nothing much to blog...

Another day’s work and another bright and sunny day . I do two home visits which I enjoy very much. On returning home I watch Frasier and then have some fruit and then hoover and clean the kitchen and bathroom floor . I update the blog and have an early night. I am looking forward to Madeleine and Maria arriving on Tuesday. Only 5 days to go. Nothing much to blog !

Lithium teas and farewells

This day is different as instead of home visits I do the first half of the annual Lithium review clinic for people on these drugs. I am accompanied by one of the nurses Jeanette always cheerful, down to earth and full of anecdotes. We see four people and then stop at the Mamuska Cheesecake shop and buy two halves of a lemon cheesecake and a Mississippi mud-pie for the leaving ‘tea’ for myself and Angela Bruce (who is leaving to start her first Consultant job). People bring in other food and I provide two bottles of wine and then Richard makes a generous farewell speech to Angela and myself and presents me with some coasters showing scenes from New Zealand national parks. I am very touched and wish the team well. I then finish off the correspondence from the morning’s clinic as well as yesterday’s assessment and return home at the unusually late time of 6.00 pm.

Meetings, warehouses and bushmen

Today the team met up in the headquarters of the Fisher and Paykel company. This is a local company which is better known for producing electronics and white goods but I was surprised to see that it also has a medical technology division. The building is large, the décor open plan with lots of light and glass walls and each section is colour coded. Some of the offices look like goldfish however as everyone passing by watches you in our office though I suppose this discourages naps, paper plane construction, reading the newspaper, etc

The meeting tackles several issues including the adoption of a multi-disciplinary care planning document. The discussions are generally focused and a lot of progress was made. I was impressed that the team are allowed to develop heir own way to achieve loose nationally or regionally agreed standards instead of the rigid micro-management from the centre that seems to be happening more often in the UK. There is a light lunch at the staff canteen where some workers are playing with a frisbee on the lawn.

The team is then booked to go and play mini-golf in the afternoon and I opt out of this, instead going to The Warehouse department store where I buy a picnic hamper, a cooler bag, three foldable chairs and a bag with beach toys in anticipation of our camper van trip. I also pop into a pharmacy to get Bushman’s insect repellent as there are supposed to be a lot of sandflies around in South Island. After this I go off on a home visit and then return home for a quick snack and then go off to the Moa’s nest pub for another pub quiz.

This time Mark, Richard myself and Lee are joined by Andy Colwell and Mark’s wife a public health doctor. Lee had just landed from a business trip to Australia and her stamina is incredible and she plays an important part in the quiz as usual. We take an early lead in the third round and then hold on to our narrow lead for the rest of the quiz before ending up neck and neck with another team. We are asked a tie-breaker question on New Zealand rugby so luckily Andy knew this and we win again !

Another manic monday....

Another Monday and another team business meeting Richard announces to the team that this is my last week (well my last full week anyway – I will be working till Thursday next week) and the team decide to have a farewell tea for me on Wednesday where they will also say goodbye to Angela Bruce who will be taking up a Consultant post with Auckland hospital Trust. I sort out my home visits by the end of the day and go back home where I do hoovering, cleaning and general tidying up. Richard postpones his supervision for tomorrow and I have a nap and then catch up on some work and my blog.

MTB training Day 2 – Leans and pumps and Devonport

The intermediate MTB course has six people and luckily the day is sunny and dry (despite the New Zealand Met office predicting more rain) Gabby takes the me and another older guy called Stuart to do more basic training than the younger and more skilled riders. We practice doing a braking turn with sharp turning round a corner with the weight and centre of gravity moved forward on to the front wheel and th4e back brake being pressed suddenly so that the back wheel only skids out from behind you but does not unbalance the rider or interrupt the trun. We then are introduced to leaning which involves keeping the body upright as before but letting the bike lean as much as possible to one side or the next. This is simple and very useful and I find it helps me turn corners very well. The pedals have to be raised on the side of the lean as otherwise they will scrape the track. We try doing alternate leans to each side each side while weaving up and own the road. I am not as advanced as Stuart (who kindly takes an interest in my progress and offers helpful advice) and Gabby waits for me when I am puffed and cannot face too steep a slope.

Gabby then introduces us to Pumping. The aim is to get the front wheel slightly off the ground and helps jumps, drops and getting over obstacles in the track. . The technique (which takes me time to get used to) is to start with over exaggerated downhill body position with chin touching bars and then to rock weight back, down then under in a circular motion with legs and arms. We have a break as before and get to practice these over some tracks and descents and despite two falls from me Gabby is very patient and considerate and at the end encourages me to try riding over some of the obstacles in the ‘school’ section at Woodhill. I surprise myself by riding over a seesaw successfully (thinking to myself that this is flat!) but then fall heavily on my second attempt when I become too self conscious . This is the basis of my medical school nickname ‘Kamikaze’ when I would be doing very well during snooker games and then get all self conscious and start potting my self (and hence commit gaming suicide) .All in all I think the courses were great fun and very helpful and I am pleased with the improvement in my rides – if only I can keep them up by practice !

