The Traveling Kiwi

It doesn’t feel like Christmas, it been wet and windy and suddenly hot then wet again. Looks like we will have some rain tomorrow for Christmas Day, it’s summer but nothing like the hot dry summer we have been threatened with. I have not been up to much at all, the ablation looked like it worked for about a week but now I have a whole different problem that has been getting worse and worse. I finally got some new meds that didn’t work so I doubled the dose today and finally had a whole day that I could move around without consequences. Fingers crossed I will be ok to drive to christchurch for mums birthday. 91 is another milestone not to be missed.

I made a fruit cake, my first ever Christmas cake and as anyone who knows me I am not much of a cake baker. This one tastes great but crumbles and is more like a pudding, but hey it is my homage to Christmas and will get nibbled away at over the next few weeks.

I am looking forward to heading down to chch, it’s a long drive but I love road trips. Mum misses her car and there is no spare cars for my two week visit so I get to drive. 2 days down and 2 days back. Only thing that could be better is if I could stretch it out to 3 or 4 days and stop at all the places I would like to on the way.

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So it’s been a bit of a journey with this heart stuff and I didn’t realise how much I had just got used to it until I got some new meds and felt I had suddenly woken up, my brain was clear for the first time in a long time. I stopped the meds last week and had my heart ablation op on tuesday. Basically they told me they would 3d map my heart and identify which nerve bundles were firing that shouldn’t be and they would zap them. I think I was led to expect it was something that would take maybe 30 min and I would be awake but hardly notice. After 3 hours, painful and uncomfortable and listening to the surgeon being taught the new equipment with my pain helping him understand what didn’t work, I also found out that fentanyl does not work for me as pain relief. But it’s done and I survived. It’s day 3 afterwards and I am having a few side effects that are a bit challenging so the journey continues.

It’s not fungi season here but I was anxious to get out in the bush before the op as I knew that it would be a few weeks before I could manage the terrain again. We were so lucky, Whirinaki is such a special, old growth forest and we found mushies 👏👏 I am particularly lucky that my friend Lee has been coaching me on taking macro photos and invited me on the walk.

Then for the op we had to drive to Hamilton, about an hour and half from here. Being worried about getting caught with road works or an accident we ended up getting there over hour and half early. So had a lovely visit to the botanical gardens, I just had my phone but the roses were spectacular, covered in dew and fragrant. I couldn’t resist a couple of photos.

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Well Stu has had his oncology appt and they have confirmed myeloma which is not curable but they have caught it early and feel that there are things they can do to prolong his life comfortably. Issue is only if he will actually do them as he is anti vaccine and the first step is a number of vaccines. We all get to make our own choices and I guess we will just see how things progress.

It’s definitely been a time to stop and look at life and choices and what’s next. Hard to accept I am almost as old as old people 😬 I had an eye exam and the good news is my presbyopia has improved 😁 because I have started getting cataracts 😫. I hear people around me bemoan the way of the world and everything that is wrong with it and there is plenty of that, but little time is spent appreciating what is wonderful about it. I think if we just started appreciating what we do have and taking care of it better and stop letting our brains get hijacked by media telling us what to focus on we would all be a little kinder to each other. It’s a slippery slope from here on in with body and mind vulnerable in a way it never has been before. I think I am going to enjoy every moment I can and just have fun…. And lots of snoozing in the sunshine.

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The trip north was wonderful, nothing like a road trip in springtime. Lime green of the new grown and yellow of wattle and gorse all the way up the South Island and then what started as a nice fin day in Wellington turned into more of a wild wet day driving north .

I was tired when I arrived back and somehow managed to lose 3 weeks. I managed a couple of mushroom excursions, although always hopeful this is the wrong time of year to see much.

A day out to Mangatautri ( Sanctuary Mountain) was a highlight. About an hour and half from here, I had never been before. It’s a mountain with old growth forest and 47 km of predator proof fence that has been put around the whole mountain to allow native birds, especially endangered ones like the takahe, to flourish. An incredible outdoor classroom and an inspiration when you can see what the forest looks like without the possums, wallaby’s, rats and stoats. Bird life was noisy and delightful and I can’t wait to go back in mushy season.

