptly told him that he needed to rest it for six weeks at least. Jan was also told that he needed to remember that he was not so young any more.Needless to say with a flag like that one, he was back playing the week after. And his finger still hurts :-)

As for me, I appear to have what is known in local parlance as a fibroid, and will be having a chat to a specialist to have it removed once said specialist gets back from his lovely, long European summer holiday. My GP thinks I will definitely need abdominal surgery, so I will keep you posted.

So, we have been keeping busy. I have only 10% of my diploma in career guidance to go (can see the end!), but I have started negotiating my Masters programme, to start next March. I have a supervisor, and a rough thesis. More on that as it comes to hand too.

Jan has started on his Certificate in Horticulture, and has been going just down the street from Nelson Pine to do all his courses. It is very convenient for him… and I am so glad I didn’t do it – I would have been like a one armed paper-hanger trying to fit that in as well. He had to miss a pruning exam this weekend just gone as they were rained out (and boy, did it rain!).

Montrose Drive still looks great. Our tenant is still asking for little projects – he is currently putting in new drainage core and gravel behind the spa room. We need to go & buy some more cobble-stones for the spa room – but then they will probably install them for us!

Ellie’s Dad died last week, which was really sad. The funeral is today. Big zen thoughts going her way!

I have just finished nearly all my marking – I only have 13 exams still to grade, which are being sat tomorrow, and even my moderation for one paper has gone out for external review. Because of the surgery threat, I am trying to get everything ready even earlier than normal for next semester, as it sounds as though I might be out of action for a month (surely I can still do computer work though…? Anyway, we will play it by ear). I have everything ready to go for most of my papers for next semester, so I might send everything to the print shop this week so I can’t tinker, either.

Next semester I have 140 virtual Leadership students, some flesh Leadership students; some video-linked Marlborough and some flesh Applied Management project students; and some flesh Sports Communication students. I have told Nic about my possible surgery, and he thinks we will be able to work it all out. All good.

We volunteered at the Founders Book Fair, and had a hoot (and I bought some books); but we didn’t get to go to Shelley & Kevin’s because Jan dislocated his finger! Dawn equally cancelled her land-warming party out at the Glen because it was far too soggy for a bonfire to light, so hopefully we will get to catch up soon.

Speaking of rain, it has been raining rather a lot here. We went into Nick & Gary's the other night for a great night of pizza, wine, rugby and their Vietnam photo shots, and got stuck on the Nelson side of the first ford at midnight for an hour or so, waiting for the river to come down enough so we could cross it (doesn't it look tiny in the daylight? You can see the tide-mark as to where the water was though - and it was swift, and full of logs...). And it STILL kept raining. 

Wendy & Gerry has had a wee girl (congrats, congrats!). All are well - and will probably be out adventure racing in five minutes! Tina is now officially a Kiwi (congrats doubled!). Our buddies in Christchurch are coping with the shakes (and double-triple-quadruple congrats to them).

This coming weekend we are off to Christchurch trip for a stay at the Sudima. We hope heaps of you will be able to swing by and have avo tea with us on the Saturday :-)

Happy birthdays in the next few weeks to my mother, William de B, my Aunty Jill, Colin C, John H, Jörg, and Thomas S.

Catch you all again soon.

Alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

News from Nelson – May 2 2011

Hi everyone,

Hopefully you are all fit & well? We trust so :-)

We have been keeping busy, though we had a fairly relaxing weekend just gone. Our architect asked us around for lunch on Sunday which lasted for three hours and was heavenly; sitting in the sun outside with good food, good wine and good conversation.

We went to Montrose Drive to see the house, and it is being so well looked after. Our tenant is actively looking for little projects to do. The spa room looks great now that they have re-roofed it.

Since I last wrote, I have caught up with Kel again with Ellie; we are trying to get our act together to meet each fortnight & have a chinwag at KaPie (the NMIT student’s ‘local’ café just down the street). So far so good!

