A busy last week

After all the excitement of the past week, Sunday I gave myself a well earned lie in before getting on with chores and shopping. But before that I must first say a huge thank you to Peter & Wendy who cooked us dinners and lunches over the past few days and generally made our lives so much easier whilst Roy was being sorted. We can’t thank you both enough for your hospitality, generosity and kindness, it is extremely humbling.

Wendy & Peter celebrating with us.

Monday, Roy had a visit to the ear clinic then Tuesday morning he was supposed to get grommets put in both ears. This will hopefully sort out the hassles he had on our last trip in 2022 which wasn’t resolved until we had returned. You can recap that adventure here. But in what seems to be the norm for us at the moment there was a change of plan. The specialist was unavailable so it was postponed until Wednesday, which meant we had a quick rethink and replan. Instead we decided to pack up and move over to Ardmore on the south side of Auckland for a night. We would be closer to the specialist, also around the corner from Antony and we could drop off our luggage, after packing it of course, and then deliver the van to the workshop on Wednesday afternoon.

We quickly packed up, said hooray to Peter & Wendy although we shall see them again when we deliver the van back in a few days, and headed off across Auckland.

Once at Ardmore we started packing our bags, there is so much to think about what to pack for five and a half months away. But we soon had most of it done and we delivered the bags to Antony’s.

Wednesday morning we were off again across the city to the ENT specialist. He was fitting Roy in between surgery and other appointments so we had a little wait. Roy was soon in the chair and discussing the options. Two different types of grommets (who knew) were finally decided upon, one type in one ear, the other in the other ear.

In one ear

Then the other….you can see right through now 😜

We returned to Ardmore and packed up the last of the essentials plus we attended to the emptying out of the cupboards as well as the fridge and freezer. We delivered all of that to Antony’s then it was back to Ardmore to take the van to the mechanics workshop but not before emptying the waste tanks along the way.

With the van safely delivered we are now guests at Antony’s for the next few days, I’m sure he’s delighted! At least he gets his dinner cooked, his washing done and his house tidied. We are repacking the bags, taking out unnecessary items and trying to minimise what we take. Although one bag is full of goodies that have been requested for delivery so we shall have one empty bag soon after we arrive!!

The final countdown is on, as of now, just two more sleeps until we step on the plane. See you soon London and London family.

‘Ear ‘ear

It’s been nearly 12 months since Roy lost one hearing aid, the night before we flew out to the UK which you can recap by reading about it here. Since then, we were of course away for 6 months in the UK, where various fixes were sought for the lack of one hearing aid but nothing worked effectively. Once we returned to NZ last November, Roy went to get a new set of aids however when his hearing was tested they discovered that the hearing in one ear was almost negligible and so it was suggested he go to see a specialist before ordering new aids.

An appointment was made but he could not get in to see the specialist until March this year and that is going privately, so we waited. Let’s just say the last few months have not been pleasant from anyones perspective….I got sick of shouting and/or repeating myself and Roy got sick of saying “what?”, “I can’t hear you” and basically missed out on many conversations.

Finally he got to see the specialist a few weeks ago. We were all prepared for the news that Roy was needing a cochlear implants, something that was suggested the previous time we had visited the specialist. When listening to the tale of what had happened and having a look in his ears, Mr Brown said that it looked like there was a lot of fluid built up behind the eardrum, probably as a result of flying, and he thought that by putting in a grommet it would probably instantly fix the total lack of hearing. I presumed that we would have to book another appointment to schedule surgery for the grommet placement as my only previous experience with these matters was from when Alex had grommets put in as an 18month old.

“I can pop one in right now”, he said, “just a bit of local anaesthetic gel, a moment of uncomfortableness, and it will be all done!”

Mr Brown putting the grommet in Roys ear

Instantly, Roy’s hearing was much better, now he could go and get his hearing rechecked and new aids ordered.

Last week he finally got the new hearing aids fitted, tested and sorted. He can hear again and I don’t have to shout or repeat myself 10 times.

I don’t think we realised how isolating and debilitating it is not being able to hear properly and participate fully in all aspects of life but thankfully it is now all sorted. What is more, we can actually talk to each other again…..is that a good thing?😜

That’ll be $100 thanks

It all started with good intentions. I had a project in mind utilising an old blanket I had purchased some time ago (more on that project in another blog) but I really needed to wash it before using it. Off we went to the laundromat to get the blanket as well as our other laundry sorted.