When I get back I go straight to supermarket to stock up on food and leave the bike in the back of the car. As the weather is so good I decide to risk going to Devonport but I drive across the bridge instead of taking the ferry (which does not go after 6.30 pm and I want to see the Auckland skyline by night). The navigation is fairly easy thanks to god signposting. Devonport is quietly and modestly well off. There are some beautiful Victorian villas and quiet tree lined streets and properties facing the beach and Auckland harbour with the skyline of Auckland dominated by Skytower on the horizon. The walk to North Head is short and not too demanding (thankfully because I am so stiff from the MTB clinic) and I am rewarded by great views of Rangitoto on one side and the Tamaki drive on the other side. I walk down as the sun is going down and then walk along the sea front, past Victoria Street and up to the NZ Naval base. I take a few pictures of the Auckland skyline at dusk and with a massive red rain cloud hanging over it. I walk back to the car and then drive back to the sea-front where it is almost completely dark but take some more pictures of the skyline lit up against the last remnants of the day. I drive back without too many problems but one of the lenses on my reading glasses pops off while I am trying to read the road map and slides in between the car seats underneath some plastic. Drat ! I find my way back without being able go read the map and promise myself that the next time I get glasses I will get bifocals.

MTB training Day 1 and Harry Potter

Today I am doing the basic mountain bike skills training run by MTB Skills Clinics run by James Dodds (Dodzy) and Gabby . The day is gloomy and it rans for most of the day. There are 10 of us for the Phundamentals course which starts with Gabby and Dodzy looking at people’s bike setups and adjusting these while others practice cycling with the optimal body position keeping the body leaning low and forward so that the centre of gravity is low and in the middle between the front and back wheel. The elbows are kept jutting out and the chin close to the handlebars. We are taught to keep our bum off the seat so our legs are bent slightly and the body itself should not move while the bike can move independently. We are assured – and I find this to be true in practice- that if we keep the centre of gravity low and in the middle between the two wheels the bike will follow us and not vice versa. We also do slalom corners using our weight to turn bike (and not the steering handle) and keep our feet correctly on the pedals (the hollow of the foot should be in the centre of the pedal to keep our heels sticking out at the back) . We are taught to keep our pedals even when going downhill but when leaning to keep the pedal on the side of the lean high so it does not hit tee roots, stumps etc (this happened to me many times in the times I went to Woodhill so it is so obvious I did not think about it). We are shown how to ‘apex’ corners . In this technique we try to reduce the angle of the turn while keeping the total distance traveled at a minimum. We approach a bend in the track we move from the outside of the trail (A), to touch the inside edge at the sharpest point of the curve (B). For the rest of the curve just hang on and try to keep speed while staying close to the inside of the curve, drifting to the outside if you need to (C). to come out of the curve in the middle (D) or inside of the trail.

\   \     /  A/

\ D \   /   /

\   \_/B  /

\  C    /

-------

We have training from 10.00 am to 3.00 pm with a 30minute break for drink and food and I discover that my bike and I are splattered with mud. It is a tribute to Gabby and Doddzy that I have not noticed so far given the attention and encouragement they give to everyone. We practice on some tracks in the afternoon and go down one of the sandy steep tracks in the Avanti trail without any problems.

On my way back I decide to stop at one of the Kumeu vegetable shops and find an excellent selection of fruit and vegetables but do not think prices are generally cheaper. Later that afternoon I eat the ugli fruit and try the excellent Chinese ya pears again whilst watching some of the Lord of the Rings extras on the sites in New Zealand chosen for the film. Mmmm…South Island. I go out for the late night showing of Harry Potter which finishes at 1.30 pm. The film is the bestof the series and the children can act better, the effects are scarier and there is real tension in the film. Back to bed for the intermediate course tomorrow.

More rain

Another day and another visit. And I when I am back in the flat the weather is not too bad. I check the NZ Met office web-site to see the latest rain radar images and there is a large downpour close to Auckland. I am not sure it is coming towards or away from us and I decide to go out anyway and plan to cycle to the ferry and cycle around Devonport. No such luck – I have taken some DVDs to return to Real Groovy and by the time I get there rain has started and is getting harder. I linger a bit hoping the rain will get better but if anything it rains harder. I cycle back in the rain and abandon my plans to see Devonport.

Serenity in the Rain

I go to work with Raj this morning and after my visit I go back by train. The weather is very changeable and when I walk up Queen Street I notice the three extended Lord of The Rings films being offered at half price – how could I resist these. I also buy for a similarly cheap price the collected 10 ‘Tin Tin’ films.

Further up as the rain gets harder I decide to go an watch a film. I choose to see Serenity – a low budget science fiction movie which despite the rather cheesy acting and dialogue (such as an unconvincing assassin and a Han Solo type hero) kept my interest and at times impressed me. Would that George Lucas’ last Star Wars film had spent more money on a scriptwriter it might have been as good as this one - which is saying a lot about how awful Star Wars Epsiode 3 was rather than how good serenity was. . It feels like a TV serial and find out later that the film is based on a sort-lived Fox TV series called Firefly. I also book to see the latest Harry Potter film late on Saturday after the first day of my mountain biking course.

When I get out of the cinema the weather has changed to warm and sunny – it is odd but frustrating. I decide that it is too later to go down to Devonport by ferry which I had planned to do, but decide to go back home instead. I continue watching Ring to the end but after some more cheesy dialogue and one gaping logic hole in the plot-line to many decide to put this on the pile of DVDs to return back to Real Groovy shop. 'Ring 2' and 'The Grudge' from the same director and writer are going back unseen as if this crappy film is supposed to inspire the others then they have got to be dire.