News from Nelson - January 2014

Hi everyone,
Well, it has been a long time since I updated you all! We are both well here, and the new year seems to be getting into swing quite fast.

Sad news is that Jan's other grandmother, Oma Friedel, passed away on Saturday (18 January), three weeks short of her 99th birthday. After a short illness she died in hospital. Gerhard and Eberhard were regular visitors, and Brigitte went over as soon as she could get a flight. The funeral is on the 29th. Tina is heading to Germany on 1 February to help Brigitte with anything that needs doing.

Oma Friedel at Christmas 2013

Jan is very glad that he made the time to go and stay in November last year with her. So no 100th birthday in Germany in February 2015... however, they think they might organise a family get-together on 12 February where family members can share their memories of her.

Our next overseas trip will be to Rarotonga for Mike's wedding in April. Then we will be organising a trip to Brazil to see the Martins; we are not sure if this will be later this year or next year yet. June-July, anyway, regardless of the year.

Jan has just ordered the first of the lounge in-ceiling speakers. Yay! At last we will be able to get rid of some the dangly speaker wires. Once this pair has arrived and been installed, then Jan will order the next pair. We have to do a two stage process; order them online in the US and get them sent to a US address (Barb's boyfriend's sister, Patience, in this instance). Then Patience posts them to us. She is a saint who happens to love Whittakers L&P block so gets her thank yous in bars of white and fizzy chocolate :-)

I have discovered the books of Peter Robinson and am just reading the last of them. I have also read about seven Ruth Rendell Inspector Wexfords too. I have a new Kindle touch and am enjoying that immensely (also care of Patience). My old Kindle has gone to my Father, as he can read the screen just fine on that; but a book is too dense. 

We have rediscovered a long-lost cousin: my Uncle Ian's oldest daughter, Kim. I met her with her mum when she was just a wee dot, when I was about five. Kim lives in Dunedin with her family, and we hope that she will come up to Nelson for my father's 80th Birthday party on May 24th this year. I am hoping that we will be able to get all the remaining brothers and sisters together, and as many of the cousins as possible, to have a real family get together. It would be really great. We will see!

Kim & Brenda around 1967/8-ish

Kim & husband Geoff

Had Aunty Jill out for a visit to our place & Aunty Diana up from Christchurch (and how they both hate being called Aunty). It will be a rellie good year :-)

Peter, Joan, Jill & Jan at Roses Road, Jan 2013

 

Peter, Joan, me & Aunty Diana outside at Roses Road

Jan & Aunty Diana at Krauts, December 2013

Andreas's birthday in Germany looked like a very stylish high tea party! Simone sent us photos :-)

Andreas with his grandparents Karin & Ernst at his birthday tea

Jan has been cutting down trees - and cutting them up for firewood. Getting ready for winter when we haven't even hit our summer straps yet. But very prudent. There is a clip below of Jan felling a tree outside my office. Pesky thing was in my view :-)

Chainsawing, of couse :-)

Jan felling a pine tree outside my office

First meeting of the academic year is happening next Monday. Ouch. I am up in Auckland at a Leadership training session at AUT for two days next week, then Otto & Lara come down to stay for a few days with us. Building some of their own family memories :-)

Masters is going on: and will be in draft by 01 April (just in time to go to Raro for Mike & Donna's shindig).

Bonnie has the early stages of congestive heart failure, but is on meds, so will hopefully be OK for many more years to come (as she is only 7). John is planning on a return to Kiwiland later this year, and hopefully won't notice any changes in her. We have tried Skyping with Bonnie, but she cannot work out where the noise comes from...!

Bonnie looking intensely... intense

Bonnie & Coco trying to work out why the crazy woman is trying to get their attention

Caught up with Kevin & Sandra at Mapua recently and finished the evening at McKee Domain with the most fabulous moonrise over the bay

Moon over Tasman Bay, Jan 2014

Right, that will do for now. I know I have missed out heaps of news, but I have hit the end of my writing endurance!

Take care

Sam & Jan

News from Nelson - August 2013

Hi all,
Hope life is well with everyone.

It was the children's concert on Saturday this weekend just gone. It went well. Loads of the little lovies were absolutely spellbound by the Emperor and the Nightingale, which was just wonderful... including many real tots in the 'terrible twos'. There were three performances, leaving Jan incredibly tired – even I was tired, just from selling programmes.

Mind you, I managed to fit in some shopping, as I ducked into town after the house doors had closed on two performances and bought two new pairs of jeans (on sale too, I might add!). My old favourites, the only pair I had left 'unholed' had finally collapsed into holes two weekends ago, and while I have cobbled them back together, they are definitely now home jeans, not 'out' jeans.

