A couple of weeks ago, the forecast for Thursday was great. Thursday is "adventure day" for local GP David & anyone who can join him.

We decided to go up Gertrude Saddle. David ski's with skins and ski crampons. I just crampon up & down.

We took Dilys - she is allowed in the National Park for SAR training & becoming comfortable in the mountains is essential.

We had stunning weather. 

The summer route heads around the east side of Black Lake. In winter straight across the lake is quicker.

After Mum had learnt how to use email and the computer she sent this to me.  It is time I posted it here.  I have copied and pasted it from her letter.

"The Power of Prayer.

This is a true account of a miraculous recovery. Des and I talked about it between our two selves.

It is a long time since I recorded myself playing sax.  I made this recording to post on Cafe Saxophone since I am hosting the "Ballad of the Month".

So here it is for the family to listen to. The backing track was made by a friend in Bristol.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xlgw5m89hi2z1an/I%20Loves%20You%20Porgy%20v1…

I used a Zoom H1 microphone plugged into Vivien's 2010 Mac and Audacity music editor to remove the background noise and add a tiny little bit of reverb.

For Douglas's 21st birthday, we bought him a drive in a Radical SR3.

He got 7 laps with a professional driver alongside him to coach him a little.

He thoroughly enjoyed it.

After that, Douglas, Gethin and Roo had a go in the rental karts. Gethin was (predicably) the quickest, and Roo was (predictably) slowest, but it was a lot of fun. Nicky and Papi watched !

Then we all went for lunch - Nicky's choice as it was Mother's day here in NZ.

Nicky presented to the NZ Heath Select Committee yesterday on the closure of the primary birthing unit at Lumsden, along with three others.

The video of the presentation is attached, along with links to the articles regarding the issues.

https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/southland/te-anau-maternity-services-left…

Thought I would surprise you this year and send you a birthday greeting.

Hope you have/had a good day.

video 2 the last one of he course.

It's held over a lake to make sure that the pilot lands on the water if it all goes wrong, a resscue boat zooms out to pick you up as water landings almost always end in death without a rescue boat. 

Here area couple of videos of my "incident" course in annecy, where we induced flying emergencies and tried to recover from them!

I loved every minute, but only as there was an instructor talking me down most of the time

Having written the following on my tablet while in the Philippines I found the pictures are on my laptop back in Canada. I will add them later. 

Autumn Canoeing 

This is rather incomplete and out of date, but I thought I should publish it anyway.

Nicky & I are on holiday.

Nicky’s best friend from teenage years, Jude is in New Zealand - mainly because Alex, their son is working in Wellington.

As part of their trip they planned a week touring (some of) the South Island in a campervan including a couple of days in Te Anau with us, so we decided to borrow a campervan and gate-crash their trip.