Pics for Paula's Cancer support effort

 Not a good way to send them.  Unfortunately all but the last one are now stuck in the albums.

For some reason I cant move them around in this blog so theyre roughly back to front

the one above is Christmas when she had cancer but we didn't know what it was and the doc knowing the slim odds didn't break it to us till after the holiday.

Above one of the very caring nurses at the RVI

above that, in the pic only Jem survived.  We can only remember one other who did and we still keep in contact with her mum mostly.

In composite above, jem's 2nd birthday, with cake and the dolls house I bought in Newcastle.

Above that Scarborough pics and a quiet Sunday in the ward

In composite above that, Seascale pics and one of her last treatments

Above that Christmas 84 at home

Above and top, her in Papatoetoe at 8 I think

You have her latest pics I'm sure

Her first treatment was on Friday Jan 13th 1984 for what was then a 2 year program of roughly monthly treatments.  with advances it was shortened to 1 year and her last treatment was Friday Jan 13th 1985.

If they are not of usable quality I can try scanning them again

The Fondue party

Are you ready for this!!

Jenny Penny and Elaine eye some of the ingredients

Burners lit!  Lets all get into it

We have to chat though as well as eat

Penny and Anne frantically keeping up with the flow of goodies

Now it's really  getting under way Laughter from Elaine Neil Tabatha and Garth

The cleaners, what do we do next?

Earl as usual enjoys the social side, showing off his new nose when not being tended to by Anne

Garth, Man in Kitchen

Now the interesting part,

Dessert is served!  Chocolate overload now follows Cheese overload!    Phylis and Anne at the far end in contemplation.

Finishing it up, not a lot left now!

Still stuff to do, how many pots can there be?

The big game starts AB's Vs France  Garth and elaine eye it hopefully

The lovebirds,  Tabatha and Neil don't care about the result.

Anne realises the awful truth, we're losing.

Jen and Pauline past caring!

Steve Enjoying the rapport

Cool vet Garry, very controlled after the game.

Yes, It worked!!  We all had fun and the house didn't burn down!

Since last time, gardening and the Fondue party

We had quite a full time recently. Well for someone who does nothing it was full! Ha!

  After returning from the beach, having Penny working away at the chalk face all week for a number of weeks seemed to make time disappear.  I've been doing a couple of help jobs.  a few afternoons helping paint the stairwell in Bro Roger's rental place,  a bit of floor sanding and varnishing  together with taping of joints in the rather interesting hardboard ceilinged garage.  followed this with a bit of shelving in a friend's airing cupboard, still on-going.

  

Meanwhile the garden saga which has so far been un-mentioned is more or less complete (well the idea is anyway).  originally we had a red guava which produced quite a lot of fruit but unfortunately the red ones have irritating little stones in them.  not only that but the bush is  (or rather was) straggly and in a prime position in the garden.  So it had to go.  Of course it was pruning time anyway so all the apple and plum trees had their autumn prune some of the Puka trees were blocking light at the front of the house so they joined the heap and the question of the moment, the palms at the front of the house lost most of their fronds in a pretty vicious haircut.  more on the heap.  I borrowed a chainsaw from a mate but in the end I was convinced by Pen not to remove them.  This was going to cost over $100 just for the bin hire to remove the wood  (is it wood in a palm?).  However I did say that that was the last time I climb the ladder to that height to prune the fronds.  If I have to go much higher next year they will have had their day.  After scuttling around to various places we seem to have a nice collection of bargain plants. Two nice smelly camellias for the front replacing the unfortunately chosen brooms which I took out in the spring, a viburnum,  lilac and a rather interesting plant called a Silver cloud which is a scented magnolia look-alike to replace the guava, the horrible (to me) 3m high native kauri tree which I have put up with for years (how about this, I advertised it on Trade-me and someone took it away for a dollar! Apparently he specialises in making them into sort of bonsai trees. good luck!) and my much loved  by me but not by Penny, Tree tomatoes which for some reason died.  All I have to do is to prepare the ground, which unfortunately on the hill here is pure clay of amazing colours and consistency, and dig them in.  When the rain stops that is.

Last weekend was nice.  Cold and bright enough to drive us out for a walk somewhere other than the botanical gardens for a change but not to the local beaches because of the sneaky wind.  So we went to Cornwall Park in town (One tree hill domain that is)

Here's 

 on the mount. notice gloves!! most unusual for us.

And on the way down

Then later on we had people around for a fondue party! Shades of the 1980's eh!