Jan is now practicing for the next NSO concert, and for a Greenhill concert. From him being out each night at orchestra practice in the week leading up to the Beethoven concert (which went well, by the way), he is now out on Mondays at Greenhill, Tuesday at Underwater Hockey, Wednesday for NSO, and now wants to plan Thursdays for Volleyball at the Moutere Rec Centre. Hmm. I suspect he will run out of steam on Wednesdays.Jan played the Studer viola in the Beethoven concert and really enjoyed the sound.

John pulled the pin on the South Island tour because of the rain, so sadly Jan missed out on sharing the motorcycle tour. Then it fined up! 

Good sunrises out our way recently:

I have just been marking again; my research teams have submitted their final reports, and have gone a bit overboard. Nine research teams should have submitted about 85,000 words between them; I had 146,000 to mark. Reading and critiquing that lot took quite a long time, but the standard was also good and everyone passed.

Last time you may remember that I had been asked to teach an online Leadership course next semester with 140 students. I have decided to do it, as I will be working with another lecturer who is familiar with this particular programme. I have worked with Nic before, and it has gone very well. I will need restructure the assessments to reduce the assessment load though.

We think we have matched the paint for our porch, so we can paint it. Once that is done, then it is only tying off all the unfitted lights before we can apply for our Code of Compliance certification from the local council. However, aside from the paint match, we have no other progress! Photo: house from the top of Christian's hill next door

Next weekend we are volunteering at Founders for the Book Fair, going to a party at Shelley & Kevin’s and spending a day at home studying!

We have booked a Christchurch trip for the end of June (25-27). We are flying down and staying out near the Airport at the Sudima. Jan has a course there on the Monday (27), so we thought we would stay there & hopefully bludge on you Christchurch people to come & see us or pick us up. We have two days & nights to spend with you guys; if you want to organise a get-together somewhere, we would love to come :-)

Happy birthdays in the next few weeks to my mother, William de Beer, my Aunty Jill & Colin Coke.

Catch you all again soon.

Alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

News from Nelson – May 2011

Hi everyone,

We are keeping well; I avoided Jan’s cold & he is now completely well again.

Our builder finished off a whole load of jobs; the hob backing and extractor fan cowling, fixing studs for pictures, floor-mounted door stops and framing for the top of the bookshelf.

We went out to Robbie & Janet’s place a few weekends ago, and stripped their walnut catchment. We lay them on mats in the lounge until they were completely dry, then packed them up in the cellar for winter. We also picked up Robbie’s motorised 500 litre sprayer unit, which we have used a couple of times already.

I have caught up with Kel a couple of times, once with Ellie, who used to be Kel’s manager at NMIT in the International Dept. Kel has a new project to work on and is looking forward to getting her teeth into a truly international project. It should be great. We have also pledged to try and catch up far more often... and as Kel is working remotely most of the time, we should be able to do that.

Jan is still practicing for the next NSO concert, which is rushing to meet him on May 21^st, but has borrowed a viola to try from Adrian Studer, a Swiss instrument maker who lives in Nelson (and who has a very impressive CV, supplying instruments to many of NZ and Australia’s top string players). Adrian is away for several months, so Jan will get a good chance to trial it. I think he should get a new set of strings for both violas and play them side by side often to decide whether he likes the new one enough to warrant the purchase. Jan got me to listen blind and tell him which sound I preferred on a few pieces. I picked the Studer viola each time. It sounds lovely – a very mellow, warm, liquid tone.

Our Montrose Drive tenants have replaced the spa room roof, and we need to get in there to pick up the old roofing material for disposal; but it has rained on & off for about a week now.

Jan had the opportunity to join John Fitzwater on one of his trial tour runs along some metal roads which was planned for Thursday, Friday & Saturday last week. John has an American PR person who was coming out to look at the trial back-road tours to write them up for US publications, and Jan decided to join them. They were going to do back roads between Nelson, Maruia and Hokitika with some stays in B&Bs along the way. However, because of the heavy rain, there are some river crossings that would be too dangerous. John has taken Michele down south instead, where the weather is much kinder at the moment. Jan is hoping to join them when the rain breaks, but sadly it looks pretty settled at the moment.

