News from Nelson – September 2007

Hi everyone,

I hope things are going well with you all!

We have just been away to Hanmer for the weekend, enjoying a few walks and quite a lot of slothing about. The Heritage in Hanmer was pretty good to stay at - we had some very nice breakfasts, taking more than an hour each day, leisurely reading the papers, talking and having just one more coffee :-)

Two girl babies have arrived within our circle of friends in the past few weeks; Fleur & Neil have had Lani Catelyn; and Mo & Bean (that's Maria Geary) have also had Amelia Jane. All seem to be pretty well and enjoying the adventure that life is offering. Also Jenny & Andrew are three weeks off having their new addition to their family.

Well, after having said last time that Jan didn't feel that his Management Accounting paper was going so well, he got his mark back for his first exam and got 94%. However, he wanted me to be sure to say that he thinks half the class got in the 90s as well.

My lecturing is still going well. The head of school, Claire Dallison, has asked me if I would be interested in lecturing the intro-level marketing paper next year - I have said that I would be willing to discuss requirements. Claire is away on leave for five weeks, so we will talk terms when she gets back. I have officially registered for the Certificate in Adult Teaching (CAT) qualification training for next year as well.

John & Jo have given us another present for looking after Bonnie - a Zen mp3 player loaded with talking books. I am currently listening to "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, which is proving to be most thought-provoking (Richard Dawkins is the 'Professor for the Public Understanding of Science' at Oxford University). It was terribly generous of them - especially considering Coco's blue latex squeaky cat present (still "The Best Toy in the World").

We went to "Go for Zucker" (Alles Auf Zucker) which was a hoot. If you haven't seen it, make some time. We have Kathleen, Frits & John Hofman coming around on Weds night for dinner and a movie (maybe Memoirs of a Geisha) and to celebrate Jan's birthday. Then we are off to see a play on Saturday night (Dangerous Liaisons) with John & Jo at the Suter Theatre.

We are hosting a monthly Kiwi movie night once more - however, this time it is for members of the Nelson Newcomers Network, a club run by the Nelson Multi-Ethnic Council, on behalf of my Rotary club. We have ten people around to see a Kiwi film, talk about it and have a bite to eat afterwards. We started with Goodbye Pork Pie, went on to Stickmen last week, and will look at Came A Hot Friday in the last week of September.

We have a new pub in our area. This is a new venture set up by a local, boutique beer brewer, Harrington's, aka the Tasman Brewing Company. They aim to buy old single storey villas in the suburbs, near good fish & chippies, and convert them into a local tavern. Branded as the 'Sprig and Fern', they sell excellent local beers and wines, and you can order your fish & chips and eat them outside with your beer (I love their "Wobbly Boot", a dark beer). Jan & I met John, Jo, Kathleen & Frits there a couple of weeks ago and had dinner and a quiet chat (well, the place was PACKED so I think it was more like a shout than a chat). Great place, and we will definitely be popping back for more. There are three pubs in the franchise so far, Blenheim, Richmond and Nelson (http://sprigandfern.co.nz/thetaverns.aspx).

Our next trip away is to Sydney for our wedding anniversary in November. We have put our Wellington trip back to the first week in December, and will make that a good family catch up.

Take care, everyone. Alles liebe :-)

Sam & Jan

News from Nelson – August 2007

Hi All,

Great to have heard from so many of you over the past month. We are looking forward to seeing Jenny L later this week again (these plant monitoring trips are great!) and also heading off to the land for a day over this coming weekend.

We have been busy yet again. However, Merrill's birthday in Golden Bay was great; we used a rental car which we had won on a Travel Quiz Auction last year to drive over (Toyota Camry; Jan said he definitely isn't interested in buying one, having driven it!).

We visited Fleur & Neil for lunch on the way to Collingwood and found Fleur sitting down on the stairs saying that she was really sore; as time went on, she became less able to move and so Neil took her to see her Takaka midwife. The next thing we knew was that Fleur was being whipped off to Nelson in the ambulance. That was a fortnight ago, and she is still in Nelson; the general opinion is that, in case something goes wrong Takaka is too far away to let her safely go home. At least the hospital has a couple of family-stay self-catering houses in the hospital grounds, so Fleur is staying at the hospital, but not in it. So last Weds night we picked her up and brought her around to our place for dinner and a change of scene; if she is still here in Nelson tomorrow we will do the same.

Jan's Management Accounting paper is not going so well, in his opinion. He doesn't feel that the concepts are making sense to him. I think it will suddenly start to hang together more, as time goes on - I had a lot of trouble when starting my first management accounting paper. It took quite a while for it all to make sense.

However, my AUT's Sports Degree 'People Management' paper lecturing is going well. We are now in the midst of the first assignment (class group presentations followed by individual 'reflective reading') and I am really enjoying it. I have made enquiries about starting some Certificate in Adult Teaching (CAT) qualification training.

As part of the CAT study, there is a paper on NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). Through my Career Practitioner's Association membership, I had heard about an NLP training course being run over the whole weekend, this weekend just gone, at a very reasonable rate, so I put my hand up to attend. So I think that's one paper almost down. I may need a couple of private sessions with the NLP trainer (who also runs the CAT course) to cover those education areas not covered by a career-oriented NLP course. So that means there are probably only seven papers to go already. I like that.

