"This is the end, beautiful friend, this is the end" In Memory of my friend Justine

I have been deeply saddened over the last week with the news that one of my best friends back home died suddenly while on holiday for a family celebration in Samoa. For those of you who have faithfully followed this blog, Justine was the J of J&J who sometimes left comments at the end of my posts. The sudden and unexpectedness of her death has hit hard - I would have been catching up with her next month on my return to NZ for a holiday and am still trying to get my head around the fact that we will not have our usual debrief catching up on all those things that do not fit into an email/blog etc. We shared a particular time in our lives when both working at the same school and found we had much in common which led us to becoming fast friends. I admired her consumate professionalism at work and regarded Justine as a friend and mentor, learning much from her. I shall miss the shopping expeditions, sharing foodie excursions to local haunts and the dinner parties of several courses and accompanying red wine through to liquors, sitting doing embroidery together, sharing books, and of course that chats solving the world's, the families' and our own issues over numerous coffees, nibbles, red wine, chocolate (in all its forms, lol) against the background of music and or favourite tv shows, comparing photos and news about our respective children and grandchildren - this list goes on.

We introduced family and friends to each other - not only did Justine become friends with Mum, sister Kay, and friend Viv during their many visits when I was Head of Boarding, she also taught niece Laura and had followed her budding career as author of her own blog and now soon to be published cookbook. As a teacher she touched the lives of countless students and was always happy to see where they went in their adult lives. Mum made the trip down to Hamilton for her funeral to represent the family and by all accounts it was a wonderful tribute to Justine. As much as I find her death incomprehensible, Justine was  a woman of faith - something else we shared ( though neither of us had any patience with the man made parts of religion), so am digging deep at the moment to accept this loss.

 The title of this Post comes via the Doors - and it came to me while I was thinking about Justine yesterday, so have run with it even though she was not a huge Doors fan.  Music was very much a theme to Justine's life so much so that many of the towns and cities on their Route 66 tour of the States were to be found in song titles and I remember looking at the map before they went laughing at how many places had been sung about.

As I have been reminded several times over the last week, it has been awhile since I last posted - and the last time I was unwell. I am happy to report that I have returned to health, and hopefully will get to the end of the year without further issues although when working with children, not necessarily guaranteed! We have had children with boils, ring worm and last week the chicken pox (have had chicken pox when I was 12,  so all good there) and of course nits - have dodged a bullet with all of them so far - touch wood. My back that I put out - I gave up going to the chiropractor and toughed it out in the end - not lifting babies heaps has helped with that. Since I last posted it has been a bit of an emotional roller coaster at work too as we had one of our sibling groups move out two brothers at a time, and the other sibling group also move on after having them for over a year. I had become very attached the younger ones of each family group so it was quite a wrench to say goodbye,especially as the transition was not easy for some of them. Luckily I have been able to see one family of  boys a couple of times since and it now seems they are more settled in their new home which is what we hoped would happen. In the meantime we have had another sibling group come and go, and we have several new kids to replace them. There is no shortage of neglected or traumatised children  so the time between kids leaving and new ones arriving is brief indeed.

 Also connected with work, I have been going through the process of becoming a respite foster carer with the department of child protection. I have been having visits from one of the lads I used to look after at work - I am regarded as a person of significance in his life and have managed to stay in touch with him since he moved out. Becoming a respite carer officially means he can stay more than one night at a time so that when his carer needs a break he can come to me instead of maybe having to go to someone who he doesn't know. He is lucky that another work colleague that he knows is already a respite carer so he will then have two of us who can look after him. My first interview was a couple of hours and then the main interview took four hours, with three other referees having 45 mins interviews by phone so it is a lengthy process and I am already on the books at the department through being a staff member!

At the end of last month we had our annual work conference and this year was a huge improvement on last year. In the main there were great speakers and along with the networking, there was quite an opportunity to hear how the district is doing and some specifics from those working on special projects within the department. During one of the sessions we did one of those life balance cycle exercises and I guess it was no surprise to find that work, family and friends were the only things that rated above 7 on the scale of 1 - 10, in level of importance in my life and most other areas were either flat lined or just slightly above. Hmmmmm food for thought indeed.  So,  I am now looking at what I can do to fill some of the flat line areas up somewhat. To that end, I have begun yet another sort through things I have piled up to do when I have time to do them ..... almost an exercise like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, lol.