One machine was filled with clothing, the other the blanket, I put the car keys on top of the washer whilst I sorted out putting in the laundry soap into the dispenser when ooops, the keys slid off down between to washers. Bother! or words to that effect.

The offending machines

Of course we could not access underneath the washing machine, so we tried to get in behind the machines. First we had to find someone who had a screwdriver, the shop next door happened to have one we could borrow. Meanwhile we tried to fish out the keys from between the washers which all that did was move the keys further underneath the base plate.

After removing the side panels to access the rear, it was evident that was not going to work as the rear of the machines were bolted to a solid metal stand running the full length of the machines. Hmmm, what to do? I looked up the web site for the laundry and rang the contact number, the very nice lady informed me that they were in Hastings (a good day or more drive away!) but she could call out technical support, however that would cost $100, could I put the funds onto my laundry card then she would deduct it straight away. Having tried every other option including two very nice young gentlemen from the shop next door coming with all sorts of wire and implements to try and help, I had no choice but to pay. The Tech would be there in an hour or so I was told.

The keys are under there somewhere.

An hour and half later a very friendly man turned up, knelt in front of the offending machine, removed two screws at the base of the washer which allowed the whole front cover of the machine to be removed, he reached in, retrieved the keys and put the cover back on. If only I had known, we could have easily done that.

Later that day, Roy gave me a gift…..

Two screws, $50 each!!

But it wasn’t just me that had to fork out $100, the following day Roy had an issue with his hearing aid so off to the audiology shop to see if it could be fixed, he had to pay $100 to get a small wire replaced on his one hearing aid. At least he can sort of hear now….hearing specialist next week which I am sure will be much more than $100!

Christchurch-Parnassus-Kaikoura

The road from Christchurch to Parnassus is not a great distance, about 145km, and very scenic with lots of wineries along the way however, we were happy to drive on past the wineries onto our destination.

Crossing the Hurunui River

Parnassus is one of the quieter parks in the NZMCA network, and when we arrived at the park just one other vehicle was there but by the evening 6 others had joined us. They all left the following morning so our next night there was spent on our own, not that we mind.

Parked in the sunshine in Parnassus

We had planned on staying just two nights but the weather was rubbish on Tuesday so without any pressing reason to leave, we stayed off the roads. In fact there were warnings out to stay off the roads as there were predicted high winds, snow to fall in the hills and generally a good day to stay indoors knitting whilst watching the olympics.

From here it was an even shorter drive of just 68km to Kaikoura. For some reason I woke early, well, early for me 😉, and with a glorious day unfolding we were on our way before 10am. What a stunning day to travel with lots of scenery to take in along the way.

Just out of Parnassus we caught a glimpse of the Inland Kaikoura Range covered in snow

Aaaah, back by the sea

Through the tunnel

At the top of the rope, you can just make out the orange jacket of abseilers working on road safety measures after the earthquake.

The overhead nets have been completed since we were through here in late March.

The Seaward Kaikoura Range towering above the sea.

We arrived at the Kaikoura NZMCA a park in time for lunch and settled in where we picked to be a good place. All of the grass areas are roped off at the moment but fortunately there are two levels of gravelled parking areas to choose from.

View from the door of the van

And from the front window.

Whilst we were in Kaikoura we popped in to see Trevor & Susan, they have moved into their new house since we were here in April. We ended up have having dinner with them in their stunning new home overlooking South Bay. And of course I did my usual thing of forgetting to take a single photo. We had a lovely time with them over a very nice meal Susan made for us all and we look forward to seeing them again and see what they have done with their gardens.

You will have worked out by now that we only move on fine days, we choose not to travel in high winds, torrential rain or at night. We realise that we are fortunate not to have a schedule to keep to and can change plans to suit ourselves.

With that in mind, Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, the weather forecast for the next few days were dire with wind warnings and snow forecast so we packed up ready to leave. We got as far as the dump station at the Kaikoura NZMCA park (all of 100metres from where we were parked) when the wind started to blow, and blow, and blow. After emptying the tanks and with the van being rocked by the wind we looked at each other and said, nah, let’s go back and park up here until the bad weather passes. So we did exactly that.

The rain came down in torrents, and it got colder and colder, by late afternoon it was only just above zero.

A bit of water lying around

Icy snow building up on the windows.