We came home, grabbed a bite, then rushed off to a quiz night at the Upper Moutere School picking up Zig & Lib from further down our road and meeting Glenys & Kevin from the Mudcastle. Zig warned us that he had a head cold and his brain had fallen out; Glenys got there and said she had never been to a quiz night before and would be rubbish; Jan & I were so tired we felt we needed to be stuck with pins to keep awake! Great team, eh. But after a few wines, we did OK, finishing about halfway through the field of 36. It was to raise funds for the Upper Moutere Recreation Centre, which has had two fires in the past twelve months. They think the fires have been caused by rats eating the wiring. Jan & I helped repaint after the first fire, the centre was about to reopen, and there was a second one.

Actually, too many wines in my case: I woke in the morning with a slight headache, despite having drunk lots of water. The first touch of a hangover I have had in a long time! Luckily it was raining yesterday, so I did lots of catch up jobs like dubbining all my boots and shoes, taking up my new jeans, making tomato soup, tidying the house, doing washing and then finishing the day in a long hot bubble bath reading a book, while Jan slept in until 10 then watched films. We took the dogs out at lunchtime for a walk - only about 3k, but nice for us all to get out, and the dogs played like lunatics. Raincoats and gumboots are definitely things to be thankful for... as is a good day's recuperation. I can also say whole-heartedly "thank goodness for the rain" :-)

Where we felled our full grown eucalyptus trees to be architraves and floorboards in our house, we now have loads of babies growing up - and all growing on the access road to fell the pines on the next crop rotation (granted, 20-ish years away, but also in the way for a pruning gang to get to the pines). The guy Jan hired the digger from said that Jan could keep the machine until he gets another hire booking. So last weekend Jan dug out some of the eucalyptus and macrocarpa seedlings which have sprung up, and we transplanted them to the hairpin bend on our road. There are still lots more, and as Ken hasn't yet said he needs the digger back, we will probably transplant some more this coming weekend. The eucalypts are a really straight growing variety which mills very well with low wastage, so we are keen to have some more coming on. 


We also need to get the slope mowing man back to munch some more of our gorse, and plant our new pear and nectarine trees. Better buy in another truck load of compost mix for that too - and some alpaca poo!

We went to the Boathouse AGM a couple of weeks ago, and as we were walking along Rocks Road, this was the sunset we had the pleasure to see:

Tomorrow night we pick up Magda from the airport, as she is coming to Nelson for a few days. It will be great to see her.

Jan's work is going well, though he still gets the itch for more hands on work. He is speaking at a conference in a few weeks in Rotovegas, so is working on his presentation at the moment as well.

Jenny L is a whiz on the sewing machine: she has sent me three new merino tops this winter. I must have ten or more of them now, and I have worn them this year since April for that extra layer under much lighter clothes. While it doesn't quite mean that I can wear summer clothes all year round, it is close to it. Brilliant - thanks Jen!

I saw a gorgeous 1900s PR post the other day on the horrors of "men caring for babies", trying to stop the vote for women. Check it out at http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/08/men-caring-for-babies-the-horror-visions-from-the-early-20th-century/278392/?goback=.gde_4174358_member_264882939. There are also a couple of short posts below this one of other things which have caught my fancy. 

Best wishes to Neil L, Erik, Gary B & Uta this month :-D

Right - more to come in a few weeks. Take care, everybody


Jan & Sam

News from Nelson - February 2 2013

Hi all,
Just a quick update again as we are both pretty busy! Surprise, surprise!

Happy birthday to Jan's Oma Friedel who has just turned 99, here with Katrin & Monika: 

I went up to Tauranga for a couple of AUT training days, and caught up with DJ & Dilani, who are both in great form. Hopefully we will catch up with them both again when we take the Rotary exchange students around the far north this April too.

Kathleen & Frits came to stay for a weekend and we shamelessly put them to work. First we cleared some of the rubbish piles from when we had our trees felled about six years ago:

Then, where Jimmy had felled some trees which were threatening our powerlines, Jan & Frits cut them up.

And Coco and Bonnie helped.

And, what a delight for the eyes. Bonnie, sound asleep with eyes slightly open, dreaming and snoring with her tongue out. Bless.