Frits is looking much better; he is back swimming, walking and talking about resuming running. Their Easter Saturday party was great – Dutch friends of theirs, Ardri & Hans, and two cousins of Frits’ from Holland, and Amy. Amy is looking really well and I felt a huge DeBoer flashback listening to conversations on either side of me in Dutch.

Speaking of a DeBoer flashback, it was Magda’s 50^th Saturday week ago and Jan & I had dinner with her and Tjibbe & Gea at Bouterey’s. The food was divine <sigh>. I have heard from Erik and he & Jackie listed their place with a real estate agent to test the market, they sold it in the same week with no plan of what they would do should it sell. Now they have all sorts of changes on their horizon as they have sold their country house & are moving into a brand new one near Rangiora.

Julie, Magda, Christél, Ray, Sandra, Jan & I caught up at Julie’s for morning tea on Easter Friday, and got to spend some time with Siobhan and Sterl. I had forgotten that Christél used to flat with Riccardo, and Julie had arranged for him, Dutch partner and their little boy to be there, which was unexpected! They are still living at Founders, and loving it. I think Christél and Ray had a great time, and it was interesting to meet Christél’s friend Sandra from South Africa. She seemed to enjoy her Kiwi holiday :-)

My study break was full of marking – four lots of assignments completed & passed back to students. I got one assignment knocked out for the Diploma course, and was asked to sit in on the Diploma in Career Guidance advisory meeting (which I did last week). I have some concerns about how the course is run, and fed that back to the meeting so they can better meet students’ needs.

I have also been asked to teach an online Leadership course next semester, which I am considering. The trouble is that (a) I don’t enjoy online teaching as much as I enjoy face to face work, and secondly, I will have 140 students. I am leaning towards “No, ta”. I need to talk to the Head of School about it.

Last time I told you that I have ambitions about painting the porch, ordering the string lights and making a planter unit for my herbs. They are still on my list. Maybe next time. We still need to put up the outside lights for the entrance way, but can’t do that until the wall behind it is painted. At least I have bought a test pot of paint to trial the colour, so we are getting there.

The push is on to get our Code of Compliance certification from the local council. Once we have all our wiring complete, we are ready to get the council in to inspect the house (for fitness for habitation!). Jan has completed all the wiring in the garage, and put up the last two spotlights in the stairwell and entrance way. We still have some bare wires hanging out of the ceiling in the living area, awaiting the string lights that Jan has put off ordering (to spread the cost). We have one set, but need three sets… however, Jan may just put some batten holders in place to keep the council happy, then replace those when we order the new lights later on.

We are also trialling a solar garden light, but unfortunately it goes out after about four hours. I would like something that lasts a bit longer, so we will keep looking... it would be good to get a solar sensor light of some description, but I don’t even know if such an animal exists!

Coming up it will be all attention on the NSO concert for Jan, and marking research projects and prepping next semester's materials for me. I am well over halfway through the Dip Course, but I had hoped to be finished by this time, so I want the mid-year break for study. Ah well, we can only do so much!

Happy birthdays in the next few weeks to Lars, Tessa, Adam D, Aunty Diana, my father, John D, Adrian C, Megan, and my mother.

Catch you all again soon.

Alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

News from Nelson – April 2011

Hi everyone,

I hope you are all fit and well; Jan has a cold which I have just managed to avoid thus far. However, I am sure that I will no doubt succumb in due course.

Last week we had the window people back to measure up for shutters in the spare room, so we can better control the heat in that room in the summer. Our builder is coming tomorrow to finish off some jobs, like putting up the backing on the hob, the cowling on the exhaust fan, putting up some hooks, putting in some fixing studs and some floor-mounted door stops. Last Saturday we finally bought an extended piece of flex for the dining table light, and Jan fitted it on Sunday. I have also managed to glue proper felt surface protectors on the base of all the furniture, and throw out the bits of wool-block which had given all our furniture the appearance of wearing ghastly grey fluffy slippers for the past year.

