Visit to Timaru to see Nan and catching up with the cuzzies
On Sunday I went with Mum down to Timaru to visit my Nan in her rest home. I had not seen her since before I went away overseas for 15 months - so I was quite looking forward to seeing how she was. I thought she had noticeably aged, but that may have been due to the way they have permed her hair - its a very stereotypical look for an old lady, but practical for someone who spends a lot of the day lying down. Given that it is likely she has some early form of dementia, I thought she was pretty good mentally - she enjoyed getting the postcard I sent her from London Xmas before last. She kept bringing the conversation back to Dad which was a bit difficult. When someone keeps saying that you never know what is going to happen, after something completely unthinkable, I find this sort of talk drags me down pretty quickly.
After seeing Nan we met up with a few relatives at the Richard Pearse Restaurant in Timaru. It turned out to be more than a few as word got around and about 13 uncles, aunts, cousins and others there, including a couple of my cousins I hadn't seen for a couple of years now. Had fun catching up with my cousins Brendan and Kate - especially remincing about going to the Richard Pearse restaurant when we were kids. They used to serve cool kids drinks like traffic lights and always put a jet plane on the glass. So of course Kate had to order a 'traffic light' - now they use different liquids including orange juice (bah! yuk! healthy!) and put a different type of plane on the glass. Not bad for 20 years later I guess. Also got to meet their respective partners too.
Took my laptop with me in the car down to Timaru. Found this worked quite well. On the way down I did some more work on the website I am developing, and on the way home I watched Kubrick's 'Dr Strangelove'. The doomsday device went off at exactly the time we turned into the driveway home - the timing could not be better. Much better having something to do than having to watch the (yawn) Canterbury plains for two + hours (I suspect I have done that trip too often).
Laptop with DVD player is a total geek toy I know, but it does pass the time well on long car trips. I must point out I was not driving at the time, while it may be soon banned to use cell phones while driving as a quirky point of law I don't think they will ban using laptops, even if someone was silly enough to try. They certainly should ban windows/microsoft from having any role in car control in the future. Think I am starting to ramble now...
After seeing Nan we met up with a few relatives at the Richard Pearse Restaurant in Timaru. It turned out to be more than a few as word got around and about 13 uncles, aunts, cousins and others there, including a couple of my cousins I hadn't seen for a couple of years now. Had fun catching up with my cousins Brendan and Kate - especially remincing about going to the Richard Pearse restaurant when we were kids. They used to serve cool kids drinks like traffic lights and always put a jet plane on the glass. So of course Kate had to order a 'traffic light' - now they use different liquids including orange juice (bah! yuk! healthy!) and put a different type of plane on the glass. Not bad for 20 years later I guess. Also got to meet their respective partners too.
Took my laptop with me in the car down to Timaru. Found this worked quite well. On the way down I did some more work on the website I am developing, and on the way home I watched Kubrick's 'Dr Strangelove'. The doomsday device went off at exactly the time we turned into the driveway home - the timing could not be better. Much better having something to do than having to watch the (yawn) Canterbury plains for two + hours (I suspect I have done that trip too often).
Laptop with DVD player is a total geek toy I know, but it does pass the time well on long car trips. I must point out I was not driving at the time, while it may be soon banned to use cell phones while driving as a quirky point of law I don't think they will ban using laptops, even if someone was silly enough to try. They certainly should ban windows/microsoft from having any role in car control in the future. Think I am starting to ramble now...