Family Time!
This has been a month where I got to spend some quality time with my family.
Trip to New Zealand
I travelled to New Zealand to celebrate my mums 90th birthday late in the month. It was awesome to be able to see mum, my sister, and my two brothers and my children as well as a range of cousins and close family friends on the actual party day and the days either side.
First off was a very important few hours spent with my cousin. I had booked to fly in and out of Wanaka, and hadn't finalised the travel from Wanaka to Dunedin and back when I had a welcome message from my cousin - "I will pick you up". This cousin was like an extra brother when I was growing up. We knocked around together, built stuff, teamed up on various Young Farmers events and generally spent quite a bit of time together. Many road trips and good times.
Unfortunately my cousin has a ticking clock. He was diagnosed with a serious cancer late last year and is now taking a " do it now " approach to life. One of the things that has become especially important and valuable to him is family. It was great to have a bit over three hours in the car where we remeniced about the great times that we had growing up. It was an absolute pleasure to spend this time with him - I don't know when I will have another opportunity to do a road trip like this again. We both have health challenges ahead, but I am by far the more fortunate.
I duly was delivered to my mothers house, a cuppa and a chat where the order of the evening. It was good to see my sister - the advance party - who had travelled from Sydney and been there for a week or so.
Next day arrivals included a niece from Auckland and then little brother from the UK who was also staying with mum. My older brother who lives locally called in with his family. It is the first time that my siblings had been together for about 5 years, at that was a for my dads funeral. This was the first time we have all gathered for a happy celebration for many years.
There was also a little side project that embarked on. Before travelling I asked my sister to hunt out dads old video camera, plug it it and check if it worked. Good news was that it seemed to power on and so I threw my video converter and was ready to locate some of my dads videos. I tested the process and a pile of 21 videos was found. Conversion began. Play each video and strip the content. While that was running in the background I could carry on with some work. Interested parties would come and check out the family gems as something would catch their or my attention. Slowly and systematically I worked through the tapes, and then I discovered 36 more! That put the pressure on to get the tapes digitised before heading off from Dunedin. I finally managed to get them all done and I can take my time extracting, cataloguing and making available to the rest of the family.
The party day was very special, with numerous cousins and other relatives in attendance. It was held at Clifton the farm I grew up on and have many happy memories. Thanks to my older brother and his wife for hosting the high tea and making everything so lovely for mum.
The year in review - research, awareness and advocacy
I have been reflecting all the things I have been involved in this year.
Becoming an Aussie.
Yes.. A little more progress. Forms to fill and lodge. Yawn. It's a drawn out process. And expensive.
More help with Parkinson's awareness and advocacy.
YOPD catch up this month was a general chit chat. #thisisparkinsons . Again some very open and honest discussion from the group.
Walking.
On going through rain, and shine. Still haven't missed a day . New target 1000. #committed
Medication.
No Change to the schedule or positive impact.
Pilates.
Pilates is back on Wednesday evenings, more challenges being set for me. It has been smaller numbers with just the two or three of us this each week.
PFU Boxing and more.
Each week there is something new for the warmup. Good to see some of the old regulars reappearing too.
Social Outings.
Lots on the calendar, regular "Thirst-day" drinks with the lads are always good. You can find us at Ballistic on Montague Road from about 4:30 each week.
Work.
Head down and focus on delivery with more work coming on stream from sometimes unexpected places. Still trying to catch up and complete some existing projects. Many new projects in the pipeline and continuing to clean up existing projects.
Land Sailing.
Waiting for each Sunday to see what's happening at the track.... and have had a few other events happening. Weather conditions mean no sailing. bah.
Otherwise for me its still so far so good.
Same Same.
And that is all for just now - keep a lookout for the next post and thanks for tagging along!