Jan is currently practicing for the next NSO concert, which is Beethoven on 21^st May. They are doing the 5^th (which will be quite fun). John Thompson (first violin) is leaving in May for a teaching position in Auckland, but will return for the concert itself.

Our Montrose Drive tenants continue to impress us. The garden looks fantastic and Jan is due to pick up the third trailer load of green waste tomorrow. They are currently helping to replace the spa room roof (he is an ex-roofer) as well. Long may they last.

I have discovered that you can’t preserve pumpkin puree in jars. I suspect it is because of the amount of starch – sugar – in root vegetables, but am not sure. The jars that I preserved fermented after two or so weeks. So we will buy pumpkins and keep them whole in the cellar instead (as we will rarely have room enough in the freezer). Through TradeMe we got in touch with an older couple who are planning on building a smaller house – initially I picked up 34 jars from them. They contacted me to say they had another 95. So now I think we are pretty much set until our own fruit trees come on stream.

Frits appears to be recovering from surgery slowly, still having quite a bit of pain, but slowly coming right. He is back at work full time. He & Kathleen are in Christchurch this weekend visiting John, so hopefully he has coped OK with the drive. We will see them all next Saturday night for an Easter Saturday party.

Ian who has also had surgery (hip replacement) seems to be going great guns. He emailed me to say he has walked into town – with sticks – but is improving by leaps and bounds.

Jan hired the little digger, and moved the mound of dirt towards house a bit more, so I can plant some screening plants between the office and the shed. We also put sawdust over the mound, and planted it. Moose, Sandra, Kevin, Gary & Karen, you will be pleased that we have at last planted your house-warming presents and are really looking forward to seeing them grow! Jan has also cleared the drains, and dug out the culvert in the bottom of the gully. We didn’t get to fill in the dirt around our big water tanks, as he needs to first put in a retaining wall. I think he is hoping to get our plasterer to help him with that.  That means that we still down have our clothes line in. Never mind, we will get there eventually.

Jan got the drains cleared just in time; it rained heavily last Friday. It was good to see the drains running free. Friday was the end of the first teaching term, so students are all on study break for two weeks. I had managed to get all my students on all courses to hand in assignments on Thursday & Friday, so I have a good week’s worth of marking. That will keep me occupied for the coming week. Then I have a couple of assignments to get knocked out for the Diploma course.

Jan’s motorbike training course went well. When he got home, he told me, to my surprise, that I had 15 minutes to pack an overnight bag. We went into Nelson and checked into the Rutherford, where we were staying overnight, then went to Mint for dinner (which was fabulous). We strolled back to the hotel, and ate chocolate in bed, watching crap telly, had breakfast at Lambretta’s and lunch at Founders Brewery with my family and Magda. A very nice birthday weekend. John & Magda dog-sat. 

The house is greying off now as the timber weathers. Eventually it will fade back into the hillside as all the timber silvers, and sit very quietly on the landscape. Fliss is also looking grey!

Christél and Ray arrived yesterday, and Magda came and joined us for dinner here last night. Christél & Ray are heading to Golden Bay for a couple of days, but are coming back to us on Friday. Julie, Magda, Christél, Ray, Jan & I will all catch up at Julie’s for morning tea on Easter Friday.

Next up, Kel gets back from the US, and I will catch up with her on Thursday. Jan & I are heading out to dinner for Magda’s birthday at the end of this month with Gea & Tjibbe.

As well this coming weekend we are going out to Robbie & Janet’s place to get some walnuts and have a look at Robbie’s 100 litre sprayer unit (thinking about uses in the gully). And I have ambitions about painting the porch, ordering the string lights and making a planter unit for my herbs. But we will see.

Happy birthdays in the next few weeks to Glenys, Sharon, Magda, Fran, John I, Lars & Tessa.

Catch you all again soon.

Alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young