Luckily the storm only lasted a couple of days before the sun came out again. This is the view out of the van door over a couple of days.

Top picture when the clouds descended, and the following morning in the picture below.

An interesting thing happened whilst we were in Kaikoura. Roy lost the little pouch that he keeps his hearing aid batteries in along with a couple of other things for his hearing aids. We searched and searched throughout the van and then the car and the ground in between but could not find it anywhere. A couple of days later we went to the supermarket where we were met at the entrance by the manager with a photo of Roy taken at the supermarket and with the hearing aid pouch in his hand asking if this was Roy’s? “Yes”, he said, “but how did you know it was mine? “. Well, they found it on the floor by the checkout, looked back through CCTV footage, found it was Roy who dropped it and printed off his picture. Then on camera they followed him to the car, got the reg of the car and when the car came into the car parking lot two days later, the camera picked up the reg and sent a text alert to the manager who met us at the entrance to the supermarket!! How amazing is that? Scary, that big brother is watching everything we do, but great that he got his pouch returned. And yes, he has now put his name and phone number inside it, just in case.

On to Christchurch

We left Parnassus after the fog lifted making way for an absolutely stunning day. This is more like it, a typical South Island autumn day, crisp clear days albeit with cooler evenings.

Clear skies, brown hills, we’re heading towards Canterbury

We had thought of staying at a couple of places just north of Christchurch but the day was so lovely, the traffic minimal and so we continued on to the NZMCA Park at Weedons.

Parked up at the Weedons NZMCA park, what a stunning day

We settled in and watched as the park filled up during the afternoon. We had a visit from Jim in his new rig, he’s sold his bus and bought a caravan and a Ute to tow it with. We caught up over a cup of tea and had a good look over his new set up which will suit him well before he left to get his solar sorted.

Jim’s new set up, a big change from his old Bedford bus.

And now little story to amuse you, so make a cuppa and sit back!

Jim returns with all his new solar and batteries sorted and he parks up beside us, tea is made and conversation flows in its usual manner. Jim is still learning his new vans quirks and idiosyncrasies ….and he tells us he hasn’t read through the voluminous manual that came with his caravan as he got a few pages in and …well, it’s for future reading but he has looked up the odd bits and pieces as needed.

We retreat to our own vehicles for the evening.
I am shattered, I haven’t had a decent nights sleep for a few nights, so I’m off to bed early and fall into a very deep sleep, wake a couple of times in the night but fall straight back to sleep. I’m in a very deep deep sleep when at around 8am get woken by *#@&$ generators starting up. Then, as I drift back into the land of nod, we get blasted by VERY, VERY loud (bad) music….what the? We quickly realise that Jim has turned on his radio and its blasting out around the park out of his outdoor speakers!!

I have to add here that Jim is quite deaf, but he manages ably with hearing aids.

Roy goes racing out the door to tell Jim what’s happening BUT Jim can’t hear him cos a) the music is too loud and b) Jim hasn’t got his hearing aids in!! He explains to Roy that the music is up loud so he can hear it as he hasn’t got his hearing aids in 🤦‍♀️.
He then can’t figure out how to turn the outside speakers off, meanwhile music (if you can all it that) is still blasting out around the park!
Roy suggests he turns the radio down/off until he gets it sorted and that perhaps putting his hearing aids in may help matters! Of course you have to include in the retelling the visuals in your mind of two old fellas, neither who have good hearing, yelling at each other!
Peace and quiet (apart from generators still going) resumes.
I get up. 🤷‍♀️.

Later that morning, Roy looks up the instructions for the radio and helps Jim sort out the setup of his radio so that it no longer will play through the outside speakers. Peace reigns!

Just in case you wanted more of a Callum fix, here he is wearing his apron and helping mum make biscuits, they look delicious too.

Callum, the baker and expert taste tester! What a cutie.

What’s next?

Here we go again, another b*#*#y lockdown, topped off with earthquakes and tsunami warnings, so what’s next? Locusts?

Lockdown. How is it that a couple of persons actions can bring a whole nation to a pause? Easy, ignore all Covid advice and recommendations, be selfish and go inconvenience whole heap of innocent people.

When the news broke of the shift in levels, we quickly raced around the camp informing campers of the change in levels and the news that the park would be closing as the shift to level 3 came into effect. Everyone was packed up and gone by late on Sunday morning which left us on our own to enjoy the solitude.