Flissy is getting pretty frail: her back end is getting pretty wobbly due to the Ankylosing Spondylitis. We had them all at the vet the other day for check ups, and basically there is nothing else we can do for her now except control her pain (and she seems relatively pain-free, so that's good). Old dogs :-(

This week Jan has been in Auckland at a work conference/seminar and I have been in Welly for another CDANZ meeting. My next 'meeting' will be via video link from the BNZ Centres all around the country. It will be interesting to see how that works! But if it does work well, it will mean that we can save some $ for our members and have some 'minor' meetings during the year. I don't think the technology is good enough to replace collegiality yet, but it may come.

I teach students in Marlborough via video link, so does work OK: but it is not a replacement for being there.

We have rented our house again, as aside from one offer which fell through, there was nothing happening on the sales front.

Jan is playing in the next NSO concert - a salute to the Steinway - and I am trying to get my NMIT courses sorted so I can get back to my own study. I have some interesting students in my classes though. All those good things that make it enjoyable!

Our neighbour, Kath, is not good again, which is a real shame. But at least Harrison is three now, so will have memories of his Mum.

Our next trip will be the Rotary Youth Exchange one in April/May.  Hope to see some of you then.

Jan & Sam

News from Nelson - February 2013

Hi all,
Wow. Dunno where the year has gone already!

We have been watching the rain pass us by for some time now. While we have plenty of water still (the advantage of having three huge tanks), it is not so good for the garden - nor the neighbour's pasture!

We are now firmly into firewood mode, and have had some old tracks cleared by Jimmy Sagar so we could fell some trees close to our power line, and get at some trees which had fallen a while ago.

Jan is happy as a sandboy with his chainsaw... and I have discovered that acetone-free nail polish remover gets pine sap out of clothing, so I am happy too :-D

Hartmut sent us three beautiful bowls that he made (not the one that discorporated and hit his forehead, needless to say):

I have published my first issue of the CDANZ  magazine, which has been quite intense, along with all the other things I am trying to do at the moment. Now I get a breather until late March, when the next one will be in the starting blocks.

Jan is busy at work still, but seems happy enough with how things are going.

Montrose Drive still hasn't sold, so we have decided to keep it on the market & rent it out. We are meeting some potential tenants there today.

Kathleen & Frits are coming to stay for the weekend, and we have a full-on programme planned, including the Sarau Festival on Sunday. Additionally we may well see Andrew, Jennie & their family today, on their way to the Neudorf concert.

Next week I am in Tauranga (Thursday & Friday), the week after I am in Wellington (Sunday & Monday) and Jan is in Auckland (Monday & Tuesday). Things will also crank up for Semester 1  from the 25th (though I need to be in for orientation week before that).

The Masters work is coming along painfully at the moment as I am still writing a RFP for a presentation at the International Leadership Association conference in Auckland in Anzac week. But it is coming along. So we will see.

In Anzac week we also take off on the North Island Tour with the Rotary International exchange students for twelve days. They will leave me in Auckland for the conference and go on to Hobbiton etc. I will then fly into Rotovegas to catch them up (and miss Hobbiton!). Should work out just fine. We CAN do everything! And Jan will have his trusted lieutenants in Timo, Kazu and Karin.

Camila is back at school, after a lovely holiday at the beach (pictured here with Beto (her Dad), Célia (her Mum) and Ana Silvia:

Tessa got engaged to Sandra last Saturday in Nelson, at a family gathering at Mike's place. I don't have any photos yet, but when I do get some, I will post them. 

Simone has sent some photos of Andreas with Michael, and herself and Michael:

It is my folks' wedding anniversary on the 13th, so hopefully we will get to celebrate with them the weekend before.

Right: I know I haven't covered everything, but this will do for now. Will add more when I get time!

Jan & Sam

News from Nelson - December 2010

Well, what a busy few weeks we have had. We are both well, but Jan has tweaked his back again (the same type of injury as when he came to Germany), playing underwater hockey. He has been going to an osteopath who seems to be straightening him again. I have been studying flat out, and Jan has also been trying to pull his team into shape at work :-)

And speaking of Jan's work, check out the "Changes at the Top" section on the bottom of the front page of the latest company newsletter:

  

In the evenings, despite his back, Jan has been cutting gorse from the top of the gully, and I have been trying to pitchfork it up beside the house in a big pile to dry out, so we can burn it in autumn (not alongside the house though!). A colleague at NMIT reckons we would go well with Boer goats on the property, as they actually enjoy eating gorse. I am not so sure; a friend of mine years ago got about 50 scrub goats on his property - 700 acres being re-broken in from scrub - and all the goats ate was grass and the odd thistle head :-)

We have our cars in the garage, and the pilgrimage of workshop items continues across to the shed. We picked up some posts so that we can do the retaining walls around our water tanks, and then back fill them. That will mean we can have a clothes line at last (never thought I would get excited about a clothes line!). And, after borrowing our builder's trailer for the umpteenth time, we have just ordered the same tandem axle trailer from Briford in Christchurch which should arrive up here just before Christmas.

