December 18th: Torture

So we almost moved. Yep that's correct, we almost moved. We had been looking for a new adventure for a while now and suddenly an opportunity presented itself. Nienke wanted to downsize a bit. Well this property was almost twice the size of ours, but the house was half the size. Nicely located in a remote valley, but still in Kapiti. Only problem was, there was quite a bit of interest in the property as you can see from all the cars in this picture.

The owners, of course on advise of the real estate agent, had chosen to go for a tender process. That means that if you want to have the house, you send a letter with your offer before a certain date and the highest bidder wins. Awful process for buyers. Anyway, the house sold for more than 60% above the rateable value. Crazy market here. Poor Nienke very disappointed. It looked so lovely with 10 hectares of pine forest, several nice paddocks and multiple sheds and a genuine 1919 old farmhouse. Ah well, something new will pop up one day. With a tennis court, I hope.

So for now we're stuck with this view from our beach.

Or just from the deck.

Or not at all. We've had some strange weather around here. Summer does not want to start. We've had lot's of rain. This came in handy as Andre (of Dutch descent) came over to clean our water tanks. He managed to save a bit from the second tank after filtering it, but I estimate we donated about 50.000 liter back to nature. The southerlies made it a bit cold as well.

Because of this we had to decide to only make hay in our front paddocks as the grass is so green and lush, our cows just can't eat all of it. And because we still had quite some hay left, we can't store the lot. The other reason was that hay makers turn up when it suits them and usually without warning. And because I can't help lifting the bales after my operation Nienke would have to do all of it by herself.

It's not that we were just not doing anything. A while ago I bought a scaffolding and recently some paint. So when 2 Work-away-ers came over to stay with us for two weeks it seemed like a perfect moment to do some interior redecorating.

Well, redecorating is maybe n ot the right word. After ample discussion with Nienke 'we' decided to go for, wait for it ...., exactly the same colours. Basically we were going to cover ten years of fly and spider poop. It only turned out I was right about the green wall in the living room. I said it was green and Nienke said it was blue. Turned out it once was blue, but it had faded into a green colour which was quite clear when we removed our big cabinet. The new layer shows that Nienke was right.

We had a few really productive days, managed to paint the whole upper floor. No we did not paint the sky, nature did that all by herself as a reward for Alex and Jennifer's efforts.

And then of course something had to go wrong. When we dismantled the scaffolding I wanted to do things too fast (meaning: on my own) and one part tumbled over, causing a nice big scratch on our just painted wall. Luckily the window did not shatter. That's all repaired by now and not visible anymore. No other problems. Well, one small one. When the house was painted they painted the flu of our fire in an off white colour. As the flu gets really hot it needs to be a high temperature resistant paint. They do have one here, but only in black. So for now the flu is the only thing that still needs to be done.

Even painted the walls around our staircase. It was clear that I made the correct decision to go for a 70 cm deep scaffolding. This fitted perfectly between the wall and the hand rails.

Piece of cake.

Alex and Jennifer love food. Not only the eating part of it, but also the creating part of it. No objections from our side. They made us some delicious miso soup and another complicated vegetarian dish.

And then that dreaded day was there all of a sudden. The sky cried for me. We got up really early as we had to be in hospital at 9 am. Left at 6.45 am and only just made it. 2 1/2 hours over 60 km. It took so long because of the daily traffic jams on a weekly day, the horrible weather with some spontaneous waterfalls over the highway and the usual idiot drivers.

It was clear that Wakefield hospital is a private hospital. So different from the stories I hear from my patients. Staff was friendly and efficient. In fact, I was moved to theater so fast that Nienke missed this shot. 

Poor Nienke, she was told the operation was going to last 3 hours and than an hour in recovery, so I would be back in my room at 4 pm. At 6.30 pm she started to get a bit worried as nobody had come to tell her something yet. Recovery took quite long. I did tell the anesthetist about my previous experience with the low heart rate. "Well, that's not happening here, this is Wakefield hospital". OK, so my heart rate did not drop to 25, but only to 29. With a low blood-pressure (because of more blood-loss than expected) and excessive sweating I was quite a concern for the nurses in recovery. I can only remember vague bits of it. Nurses running around, putting a wet towel on my head,worried faces swaying over my head, "Hans are you awake (I could hear them but not answer), etc. Afterwards one of the nurses asked me about Brasil. Apparently I had been mumbling about Brasil during recovery. I still do not see the relevance of it.

When they finally got me stable again they wheeled me back to a relieved Nienke. And as my blood-pressure was still on the lower side I attacked the bag with licorice Nienke had brought along straight away.

After a good meal my natural colour started to re-emerge again. And for the insiders, you can see the readings on the monitor are acceptable. The smile on my face is because at that point I had not fully realised the implications of having a catheter.