We were a bit concerned that the changed Covid levels would scupper our plans for the week, our last week at Shakespear. We had a few appointments scheduled for the week ahead with a bit of uncertainty whether they would still go ahead but we were sent texts to say that they would indeed proceed. Roy had a checkup scan and a follow up appointment with the urologist as it’s been three years since he had surgery and radiation. Both of the appointments went ahead as planned, the scan on Monday and Tuesday at the specialist. We can report the good news that all is well. Then he just had his final eye specialist appointment scheduled for Friday as a follow up to his second successful cataract surgery a month ago. He has already had his new drivers licence issued which removed the requirement for the need for glasses to be worn whilst driving. The checkup went ahead and all is great there too so we will be free to move on once the Covid levels change on Sunday (today).

Next throw into the mix a few earthquakes which resulted in tsunami warnings to put us all on edge. The first we knew of the earthquake was when Alex (in London) messaged to asked if we had felt it? Uh, no, we were asleep at 2.30am when the first one happened. However, interestingly our smoke alarm went off three times during the early hours, which when looking at the times of the subsequent earthquakes, the timings coincided?! The alarm has not gone off since, apart from when I burnt the toast, and it’s a relatively new alarm with a 10year warranty and it’s a sealed unit that does not require you to change batteries.

The screeching warnings that came in on our phones later in the morning certainly give the old heart a jump start. We were packed up and ready to drive to higher ground as we were put on a Maritime/Beach watch but it wasn’t necessary to move in the end.

Before we leave a few chores need to be attended to. We’ve washed the van, polished the windows and done a few of the usual maintenance jobs including a couple of jobs I’ve been putting off. One being putting new mesh in the fly screen door. As it requires the removal of the door from the van, it seemed a good opportunity to give the door a clean and coat of paint as well.

A good job well done, and it’s now back in situ looking good.

We have emptied out all the lockers and cleaned them out as well as getting rid of some of those “cumzins”, you know, those things that may come in handy one of these days. It’s amazing the stuff you accumulate over time so we have ditched some of the stuff that we have been carrying around for years and never had a use for, so you can guess what will happen now don’t you? Yes, there will come an occasion shortly that we will be able to say…oh, we shouldn’t have thrown/given that away.

As we reflect upon this season of camp hosting, we can only say what a weird year it has been. Unfortunately people’s appalling behaviour or lack thereof is what immediately springs to mind as a summary of this year. The entitled, confrontational, aggressive attitude of a few people have tainted what otherwise has been a lovely summer. Instead of dwelling on the negative though we shall focus on the positive.

There were all the wonderful family and friends groups that came to stay and enjoyed camping, swimming and generally having fun in the sun.

Like this group who set their tables together for a banquet one evening. And yes, that is our van in the background in the top right hand corner

There are the families that come back every year and greet us like long lost friends. The huge number of positive people we meet every year certainly make up for the few idiots.

So what are our plans? Well, the plan is to not make too many plans so we don’t have to change them should the need arise but the general plan is to head south, as in to the South Island for a few months. Yes, we know it’s going to be a bit chilly as we move into autumn and winter, but we shall just have to dress appropriately! We are really looking forward to spending some time reconnecting with lots of friends as well as places again.

Ear, hear, ‘ere.

A few weeks ago Roy was out fishing with Steve when whilst trying to retrieve a fish off the line with the net, one of Roy’s hearing aids got flicked out and was duly deposited into the sea.  Oh no!   But more importantly they got the fish, a decent sized one at that too!! 

Over the next few days came the task of phone calls to insurance companies, then the hearing specialists with appointments made to have the aid replaced.  After a week or two of waiting to hear from the insurance company we were finally notified that all was ok and to go ahead to have the aid replaced so off we went to the Audiology centre.  Of course regular readers will know what is coming next…….. in true Vannini fashion, it wasn’t going to be that easy.

Roy went to his appointment expecting to be given a new hearing aid but no…apparently the old aids are no longer available as they have been superseded and as well they are “paired”  to each other so a replacement was out of the question instead he now needed a complete new set.  Eeek, this is turning into an expensive fishing expedition!  However, between the audiology centre and the insurance company they came to a mutual agreement, unbeknown to us, that  a complete new set of hearing aids was essential and should be covered by our policy.  Hence a new set of aids had to be prepared and set up which meant another appointment was made to have them fitted.