I had a chat with our as yet un-met painter/decorator neighbour Rob on Friday about fencing our eastern boundary, which he was really co-operative about. Our boundary has a really weird shape along that side, and he too is keen to determine exactly where his place ends & ours begins. Since clearing, seeding and putting up the industrial unit, he has been renting the place out. He had some good tenants in there for a year - Shane who plastered our house - but he & his wife have moved on and the place is empty at the mo.

John H is out here today cutting our building off-cuts into lengths for burning, separating cedar for storage. It is a big pile that Jan & I only just managed to make a tiny dent in, so it is great that John is out here for the day getting it done. Jan worries about all these jobs, so it made sense to get someone in to tackle the ones that keep getting put off. I got a load of cartons from the supermarket to store the bits in to use as firewood, but we aim to get a few apple pails instead, and buy a tractor with a forklift attachment so we can just truck a pail of firewood around to the western deck for the winter. We can strap a tarp over it & be sorted.

I have been being TradeMe queen again this past week, selling off some unearthed items from the garage as we have been clearing out. We have the big treated pine beams on to sell, as we need to empty a whole bay in the shed to fit our new trailer into... gee, that's not going to be easy! I have been ferrying some of Jan's timber which has been stored in the cellar over to the shed so we have some room in the cellar for the wine rack to be built... man, we are definitely getting to a crisis of space.

At least we can get the cars in the garage now. That makes all sorts of things a lot easier - like unpacking the car of the week's groceries onto a flat, clean surface for a start!

Flissy had a lovely time at the neighbour's the other day. Lyn Redden has rented his house out again, and his tenants had a BBQ and dumped the leftovers in an open pit. Fliss and Coco went up there and gorged themselves - Flissy in particular. Jan was horrified that she was so full she was sick, and hurled up a whole sausage without a mark on it. Ah, dogs.

We have Kathleen & Frits' old piano installed now. The piano movers had no trouble finding the place, and said that the map I emailed them was the best set of instructions they had ever had. Nothing like an engineer and a management consultant to get instructions right, eh. So the piano is here, sounding quite sour in places, but there is no point in getting it tuned until it acclimatises...

Jan & I have joined the local tennis club, and have a key to go & play at the lovely new Moutere Rec Centre courts. I am looking forward to having a good bash about over the summer (and I have very little skill, but lots of enthusiasm).

Our last power bill wasn't (ha ha). We got a $10 credit, even netting off the supply charge, which was good. 

We caught up with Karen Batten a couple of weekends ago for lunch in town, and then after a fab Chamber recital at the Chanel Arts Centre in Motueka (which we nearly missed, because we didn't book tickets, thinking door sales would be fine, and they were fully booked out! We were VERY lucky the organisers put some extra seats in). She was playing with Martin & Victoria Jaenecke (violin & viola) Konstanze Artmann (violin) and Paul Mitchell on cello. I hadn't heard an alto flute solo before, and, as it was a piece of Andean music, it was really haunting. Just lovely. The near miss on getting seats for that event gave us a huge spur to get on with booking our Adam festival tickets (next Feb here in Nelson).

We have a week of Christmas functions again - having already had the NSO one, the Career Practitioners one, the Rotary one, the NMIT one and the last Founders meeting of the year. Coming up this week we have the Chamber of Commerce, the AUT graduation party, NMIT graduation, a farewell get together for the Business School's Programme Leader, the Roses Road Christmas Party, the Neudorf Road Neighbourhood Party (at Glenys & Kevin's Mudcastle - always a blast), our family pseudo-Christmas lunch... we were also supposed to have fitted a BBQ with Gary & Nick and a BBQ with Kevin, Sandra & Tiff in there too, but have run out of days. 

Then we are up in Wellington for three days. It will be good to have a few catch ups in the North Island. We have already raided the Nelson Market for edible treats to share. If any of you are travelling around the Nelson Tasman way, give us a call; we are aiming to have a summer at home. John, Brigitte and Tanja are coming down to see us mid-January for a week, otherwise we have an empty spare room and a caravan. Please feel free to come & visit/stay.

Speaking of staying, we will have Bon dog coming for a couple of long stints while John F is off on tour next year. Fliss & Coco will love that.

Right, I think that's it. All the very, very best for Christmas, and we look forward to catching up with you all in 2011 :-) 

Take care and alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young