My being out of the way for the NLP training gave Jan an ideal opportunity to decide to (a) go to work for one day and (b) spend a day cleaning out the garage. The clean up resulted in one rubbish bag and a wee bit of recycling, and him spending the day apparently repairing one headlight torch. Only 99.5% of the garage to go!

We had the annual Chamber of Commerce staff and board dinner on Friday night just gone, and Michelle, the new Chamber Operations Manager, had hired in a couple of oversized 'gameboys'; widescreen game motor-racing consoles with the chair, pedals and steering wheels. Jan had to be prized away with a crowbar  :-)

Bonnie has gone home as John & Jo have returned. When Jan dropped Bonnie off at their place, they gave us some dog toys as thank yous. One of those toys, a blue latex squeaky cat, has been adopted as what appears be "The Best Toy in the World" by Coco. She will not leave it alone. She even sleeps on it. I have never seen a dog so enamoured with a toy, for so long, before. I would dearly like to buy more of them, but I have never seen these before (and I have been scouring the internet!).

We went to see a German film, 'Lives of Others' (Das Leben der Anderen), last night. We thought it was a great film. We also have tickets to go & see "Go for Zucker" (Alles Auf Zucker) tomorrow night, which we are really looking forward to. The Platinum Theatre here shows usually eight or ten foreign/fringe films each fortnight, so there is a good selection of non-Hollywood experiences on offer. Our trouble is that we forget to check what's on, and so miss lots of them!

On the last weekend of this month, we are going to Hanmer weekend for our luxury weekend, staying in the Honeymoon Suite (of all things!). Then our next trip away will be Sydney for our wedding anniversary in November. We have put our Wellington trip back to the first week in December, and will make that a good family catch up.

OK, I think that's all I have time for now - look after yourselves, everyone. Alles liebe :-)

Sam & Jan

News from Nelson – July 2 2007

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

News from Nelson – July 2007

Hi All,

I hope all is going well with you all. We have had a really cold snap here - we have had a few frosts at home, and one day last week when the polar blast came through we had a sprinkling of snow on the hills behind the city.

Last night we had a celebration for my mother's 70th birthday. She had a great time, with about twenty of us gathering at a local restaurant. Mike, Barb & I got her a day spa voucher which she can either blow on one day of mega-pampering, or take piecemeal as she likes over the coming months. I also put together a photo album of 350 photos of relatives, friends and immediate family. I think she rather enjoyed that.

UWH in Chch for the UWH Secondary School Regional Champs was cold. The kids got really excited on the way home as it started to snow, but luckly it soon stopped. An uneventful journey both ways; all the kids behaved really well, had a good time and played hard.

Things have started to quieten down with work for both of us now; Jan has enrolled for this coming semester for another paper (Management Accounting), but we no longer have a competition to work towards for UWH, so that takes the heat out of that a bit.

Fleur & Neil came to stay on Sunday night - Fleur had to come over from Golden Bay for another trip to hospital - just for a routine scan. She doesn't have too long to go in her pregnancy, and hopefully everything will go OK from now on.

The Sports Diploma People Management lecturing starts in another two weeks. I have quite a bit of reading to do before it starts, but at least I have a bit of time to get started on it now.

Hui-Ping is also back in Nelson for a month or so as Murray has just been made Corporate Services Manager for TDC and needed an accountant to do his old job. Jan & I caught up with both Hui-Ping & Julie for lunch last weekend. We are also all catching up with Jenny Cooper & Mo for breakfast Tuesday next week (Mo is due to have her baby really soon too).

Well, you may remember that last time I mentioned that Jan had had a cold, and that a friend of ours told us about this new Vicks nasal spray product called "First Defence" which you can take to try to ward off a cold when you first start getting the symptoms. Well, I didn't catch the cold, so it looks like it worked. Not bad!

Last time we also had Bonnie the Boxer staying with us again - well, we picked her up again today for another month with us, as John & Jo have left to go overseas on a marketing trip. When Bonnie stayed recently she was great. She has grown up quite a lot since the first time & just clicked back into place. No problems except for the toy destruction; three boxers can spell death to playthings very quickly.

Fliss' eye ulcer got the all clear from the canine eye specialist, and she is nearly back to normal. We started running before it suddenly got so cold, and so I have now no desire to go out early in the mornings anymore.

Two weeks ago I had my braces fitted, and, as predicted, I have been eating a lot of soup and yoghurt. Having all that ironmongery permanently in my mouth feels DISGUSTING. By about day three, if the braces hadn't been bonded onto my teeth, I would have trying to drag them off with pliers. Never mind - only 1050 days to go!

This coming weekend we are heading down to Hanmer with some of the Hutties. Then we are off to Hanmer weekend for a luxury weekend in August and a lovely week in Sydney for our wedding anniversary in November. There might be another couple of trips in there elsewhere as well.

OK, I think that's all I have time for now - look after yourselves, everyone. Alles liebe :-)

Sam & Jan