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| We are behind
with the travelogue and so I will bring you up to date with our little
lives. The first bit of news is that we went to Wellington on the 1st June
and I gave my very first seminar to the BBO ballet teachers of the North
Island. We arrived the day before and met up with Joanne, who runs a
ballet shop in Lower Hutt, Wellington. I spent the day with her explaining
my work to her and the object was for her to come to the seminar the next
day and fit three given dancers with her makes of shoes. I would do the
same with my system and the Grishko shoes, which I was able to borrow from
the ballet shop in Auckland. The idea was to compare the fittings and give
the dancers the best shoes for their feet.
By lunchtime Joanna was completely sold on what I was doing and it made good sense to her. She came with me to fit the three chosen girls that evening at their ballet school. We did that because my session was to be only 90 minutes long and there would not be the time to do the fitting in public. So I explained my work to the dancers then fitted them my shoes and then Joanna fitted them with her shoes. The session went very well and all the dancers ended up in my shoes. |
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Fergus, Mittymotts and I stayed in a Holiday Park in Porirua and the seminar was at the National Ballet School in Newtown. We arrived with plenty of time and everyone who was able to turn up for it did, even teachers arriving late, because they were themselves teaching. It was great! Prue, the head of BBO, was very interested and supportive and suggested that we might have to re-look at how we train our dancers. I could only agree with her and we will see what impact the session had. We ran overtime by an hour and everyone seemed very interested. I did not get through everything in detail but I think it was at least possible to show that there is a problem with feet and pointe shoes and that we should look at the subject with new eyes and ideas. I came away feeling good! The teachers seemed hungry for information and willing to give this new way a try, if it does not work, they can always go back to what they have done so far. |
| Then the next excitement was a visit from Pat Lopdell. She came on Sunday 11th June and stayed overnight in our motorhome. She was delighted with our new home and really gave us some fantastic positive feedback. She enjoyed the flat and the main house first and then after lunch we went for a walk around our new land and paddocks. Pat was brought up on a very big farm in Invercargill and so knew about sheep and cattle. Helen and Murray were delighted to meet Pat and we had a wonderful evening meal in the main house, cooked by Fergus and myself. Monday morning came all to quickly and sadly Pat had to return to her 4 cats. It was also decided, that when we go to Invercargill for the next BBO seminar we could go and stay in Pat's crib (Holiday home) in Riverton, which was her mother's house and is near Invercargill. By now it is the middle of winter and we are delighted with this offer as it gives us somewhere warm to stay and we will have a home for a week or two. |  |
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Then I went down
with a bad cold and ended up in bed for two days. I felt so lucky that I
could simply go to bed and not struggle all the way through it while
having to teach. Through Helen I met a lady called Yvonne. She lives not far from us and has a herd of alpaca. Fergus and I went to visit her and her animals. She also has 4 dogs, 3 cats, different breeds of chickens and rabbits as well as sheep and cattle. Yvonne and her husband farm 100 acres of land but her big love is her alpaca and spinning the fibre, as it is called, off her alpaca. She has only had them for one year and when we visited her she got the first lot of alpaca fibre back from carding and was busy spinning the very first balls of wool. Each bag of fibre came from one particular alpaca and so the name of the alpaca is on the bag. |
| Naturally I would love to have some of the wool and so she sold me some of Damion's fibre and I have started to knit a baby blanket. On a second visit, Yvonne gave me a spinning lesson and when we come back from the South Island, I will join the arts and crafts club in the next village and learn to spin and dye wool. So lots to look forward to. I will also join the alpaca association and we will start looking into the possibility of having 2 alpaca to start with. |  |
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Fergus is well
and has been working on all sorts of projects. One is a CD with a little
movie on it to show everyone what we are buying. Technically it was a new
learning curve for Fergus and I think he did a great job. We will be
sending a copy to you and I hope you will enjoy it. We are still having a great time and no regrets. It has become clear that we should be able to run a B&B in the granny flat and we just have to look into it, which again, will take a bit of time. |
| 18-Jun-06
Although we haven't missed going to the beach we went off to Pourerere Beach, one of our nearby beaches, for a walk. The winter storms had detached a lot of seaweed which was strewn on the sand. We took Walter Mitty (Mittymots) for a little walk on the beach, we have a little halter for him, then, because there are no shops at the beach, Fergus cooked a fried rice dish for a late lunch before we motor-homed off home. |
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