August News from the Christchurch Pettys

At the beginning of the month I was getting over my cold, and Mark came down with one. I found it difficult to get my exercise routine going again, and didn’t bike while I still had a cough. Then the second time I did bike, I got a puncture just over half way to work. I was quite tired by the time I got there, from pushing the bike 3 km.
My Seminary students were happy to have me back, though sadly I lost one. I think there are things going on in the family there as well. One day I left my bag at home and had to teach the lesson from memory, which was a bit of a challenge. We are now reading the letters of Paul, which can be a bit tricky at times. I can’t say I’m sorry I will be away in October when we are doing Revelation. I watched two of them play basketball one Friday evening. They are a very lovely class.
August is the month of birthdays in this family, starting with William on the 4th. We sent him a parcel with a birthday cake from my mother, magic cards, CDs and shortbread. He was pretty happy about all that.
The next birthday was my father’s, who is no longer with us, but my mother treated us to a meal at a buffet. Mark had meetings, so I went with Mother, Linda, Des and Peter, and we had a very enjoyable time.
Jonathan’s birthday was on the 11th, a Monday, but we celebrated it on the Sunday and invited Leao, Mother and Peter over for dinner. He requested his favourite – cordon bleu schnitzels, which I make with flour on the outside rather than crumbs, and home-made oven fried chips. The following day for family Home Evening we went to the Library and read old Listeners – one of his favourite activities.
We were preparing for my mother’s 80th birthday, and I had been commissioned to make cupcakes. So I needed to practise, and made ginger with caramel ginger icing, and later walnut and date, and spicy vanilla. They were all good. However I had to eat a few, and I don’t do well in applying restraint, so I put on a couple of kilograms over the month. (About 5 pounds).
Also in preparation for Mother’s birthday, I made a poster with pictures of the family and her parents and lots of weddings – modelled loosely on Ray and Rosemary’s photo board that they have in the dining room. I scanned in old photos and used Photoshop to improve the colour, and crop them and put them into one big picture. There are about 45 photos in it. I printed it out as a poster 20 inches by 30 inches for $40 on photographic paper (for some reason photos are not metric! The software must come from the US). I also printed out a whole lot of A3 size ones at work for my family. It’s amazing how good the colour pictures are from laser printers these days.
Jonathan’s contribution to my mother’s birthday was that he played, and we used this as an opportunity to get him to learn some more pieces. He learned “White Cliffs of Dover” and “Swannee River” – the Fats Domino version which is very lively. He also played “The Entertainer”, “In the Mood” and “As Time Goes By”. It was nice to have him playing a bit at home – I hesitate to call it practising!
For my mother’s actual birthday on the Friday, the four children (Michael, Linda, Nicola and Peter, and three of our spouses, Marian, Des and Mark and one grandchild, Joanne, went out to dinner with her to “The Curator’s House”. It was a very pleasant evening, especially as we had a room to ourselves. The food was nice, the service was good, and the company was excellent. A good time was had by all.
The following day I spent the whole day making and decorating 100 cupcakes in 4 different flavours. By the time I had finished I was pretty much ‘over’ cupcakes. I was pretty happy with how they turned out, and it was worth the effort of finding nice papers, and a good recipe book, and practising and borrowing icing equipment, buying edible glitter etc. The rest of my family were also busy, making savouries and sandwiches and slices and buying flowers and fruit. We also looked after the drinks – elderflower and soda, and punch –type drinks.
The actual party went very well. I made soup in the morning and we went to church in the morning, then went to the venue about 1.00pm where everyone was busy setting things up. It was held at Avebury House, an old stately home that has been turned into a community centre, that my mother volunteers at. My mother arrived at about 1pm, and Mark also went back and got Jonathan. We had been lucky to be able to borrow the keyboard from the High school. About 35 friends and relatives gathered for afternoon tea to wish her well.
The final birthday activity was dinner out with Michael and Linda. Michael’s birthday is the 24th and Linda’s in the 26th, so we went out to dinner on the 25th to a Vietnamese place. We got to see the great-niece as well, who is lovely.
Jonathan has started an introductory course in Sound Engineering at the Polytech. Mark went with him to the first two sessions as a teacher-aide had not been found in the time. They both enjoyed the experience, though Mark is not sure what Jonathan gets out of it.
One day I was on FaceBook, and got a “Chat” from a person I had recently made connection with. He was Willis Whitlock, who taught me the Gospel. He said he was in Wales and had been mugged and needed money. I was struggling to know what to do, when I got another message from the real Willis Whitlock, that he was not in London and someone was trying to use his name to scam people. The scammer had managed to pretend he was Willis. So if that ever happens again I will be asking a few pertinent questions, such as, “How do you know me?” before carrying on with the chat. And definitely before even thinking about sending money. It was a bit of a nasty experience, as it is not nice to feel one has been taken in, even for a short time.
We got notified that Jonathan will be awarded his Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award by HRH Prince Edward. We didn’t want to look at the date, in case it was when we were going to be away, but fortunately it is in November.
Jonathan had a bit of a melt-down at the Blind Foundation one day when he was there with his transition teacher. I think they were trying to get him to think and talk about his future. Mark led a very nice discussion with Jonathan that evening to find out what had happened. We suggested to the teachers that he might be a bit stretched at present. In the following eight weeks he had to look forward to: Mairehau overnight Music tour to Hanmer, playing for his grandmother’s party, his own fundraising concert, a week at a Braille music camp in Auckland and then a trip to Disneyland and New York and Sesame Street. Jonathan just about always does the best he can, so if he is not behaving, it is generally because he is not coping. I suspect the same is true of many of us (if not all!). We also tried to teach Jonathan to say, ”I’m finding this difficult at present – can you let me think about it”, rather than “I want to die!”
We have also been making preparations for Jonathan’s fundraising concert. It will be at 7pm on 12 September at the Music Centre of Christchurch. We have booked the venue and the Steinway grand piano. The director will be down for the day, and we have made posters. (The hardest part of making the poster was finding a photo of Jonathan in which he didn’t look totally cheesed off.) We are having other people in the concert as well – Alice Cammock will sing Amazing Grace, Shakira Fukofuka will sing “I am a child of God” or something similar, Malina Kelderman is going to play the saxophone, and the Su’a and Kurene girls are going to do a Samoan dance. At the end everyone will sing “Sing”. We had the first practice with Malina, and it went well. They are playing a piece they both know from their Jazz band at school, but they need to get some more of the melody written in to replace the other instruments.
Mark and Jonathan went on the Mairehau High School music tour. Jonathan has been twice before, and William has been about 7 times – 5 times for himself, and twice as Jonathan’s helper. Obviously he couldn’t make it this time, so Mark did. He came home raving about what a good thing it is, and took a lot of photos, which I hope he will post. They take about 60 kids from the high school and play at 4 primary schools, some of which are in the country, and teach them about the instruments. Both groups really seem to get a lot out of it.
While they were away I spent my first night alone in my own home since before William was born. It was quite nice to have no one else to worry about, but I did find myself talking to myself a bit.
In the last week, spring has sprung in Christchurch. It is a truly beautiful city in the springtime. The blossom and daffodils are in full display. Biking to work is like a little holiday.
And that is it for August 2009. I hope to hear from the other Pettys soon.

Love from Mark, Nicola and Jonathan.