Glenda & Sid were house-sitting at a large house overlooking Port Chalmers, the Otago Harbour and Dunedin city. They had 2 cats to look after (never seen) and one almighty black labrador called Ali. He was a black torpedo who harried McDuff to death, tried to eat Milly, attempted to kiss you on the face from a standing position and dived into the decorative rockpools every 10 minutes. It sounded like a washing machine going.

As it was Glenda's birthday we went out to lunch at the Carey's Bay hotel which is just round from Port Chalmers where the "Sun Princess" was berthed temporarily. (PICTURE; PERSONAL;MARGARET;"GLENDA'S BIRTHDAY). A lovely lunch with bubbly, seared scallops, lamb shanks and a beautiful view of Carey's Bay out the window.

Happy Birthday Glenda!

Kevin's surgery was cancelled at the last minute on Wednesday. This is good on the one hand, because it has been decided that the surgery is necessary only for cosmetic purposes and that everything else is fine, with the shunt working well, and that the surgery can therefore wait till later (a review will be conducted sometime next year). The bad side of it? Well, put yourself in this position...

Few of you may know it, but Kevin is scheduled to have further surgery this week, this time for a bilateral cranioplasty. The plan is to insert a mesh over which bone can grow to fill the gap in the right side of his skull. The left side is more problematic. The piece of skull removed o­n this side was much bigger than o­n the left and was replaced around a year ago. Throughout the course of this year, the plate has progressively sunk, leaving a very obvious ridge/indentation at the very top of his forehead (see the photos). At this stage we don't know why this has happened, and we are keen to find out more...

Hi everyoneJust a quick note to let you know that I will be sending out invitations to our wedding (14th Feb) in the next couple of weeks, so if anybody wants to come can you reply to this story with your address and I'll send you out an invite.Just in case you didn't see the last story, the wedding & reception will be held at the Queens Park Cricket Pavillion in Invercargill o­n the 14th of February 2009.I realise many of the family live some distance away, so if you can't make it we totally understand.  We will post photos o­n the site for everyone to see.Tracy, Anton, Aimee & Chloe xx

Summer holidays are here, in France, so we are taking the opportunity to fly off to Bunbury to see Alison, Kevin and the girls. We are glad to have the opportunity to give them a bit more face-to-face support, but we won’t be making the extra 7-hour flight to New Zealand, as much as we would like to see everyone, ...

To all those who have visited, phoned, and written to Kev, and to those who have hesitated because they don't know if it will mean much to him.

Gail and Kevin had never met before the night of 29 May 07. They first met when Kevin lay unconscious on the side of the road. Gail spent approximately 50 minutes reassuring, comforting and doing the best to care for Kev under extremely stressful circumstances. Words were the best Gail could offer and were, as time has proved, the most powerful healer at the time and a springboard for healing in the future.

You see, Gail and Kevin did not meet again until 24 May 08, nearly 1 year later, and the following shows how powerful a connection can be formed in the subconscious...

Some of you are already aware that Kevin now has his own blog where you can read all about the progress he is making in his recovery. Ideally we would have launched this a little closer to the anniversary of Kevin’s accident (29 May), but first we wanted to get the blog as up to date as possible. See the bottom of this article for the blog address…

Two and a half weeks ago Kev went to Aylesford House, a Brightwater rehab unit in Perth, for 3 weeks’ assessment/respite. To stop me worrying about him and jumping in the car to rush and and see him, I’ve spent 2 weeks in Bali, with all four girls coming for different lengths of time.

(PHOTO: Places & Travel..Central Otago...... '8 to 80's rail.. 'about to enter") About to enter one of the two tunnels between Wedderburn and Omakau. From the left, Linda (niece), Richard her partner, Mary (my sister), Shaun and me.
We started from Middlemarch, a group of 13 getting out at 10am in full winter gear as overnight snow had fallen on the surrounding hills. However, no wind and lovely autumn colours entranced us on the first leg which was a heavy one of 55km. Through Ranfurly , it was still calm but on the way out the balloon like clouds formed in the sky forecasting strong NW winds. This was a really hard slog with most of us getting off and walking and not being able to steer the bike with the headwind.
The night was spent.....................

Last week from Sydney, a yahoo message from Shaun......' would like to visit soon, ok?"! Upon agreeing with pleasure he gave us the flight number for the following day!

As we had to take the caravan in to Oamaru for a COF, we had planned to go somewhere for a couple of days after that. This changed the plans and we headed early for Christchurch after getting a pass for the COF........