A week later we trundled back across the bridge to have the new hearing aids fitted.

Roy having the new aids tested and set up correctly….all done by computer!  

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Just like his old aids, they are pretty hard to see when he is wearing them as all you can see is a fine, clear tube going into his ear, it almost looks like a piece of fishing line….or a grey hair! with a very small piece which is fitted over the back of his ear and is only obvious if you are looking for it.  

Very close up view of the fine wire disappearing inside the ear.

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The new aids are really flash and are very, very, clever.  They are bluetoothed to any or all of our iOS devices which means Roy can have his phone and iPad linked directly to the aids.  The controls for the aids are on his phone as well via an app he has downloaded.  Each hearing aid has individual volume controls for each ear, which can be controlled either by the controls on the aids themselves or via his phone, as well as adjusting bass, treble etc.   This technology also enables him to stream movies/podcasts directly to his hearing aids. He can also change programs and  they have a sound enhancer so he can adjust them for when he is in a crowd, he can alter them specifically for speech by focussing the direction, they have a wind noise adjustment, and even a tinnitus manager!! and a white noise input with noise cancelling ability.  As well he can have it so that when his phone rings,  it rings straight out the hearing aids.  BUT the best thing of all is they have a finder-search function for each individual aid and a last location finder!!!  That will be a godsend particularly when one gets lost as he did in this instance.    I tell you, they are pretty damn clever and his hearing will of course be better too.

His old hearing aids were bluetoothed to a device which was attached to the TV but these days we don’t use the TV.  Rather, we have been watching most things on the iPads by using a splitter plug, with Roy’s headphones plugged into one connection and a small external speaker in the other port for me.   However, this is all about to change.   Currently one device at a time can be attached via Bluetooth to any one device so for instance Roy can listen to something via his hearing aids but I cannot connect to the same device with my wireless headphones.  However, help is on its way as we can get a Bluetooth splitter device.  This has been ordered and is on its way and should arrive any day.  With the splitter Roy can have his hearing aids tuned in and I can use my wireless headphones and we can each have the volume adjusted to our own preferences.  Clever eh?! 

He has had them for a few weeks now with just one return visit  to the audiologist in Auckland to have one of the aid levels adjusted as it was creating a bit of feedback noise.    We have since been at Uretiti enjoying the sunny north when one day Roy decided he needed to change the grommet on the aids.  The grommet is the very small, black, rubberlike device that sits in the ear canal and I do mean small. Combined with large fingers the outcome was not going to be great. 

Yep, you guessed it, next minute we are crawling around the floor to try and find a dropped piece.  And yes, our flooring is black, and no we could not find it.  We even resorted to vacuuming the entire floor and then seiving through the detritus to try and find the elusive little thing.  However, we had no luck in finding it.  This whole scenario repeated itself a couple of days later with the same result.  Obviously he was doing something wrong so as we were heading into Whangarei the following day we thought we would call into the local branch of Bay Audiology to see if they could help.  Besides, he was having a bit of trouble with one of the aids sitting uncomfortably in the ear so they could sort that out as well.

Off we went into Whangarei and straight to Bay Audiology, where on inspection they said, wait a minute, there is a grommet stuck in your ear! No wonder things were not feeling comfortable!  We then had to go to another specialist hearing place to have the offending grommet removed safely.  Luckily they had a free appointment later in the morning so we made our way there.  Yes, he had a grommet stuck in his ear which was easily retrieved with a specialised tool, but hello? What’s this? Yep, you guessed it, there was not one, but two grommets stuck in there!!! No wonder the hearing wasn’t the best in that ear with two stuck grommets and a third in the actual hearing aid making things sound decidedly muffled!  I told you things were never straight forward with the Vannini’s!  

In between all of this, he had to have an MRI on one ear to make sure that there is nothing sinister making the hearing in one ear  deteriorate much more rapidly than the other.  The MRI has cleared that up with the hearing loss being put down to natural deterioration.  However, the specialist has sent us away with brochures on cochlear implants as apparently that is the next step.  But at this stage we shall just wait and see how things go as his hearing as it is much better now with the new aids.

So no longer will you see Roy going off on his walks with his headphones on connected via a wire to his iPhone whilst he is listening to podcasts, you will just see him wandering along……just don’t try to talk to him as he will probably be intently listening to a podcast.