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Mum has not been able to drive for over 18 months and finally was unable to renew her license in January. The plan was for me to take the car back with me but every time I came to take it she couldn’t remember that she couldn’t drive so she couldn’t let it go. Finally we realised that seeing it every day wasn’t as much a comfort as a trigger to want to drive it. We had taken away the key but she would find other keys and try and open it, breaking a random key off in the lock. So I packed it up yesterday and drove off into the sunshine. Very tough for her to finally let it go and we know it will take many reminders over months for her to remember where it’s gone if she ever does. Our biggest concern is that she will go look for it and call the police cos she thinks it’s stolen. I have photos on the fridge and doors to remind her but she is also good at taking them off. I am sending photos of CC ( Carole’s Car) to her photo frame with notes of the journey and CC will send her postcards weekly over the next month or two, she loves getting mail and hopefully it will slowly sink in that the car is gone. On my part it’s a trip I love and one I haven’t driven in a long time. I don’t have a car of my own so it’s going to give me a whole lot of freedom to have CC come live with me.

This is the first day of the journey north. Picton overnight and the ferry to Wellington tomorrow.

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It’s been so busy I haven’t had any time to myself to write and somehow the week ended up being 9 days, it would have been longer but no matter how long I stay it will never be long enough to get through the ever increasing list of things to do and people who need help. I caught up with my Aunt Kaye who has just had a melanoma removed and now they have found 4 tumours in her lymph nodes. Getting older sucks!

I have been cooking, cleaning, fixing stuff, making dolls clothes and costumes, clearing and decluttering, making runs to the dump and second hand stores, taking mum to dementia activities, doing surgery on Elves and managing sibling crisis’s. I did get one evening that Beaulah took me for gelato and to visit the new library which I hadn’t seen in the center of the city.

Terina explaining exactly what she wants me to sew for her 😁

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Crisis on the southern border, well on the southern island anyway. So I hightailed it down to Chirstchurch last night to spend some time with mum and catch up with Stu. Stu has just come out of hospital, he has what he thought was a lung infection after a week of the flu, they found fluid on his lungs so they popped him on IV antibiotics and did a chest x ray. The antibiotics worked and his lungs cleared but they found a shoulder fracture on the X-ray. So they sent him for an MRI and the have done a lumbar puncture and biopsy – upshot is that he has bone cancer and they are trying to find how far advanced and make a treatment plan. It’s Stu’s birthday on sept 1st so I decided to come down now while I can support him through the shock and figuring out how to plan for the inevitable chemo and radiation and manage the 5 kids and working. I will be down for at least a week and then come back again every few weeks. Ian picked me up at the airport and gingerly got out of the car and hobbled to the back for me to put my suitcase in. He has damaged c4 and c5 on his spine helping Stu with the ride on lawn mowers since Stu can’t do it. He is about to go to Ireland for 3 weeks on Friday and can hardly walk let alone sit for hours. 😳wondering what the heck is going on down here. This morning I noticed that the gate into the patio at mums was wide open. Easy I think I will just go lock that up, must have blown open in the storms they have been having down here in between the heavy frosts.

So bear with me, this adventure is going to be more like a saga. Mum has a Dr appt this morning for her foot. I read the message and don’t recognise the Dr name but it’s at Ilam medical which is the place I took her to last time for her podiatrist appt. So bright and early ( after trickle charging the car overnight for a flat battery) I take her to the podiatrist, who is rather puzzled because she can’t find the appointment, but as she has a no show she takes us and it’s all good. Then my sister calls in a panic as she’s just been told mum is a no show at her appointment with the Dr – same Medical Center. Apparently she had made an appt with the Dr who would then refer mum to the podiatrist and I had messed up and taken her straight to the podiatrist. Communication breakdown but fortunately with an efficient result. This is less than 24hrs here, you know there is more to come…. It’s going to get more and more convoluted – stay tuned for the intricate dance steps of southern family drama.

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Hibernation is finally over and I am finally starting to show signs of life. I baked this morning, I am not a good baker as I use graduated eyeballs and guesstimates which works fine cooking meals but apparently is not the best approach to recipes that require exact amounts. Anyway, after acquiring an old fashioned gem iron I decided to make ginger gems. I modified the recipe with more ginger and more golden syrup and swapped out white sugar for less brown sugar so I knew it was touch and go. Surprise surprise I got the best ginger gems I have ever had. My new 20 min go to.. move over muffins.

Ginger gems are an old fashioned kiwi treat that needs heavy cast iron gem irons to make. Who knew these things are a collectors item and outrageously expensive but after you taste them you know why.

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Right now is the middle of mushroom season and they are everywhere in every colour. I just photograph them, most are poisonous and I am just not ready to bet on my identifying the non poisonous ones. They say all mushrooms are edible – once! And if you are not sure, leave a little uneaten so we can figure out what you died of.

I have struggled with the macro and stuck mainly to ID for inaturalist but finally I feel like I have cracked the code and got some half decent shots. These are all natives and will be gone in a few weeks.

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If you may not be explaining yourself well when you tell your 8 yr old niece to respect the ancient trees… and she offers her fairy frog to them

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