 I realised I had not taken any photos since my cameras were stolen and that maybe getting another camera might be a step in the right direction. This was by way of getting my hard drive sorted out....... When I went to look for the cords to connect my hard drive to my laptop, I could not find the power pack so headed off to the local appliance shop to purchase a new one only to be told, - we only sell them, we do not have parts!! Snarl, spit, what is the point in that, snarl, spit again so the hapless person delivering the above news gave me two choices of places to go to MAYBE get what I wanted. I hied myself off the one with the easiest parking and there was blindsided by the news - yes we have a power pack but without knowing the amps or some such thing, it is difficult to know which one will work, if too high you may lose all your info and if too low, not to good either - hair now spiking with frazzledness and feeling fangs sharpening to fillet said person behind counter - ok then,  am now exceedingly over this, how do I get the info on the hard drive out of the tetra hard drive thingie so I can get access to all that I have stored on it -- ok, that is easy, I can get the inner hard drive thing out and we have a new case you can put it in for $48. Be still my bleeding heart!  No sooner said than done and why did it take nearly a nervous breakdown on the spot to get that piece of news! Within the space of 10 mins the bloke behind the counter had undone screws placed innards into new casing and given it a road test and all was good - yay - not only a new case with own power pack but also a usb connection and a stand for the hard drive to sit in. Now this place just happened to be two doors away from a Harvey Norman shop so thought why not check out the cameras while I was there - hence I am now the proud possessor of a new Fuji camera that has 30 zoom lens and will take 11 shots a second (when I learn how to do it, lol), it will also do panoramic shots and whoohoo, have had a go at that and it is amazing.


I have also been spending some time in my garden - revived from near death during the summer autumn  months, I have cut back bushes, pulled out lantana bushes that were becoming small trees (also poisonous plants and noxious weeds over here),  have eaten my first lettuces and spinach and hoping that the capsicums, courgettes, tomatoes and basil now take off.  I planted runner beans again but they are very lack lustre in their growth - it is probably cheaper to buy all the above mentioned vegetables by the time water consumption, plants, manure etc is taken into consideration but it is grounding I think to grow things.  I cut lavender stems the other week and stuffed them into a jug to make a nice display inside on the hearth and felt very hunter gatherish when harvesting my lettuces and spinach.  The citrus manuring from last season seems to have paid off and the small mandarin tree that had one  offering last year is smothered in blossom this year - will keep fingers crossed.

Have been visiting the ex workmates a fair bit lately - it is the season for reality talent shows again - The Voice, Australia's got Talent and now X Factor so at least once a week I get round depending on my shifts to try and watch the shows.  Have got into playing cards again - mainly Canasta at the moment and young Hayden has become very adept at playing,  so much concentration is involved with each highly contested game.  He has got very cheeky at his ability to beat his father and me every now and then, lol.  Brianna, the eldest daughter turned 18 earlier in the month and bought a brand new car for herself which is an awesome effort for someone her age.  She is getting it over four years and likely to have it paid off before that - both her mother and I shaking our heads as neither of us has ever owned a brand new car! She works full time now at Macca's and has already made management trainee so doing very well for herself indeed.

Good news over the past few weeks is that sister Kay came through an op after discovering a lump on her neck (that wasn't her head, lol), which turned out to be a tumour on her saliva gland (has some very fancy name which escapes me as I type).  The short version is that the tumour was benign (great release of held breath at that news), the surgeon removed 3cm of saliva gland and got all the tumour leaving Kay looking like she had been in a machete attack by pirates.  As people are wont to do after surgery, she did try to show me  the wound site several times - with me seeing plaster before I could close my eyes (which was bad enough) and I did remark she needed to have health warning mentioned before trying to display her wounds on skype. It seems you are not allowed to "excite" your taste buds for some weeks after this type of surgery as to produce huge amounts of saliva not only hurts but could put the surgery at risk, so befell a fate almost worse than death for a Naysmith - no salt, spice or interesting foods, no tomatoes or acidic fruit, no hot drinks to begin with - just bland, butterless, saltless, most basic of foods - no chocolate of any sort either .....With great strength of purpose, she followed the Dr's instructions and is now slowly reintroducing some taste back into her life, getting a twinge when she has gone too far but in the main, doing ok.  Once again skype came into its own and most days was able to catch up for a quick hello once she was home from surgery . 

Have finally booked my tickets home for next month and that was a marathon effort over two nights - I had requested leave at work which was defined by two lots of training, only to be told I could change the dates when one of the training times was put back from the end of October to December.  As I am trying to work around the impending arrival of the newest grandchild the change gave me a better option if the birth does not happen on the due date so had to rejig dates off work and by then all the flights I thought  I could get  changed as by then it made more sense to go to No 1 son's first in Wellington than to fly to Auckland then Wellington and back to Auckland effectively cutting out one extra flight. 

This has been written in several goes and so will not post before making a sandwich for lunch and heading to the foreshore for a ramble.  It is now the weekend and I have had the young lad I mentioned before since Friday night for emergency respite care while his carer is in hospital with pneumonia - luckily I had the weekend off and have training during the week so can manage drop offs and pickups around pre and after school care.  After three grey, windy and rainy days it is blue sunshine with a stiff breeze so washing is drying on the line and it is warm in sheltered spots.  Need to go as am being told he is starving, lol.  :)