It was very noisy, probably because we had Westies there.  See this site for the next instalment

Up to now

Well it all started with a couple of Vet friends telling us that our Earl the cat could have a burn off on his nose where over the years the UV had caused lesions in his nose.  already treated before they both thought it would get by with another treatment.  off we went one morning Earl and I and Lo, he needed to have the end of his nose removed!  2 days and $700 later home we went with a really flaked out cat.  Back we came the next day because of dehydration and how he'd lost weight from 5.1 kg to 4.7. well we went back and forth for a couple of days but eventually his appetite picked up now that he could start to smell again.  he had all sorts of tasty teas and at all sorts of times.  but now we have Earl back although he still snuffles and grunts a bit.  No photo's he says, wait 'till the stitch has fallen out.

Fortunately all that cat stuff happened before we had our planned weekend in the City, giving us a few days of a reasonably well cat before our day at the Heritage Hotel in Town for our 30th wedding anniversary.   

As you can tell from our "Studio suite" the place was absolutely lovely for our stay.  we supplemented the free bubbly with lots of tasty stuff,  enjoyed the rooftop spa and 20m pool on the rooftop and in the dark sky we were able to look up at the light show on the Skytower above and quite close.  

We visited our usual city Irish Pub (part of the Heritage set-up)for our beef and guinness pies and shopped ourselves to a near standstill. afternoon tea in Borders of course.

hitting the pool and spa on sunday morn was just the stuff! but soon we were on the road again and home.

Next week the weather changed from showers to frosty.  at 100m above sealevel and the rest of the city our place never gets frost.  Well it did this time  see the fog over the city from the lookout on the coldest day.  Well I thought so but the paper said the next day was colder, well whatever, it came down to 2 degrees in our garden on a number of days that week.

Mother's Day

Well what a surprise Penny had when a cardboard box was presented to her by Tabatha ( our boarder) and Neil (fiancee)!

When she opened it look what she found:-

Wasn't that brilliant?

Hey it was well made too! Tasted great, OK maybe I should have left more for Penny but it was SOOO good!

Thanks T and N!

Visitors fom Oman

It was a pretty average sort of day when we tootled off to the airport to pick up David and Linda. Had to remember though that they were on the domestic terminal having flown up from New Plymouth. Roger appeared too and after we all arrived home it wasn't long before Roger had taken david out for a sea swim in his borrowed and as he said very tight wetsuit. there they are with a friend of David's fro way back. I think it'sSt helier's bay (where Katie used to play on the kiddies playground)

One of our trips out was to Takapuna, where they used to pitch tent at the campground. As you can see the weather held off that week allowing us a lovely stroll on the beach

Here's david being a real tourist!.... actually he's taking a photo of that little dog. a real cutie.

Then after all that walking, time for a coffee! Actually this new place next to the campground and right on the water's edge (nearly) was, after we walked all over the main street, by far the best.

And then ... goodbye Takapuna for now.

One event which had to occur was family dinner at Roger's place

And everyone turned up for that

Deborah and Kaitlyn (Leghton was doing his IT stuff in Melbourne that week)

And just about all the Soulsbys Unfortunately Wed night wasn't good for Penny, she was teaching.

but she had bags of time to catch up during the week

All too soon it was time to depart, and off the travellers go to Sydney and Manly beach to catch up with Pip so enjoy the rest of your holiday!!

See you in a couple of years!

Monday 27Apr

We're back from Matarangi where we had a wet and mostly windy weekend. Actually longer than that cos we left on Wednesday afternoon. We took Roger's nice honda Accord as it had the trailer hitch and we had to take back the much repaired washing machine. Unfortunately we didn't get any swimming done as either the tide was out when the weather was marginal or otherwise our much waited for sunshine never appeared. didn't matter to me, I'm not the swimming buff, had lots of time for the wine beer and reading to take effect. what was really good was that we found a new (for us) delicatessen supermarket before we left Auck!! we were quite the bon vivieur for the weekend!! ate our very last pieces of cheese and sicilian olives before we left. yummy. Of course Earl was pleased to see us on our return as was Tom, already into the homework/telly before the week's schooling. He even appeared in his very own car a 1.0 litre toyota something or other. Very swish, for a 9 year old anyway.

Anyway one of the things about returning is that there's always something in the garden to look at. It's Autumn now, so the grapes the birds havent eaten, the figs that I pick just before the birds realise theyre ripe and the passionfruit, all join the apples that the caterpillars certainly have had a go at.

don't they look good?

And then I realised that we still had the last gasp tomatoes left mainly from bushes I hadn't planted but came up from our homemade compostfinally the lettuces have come up!That just leaves the rest of the garden to wrestle with in the coming months.

Well that's the sort of trivia you get when all the family (except Penny of course) are too far away to just pop round to.

Have a great week everyone

R and P