Busy, busy, busy

This blogging whilst lying in bed on a weekend morning is obviously becoming a habit. Kim Hill on the radio, cat curled up at our feet and Eric is finishing a novel. I read it and recommended he do so (John Katzenbach’s The Analyst). He is at the prologue and I have just told him who the perpetrators are thinking that was revealed in the last chapter – it wasn’t!! Opps.

Unusually, it’s raining. We have had some lovely weather this last few weeks and the Waikato has settled into its very foggy mornings typical of autumn and winters. Fortunately this has been followed by lots of sun and temps are still up to 200C. I spent some of Anzac Day (Wednesday) planting seedlings in the veg plot so am pleased with the rain.

Gosh what a busy week it has been. I haven’t been in for one evening. Monday teaching in Hamilton (more on that to come), Tuesday Rotary (ditto), Wednesday more teaching, Thursday band and Friday a community debate.

Kim (my Waikato DIF colleague) and I have been asked to do some teaching with community pharmacists and their staff on influenza so that they promote it in their work. We have organised a programme and are doing 8 sessions around the region. At the first session on Monday evening we were warned that they were not a lively bunch and not to expect many questions. Well, that wasn’t true. They were great, really enthusiastic and they did ask lots of questions. The evaluations were brilliant and we left really buzzing. I had a discussion with the chairperson of the National Influenza Strategy Group about this and she asked me to write up an evaluation). We have also formally requested that resources be developed for this group and a national training be rolled out. I really hope this makes a difference to the immunisation rates. It took a patient in ICU when I worked there in 2002 to open my eyes to how serious this disease is. Seeing a 34 year old healthy mother nearly die of influenza, a disease than can be prevented easily by immunisation, was a serious wake up call. I have been vaccinated every year since, as are E, H and A. Are you?

I may have mentioned a while ago that I did a talk at Rotary and it was suggested that Eric and I consider joining. We decided to give it a go and have been to a couple of meetings. The work they do is so worthwhile that you have to ignore the irritating ways of some things about the organisation. The meetings are dominated by older men and I think we will bring the average age down significantly but if some young people don’t join then no other ones will, will they. There are a couple of younger members so we are not the only ones. Problem is that both working full time we are not available for a lot of the work they do but I guess they will make allowances for that. We will see how it goes.

Anzac Day is a national holiday in Auz and NZ. Alice did a sleep over the night before with the Guides so she could do a dawn parade on the day. Their remembrance services start at dawn, usually with a 9am one and other events through the day. Alice, who was always very enthusiastic about Remembrance Sunday was quite downbeat about the dawn parade. We still do our remembering in November as Cambridge has celebrations over that whole weekend and we attend the cenotaph service there. The Guides had trip to Hamilton to go bowling in the afternoon so we went as a family to that.

Band reconvened for the first time since camp on Thursday. Our conductor was away and so I roped Clare Hitchcock (a longstanding and inspiring music teacher in Matamata, the one who has agreed to teach me piano) into conducting for the evening. The guys really enjoyed catching up with each other. I am not sure how it is in the UK now but kiwi kids love to hug, actually I think all kiwis love to hug, especially the Maori. It is so nice to see my children comfortable with expressing themselves physically and shedding some of that British reserve their father exhibits!

Matamata is developing a new tradition (I that a contradiction in terms?) of an annual fund raising community debate organised by the staff at the medical centre. We were unable to get to lat years first one but managed the one last night. It was such a hoot. Harriette went but found herself the only child (sorry Harriette ‘young person’ she definitely is not a child anymore) so felt a bit conspicuous. They had a few performances from Matamata college musicians, including 2 incredibly talented Maori boys playing guitar. They then had 2 guys up from Wellington doing theatre sports (refer to the band camp entry if you don’t know what I am talking about). I am rapidly becoming a convert to theatre sports. Both times I have experienced them I have been in hysterics. Alice didn’t come so we dropped her at R+R’s where she is sleeping over as she wanted to go to netball with Sarah and Katherine this morning. (H and A are not doing netball this year as they will miss so much because of our UK trip). The Chiefs were playing a crucial match in the Super 14 so we called in on R+R on the way home to watch the second half. Chiefs won so are hanging in there after an appalling start in the competition.

Daddy’s 70th birthday is on 3rd May and he wants to do something at their house next Saturday similar to what we did for Mom last November. Several people won’t be able to come (eg Ann and Mike have gone back to the UK etc) so we will do what we can. Unfortunately Mom is not well at the moment and her sister in the UK has just died so things are a bit down there at the moment but hopefully that will turn around before Thursday. Several of Daddy’s male relatives died in their 70th year so I think he will be quite relieved to get to this birthday!!!

Alice came home from school yesterday with ‘a bone to pick’ with me. She had received a commitment award for ‘commitment to achievement in all areas of school life’ (I think) and apparently parents are told so they can be at the school for this. The moms of the other 2 recipients were there but not us. Poor Alice. But we had not been told. The others got awards for commitment to other things and Alice was told that her award was highly prestigious. I will go and take a photo of her picture on the board in school as I couldn’t be there to take her photo on the day.

H. is plodding on though we are a bit disappointed with her attitude to school. She continues to achieve at a high level but does no work to get there. Her attitude is ‘I get excellence in everything so that should be good enough’. It is difficult to get through to her that she should be going the extra mile despite her results. Still nagging won’t help so we try not to do that. I am planning to go in and see her GATE co-ordinator this week if I can.

We have topped up our mortgage and plan to do some work on the house, another bedroom, a workshop for Eric, the drive and a retaining wall. Poor Eric is going to be busy drawing up plans etc over the coming weeks. Naturally I want everything done yesterday!

Oh I suppose I’d better get up. Walking then a major supermarket shop are on the agenda today. I haven’t been in a supermarket for weeks and I have a list as long as your arm. I may just sneak in a trip to the garden centre and tidy up my hanging baskets for the winter as I don’t think I will be able to get into the veg plot.