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This is rather incomplete and out of date, but I thought I should publish it anyway.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

We have never had more than two or three very small apples from our tree but this is this years crop.

We had it pruned last winter and we think that, combined with a bumper year for apples - just the right conditions, has produced this brilliant crop.

They are russets and are very nice eating apples.  However as I am the only one in the house who really likes apples I think I have my work cut out!

Twas in the spring of 2018

A gathering and tournament took place in a far flung corner of the globe.

Much merriment was had by all.

Families were invited by scroll and required to respond by supplying their banner to Castle Barrow prior to the day of the event.

The formal competitions consisted of Jousting, Archer, Trebouchet target accuracy and a Meleé.

There was, in addition, apple-bobbing, quoits, a ball-n-shy and much music (though the minstrals were not present; it was magically reproduced through four small black boxes).

As Dill will eventually be a Search and Rescue dog, she needs to travel to training events with me, and her sleeping quarters away from home will be the car.

It rapidly became clear that the little Citroen C3, nice car that it is, will not really be appropriate for SAR stuff.

Hence Vera.

Vera is a Range Rover Vogue. She's quite old but in very good condition. She  currently has a V8 petrol for her heart, but that will change - we'll give her a heart-transplant in summer and she'll be a more efficient (if slower) diesel powered car.