General Chat

Hi there Bob, glad to see you and your BH are still in the land of the living. If you want to find the thread when it has disappeared, look at the left under Tools you will see My threads. Click on that and you will find a list of the threads to which you have added, hopefully not too many!

Phil has recovered from his illness, the tests that were done on the various people with sickness/diarrhoea have come back negative. When I visited him on Thursday he stood unaided and walked around unaided, something he hadnt been doing at the time he was transferred from Middlemore Hospital. I asked if he knew who I was and he was trying to think when the nurse said 'its your wife'. He thought some more and said 'the noisy one'. I am a little hard of hearing so tend to speak a bit loudly and he has supersensitive hearing so tends to shush me. At least he didnt call me Tub or The Old Crow!

Our son came up from Rotorua on Fri night and in the morning cut down and up (for firewood) some trees and we stacked it in the firewood shed. He then mowed the lawns and after lunch we went to see Phil but he was asleep in his chair and wouldnt wake up, although his eyes flickered a couple of times. Apparently he doesnt want to go to bed at night and disturbs the nurse when she is trying to do paper work by shuffling her papers. I hope he gets into a better timetable soon. No good visiting if all we see is Phil catching flies. There is a meeting on Thursday to discuss what is happening so I have some questions to ask. At least I am happier now that he seems so settled, unlike in Middlemore.

Huia.

I went to see Phil this morning. He seems so much better than he was when he first went into the private hospital. He was awake and walking around. I took him out into the small enclosed garden for a walk but the wind was a little cool. The physio apparently takes him for walks out there. When she heard that he used to do a lot of tramping she said she might take him to the nearby park some time. I just hope she can get him back afterwards.

Huia.

I was wondering if you would post today regarding your visit with Phil,
and I have to apologise cause I giggled when you said you hoped the staff member would get him back again from the park.

How did you get on with your meeting today with the staff?


Norma

Hi everyone, my husband is my carer, he has a full time job as well. I can mostly be left on my own without fear of escape. My brain is fine, just have a problem with my right side. Have worked out most ways of doing things on my own, as Sharron has with her dad. If anyone needs any hints how to manage things and keep your cared person busy and being able to help themselves, and have some independence, just ask and I hope will be able to help.

My OH has one rule, I am not to climb ladders if he is not at home.

Gail

I don't let the old man up ladders either.Not that he has the time!

Hi there. It is nice to see I am not the only one posting!

I got a 'report card' on Phil yesterday. It goes into details of various things: communication, diet, hygiene/dressing, mobility, sleep pattern (he gets a D for that!), elimination, ability to maintain safety, behaviour, etc. Another sheet lists all the medications he is on, not sure what they are all for so I will have to google. It also has an absolutely ghastly photo of him.

There will be another review in 6 months.

Gail, does your OH hold the ladder for you when he is at home? I know I would think twice about climbing a ladder when I am on my own, although I could put up the step ladder and climb it if I had to, but not the lean-against-the-wall ones, that would not be so safe.

Huia (with her new board name for Christmas).

I forgot to say, Norma, that if Phil gets out he would want to go for a really long walk, not just round a couple of football fields, and the physio is just a 'slip of a girl', but then some of those can be very strong and hopefully persuasive. If I knew when she was going to take him I could go too, or at least be waiting back at the hospital so she can use me as bait to get him back.

Huia (now I feel as if I am a chunk of cheese!)

Huia, you sound much happier than you were a few months ago. Shows in your posts. Keep up the good work!

Hi Huia in a Pohutukawa Tree,

Will you be decorated in fairy lights for Christmas?

Norma sitting on a kauri stump.

Norma, I hope it is a really old stump, otherwise you might get gum up where 'the sun dont shine' and that could cause you a few problems.

I am bright enough (I hope) to not need any fairy lights. Anyway I am no fairy! More like an elephant.

Huia.

Hee hee don't want to be gummed up - well look for a higher perch and maybe settle on a Kahikatea - but then I might get pine needles.

Nowhere safe for me.... as you are on the red one - I will take a yellow and sit under the Kowhai - was going to go for the other red christmas tree the Rata - then we would both be reddy for Christmas.

So Phil gets a D for sleep patterns - I get a ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
I don't do ladders very much - I can get up but it's the getting back down again that gives me problems, my legs get all confused.

What are you upto next week Huia - want to pick a day and I will see what I can do?

Norma

Yes, OH holds the ladder and stands under me so if I fall I fall on him first. Now thats devotion.

Gail

Hasn't a lot happened since I was last on. Now there are not many in the UK who would know all those NZ trees, Kauri, (and Kauri stumps), Rata, Kowhai, Kahikatea, Pohutukawa, nor would they probably know that the latter has an abundance of red flowers at Christmas and that is why they are sometimes called a Christmas Tree but I like the name Pohutukawa it seems so strong to match its qualities. There were many on the coast where we lived as children. They seem just as much at home shading a coastline or beach as do Manuka or Kanuka along the gullies and streams inland. Both eminently suited for their locations and so typical New Zealand. To be quite honest I do not like seeing a pine poking its head up amongst NZ bush it looks so out of place.

It was good to hear that Phil is getting out and about and I am sure that the physio would have her mobile phone should she need to call for help.

Oh dear what are you all wanting to climb ladders for? I must be getting old for I would be looking for someone else to climb it. Something along the lines of "He held the lantern while his mother chopped the wood". But BH would be hopeless for she is not too agile with both feet firmly planted on the ground.

Have we had an Aussie join the group or is GranofOz the grandmother of the Wizard of Oz? Just joking of course.

Bob

Hi Bob,

My dad was a bushman - prior to WW2 here in NZ and he knew all the trees hand him a leaf and he knew which tree it was from. We have a Totara in our backyard and a Rimu out the front - The Rimu is the nicest looking tree of them all.

I am very fond of our trees and our native birds.

I see there are a few ice - bergs that have departed from Antartica and approaching our coast line Huia.

Norma

I once went on a local walk with a group of people, guided by a couple of the ARC rangers. One of the rangers who knew me called me back as we were going along, asked if I had seen the orchid. He pointed down, and I said it wasnt an orchid, it was a fungus. He told me his boss had said it was an orchid. I carefully moved the leaf litter from around the base to show the typical bulbous base to the stem and another person agreed with me. It was one of the stinkhorn fungi. Very pretty, but definitely not an orchid.

When we were walking the Milford track back in '84 I asked the ranger/guide what was the name of one of the shrubs as I couldnt remember offhand. He told me it was Kawakawa. I said it wasnt. He insisted so I said it was nothing like the Kawakawa we have up here. When I got home I looked it up in one of my books. It was Horopito, which has peppery tasting leaves (not that I taste them), which is why he decided it was Kawakawa, along with the fact that its common name is pepper tree. The Kawakawa is a member of the Pepper family, while Horopito is a member of the Magnolia family (well actually, I think the scientists have now put it into the pseudowinter family). Slight difference! I wish the rangers could all be educated correctly on the names of our native plants. And I wish the scientists would stop changing the names and families of our natives. As a teenager I spent a lot of time with my book trying to learn the latin, Maori and common names of the plants and now many have different names I get a bit confused as to which is the current name. I think the Manuka which used to be Leptospermum is now Kunzea.

Huia.

Now, Leptospernum I recognise. It is grown in the UK.

Leptospermum, Manuka, Tea Tree (not to be confused with Ti Tree - the cabbage tree, which is not a cabbage but a lily or agave or whatever family it is now in.)

Huia.

Huiainapohutukawa

Make sure you do not fall out of that tree or if you do, it is into some deep waters below. We used to have a rope on one of ours that we could swing out on. Great Fun!
Now here is something, I have to admit as having done as a schoolboy visiting my grandma at Kirikopuni North Auckland. Not many have. Have you ever tasted the wonderful soft centre of a Nikau palm? I think the young Maori farm worker must have told us about it. The trouble is the tree then dies. I think we only did the one.
When we farmed in our retirement I gained a greater sense of the visual qualities of the Manuka, Kanuka and Kahikatea particularly and planted many in the cottage garden for shelter from the westerlies which swept over from the Kaipara Harbour. Well there is no rule which says that a cottage garden has to be English. I had the natives for shelter and nearer the house Box hedging (you might call it Buxus) Lonicera Nitida (Aren't I just a clever one) and several varieties of Crab Apple and of course roses even to the extent of climbing roses over the cattle race and at the side of the loafer barn. The cottage had been either a pull-down one or the other sort. Rightly or wrongly we decided to not let it be turned into furniture. We had seventeen happy but also hard-working years there. Blood, sweat and many tears (in my hands repairing barbed wire fencing) not the other sort that I can recall.

Bob

Bob, we have a crab apple. It is lovely in flower and also when the coloured apples are on until Dec, if the blackbirds dont have them all before then. Ours is in a tub, and is going into an even bigger tub come Jan, when all the apples are gone.

Alas, we cant grow fruit trees here. Well we can, but we dont get any fruit from them as the possums and birds and possibly rats usually beat us to them before they are ripe enough. Even the lemon tree gets stripped of leaves and fruit.

But our pohutukawa is covered in buds this year. Last year it had only a few flowers. Our Kowhai also had quite a few flowers this year. We have a Tui sipping the nectar of the Rewarewa flowers. The Tui also loves the weigelia.

Having visitors soon, so must get moving.

Huia.