Because of my adventure in recovery they kept me a day longer. On Saturday they kicked me out. I was to further recover at home. At home the work-away-ers surprised me with this. A selfmade Dutch "boterkoek" and some presents from friends.

Jennifer is an expert on poached-eggs. Nienke and I have finally given up on that after many attempts ended in egg soup or a burned device in the microwave. She made us delicious eggs benedict for breakfast. I can so get used to being pampered like this.

So, operation successful. Now it is down to recuperation. Like lock-down in NZ, not the worst place to be.

In the beginning is just a bit of getting used to the fiddling around with a catheter and the bags. It does have it's advantages: 1. you can drink what you want without having to go to the toilet (it actually comes with 2 l. extension bags), 2. it's very hard to miss the bowl which, many women can vouch for, is a huge improvement!, 3. you do not have to get up anymore at night which many men can vouch for is a huge improvement!, 4. you can smuggle whisky into an event (as my colleague said he once did). That's about it, no more advantages. As the days passed it became more apparent how awful that thing is. My little friend was really suffering, like it got caught in one of those horrible rat traps. Not sure why the Americans used waterboarding in Irak, give a man a catheter for a few days and he'll confess to anything. The last few days of this ordeal I was walking around half naked as I could not tolerate any pressure on my friend. Today was the day to remove that torture device (they'd given me an appointment in hospital to do that, but by doing that myself I saved 3 hours in traffic). There I was in the garden admiring the sun and the fact that I could pee again. Now it is just a matter of training the pelvic floor in order to stay continent. Sorry to bother you with all these details, but for me farting without losing urine is the accomplishment of the day! 

You know what the difference is between god and a surgeon? God doesn't think he is a surgeon. In 1991 I saw the movie "The doctor" in which William Hunt plays the role of a typical surgeon, a narcissistic and arrogant extremely self-content creature. Until he becomes a patient himself which changes his life quite a bit. Of course there are exceptions, like my father-in-law. A very good movie which should be mandatory education stuff for medical students. I do not think I am anywhere near the character William Hunt played, but it is eye-opening to experience the implications of something like this prostatectomy yourself. I realise I am very lucky, being operated in a private hospital and having such a great caring wife.

I wish you all o good christmas and a happy New Year. The last one can't be very difficult1

November 23rd: Oh well, shit happens.

Still having good memories of the experience of the Vincent van Gogh exposition, we start this blog with the song 'Vincent' from Don McClean:

Something funny to start with. I was listening to a news program on the radio about the van Gogh exposition when a very annoying reporter, Mike Hoskins, an arrogant narcissist, was talking to a so called specialist on 'van Gogh'. They discussed how to pronounce his name. Their conclusion was there were only two ways and either way was all right. Well, as a Dutchman, I can say they were both wrong. English speaking people just does not have the capacity to pronounce it the right way without producing copious amounts of spit or losing their false teeth.

I know, I know, you want to know what the result of my biopsies are like. Well, I have prostate cancer (😟). Yep, another curve ball in our lives. Like losing tree kids wasn't enough. Gleason 8 (that a score to score how bad it is). On a scale from 0 - 10 it tells you this is not exactly the best news.

By now we know a little bit more. I have had a PET-scan (no that does not concern our rabbits, pigs and chickens). It's a scan where they use a radioactive drug to look at how organs function. It's highly sensitive. First they bring you to your 'cell' and put a line in your arm. Then they inject some radio active stuff and leave you waiting in your cell for 2 hours. Good enough for a Norwegian movie. The door is locked from the outside (I think) and a little window gives the 'guards' the opportunity to sneak peek on you. They do tell you not to be close to children or pregnant women for a while. I was wondering what to do when a young female officer would stop me on my way home. How would she react if I asked her if she was pregnant?

Anyway, finally a bit of luck. The day after the pathology of my atypical lesion in my oesphagus came back as normal (my skin lesions had turned out to be old mans lesions 🙄) my colleague surprised me late Friday afternoon with the news that the PET-scan was OK, meaning the cancer was contained in the prostate and had not spread anywhere else. Good news I guess, now we just have to get rid of that thing and I should be normal again. Well, as normal as before. The operation is planned for December the 10th.

Beautiful view on the Kepler track.

Unfortunately that means we can't do the Kepler track we were so much looking forward to do at Christmas. Instead of being away in the beautiful environment of the southern fjords I'll be sitting on the deck at home with my new friend,the urine bag, dangling on my leg. It will only last a few weeks said the urologist. I saw a patient this week who told me he had been incontinent for 13 years. So when you ask me to come over for dinner and sit on your new couch maybe you should check with Nienke first. Just finished my last working days of the year. After a few minor Covid scares in New Zealand (one was really close and resulted in many swabs in our practice, none of which turned out to be positive by the way) I decided not to take any chances and stay at home the coming three weeks (with a prostate). Not so much to bother Nienke (😉), but to avoid every risk of getting infected with anything and so risking postponement of my operation. Now I know, let's get it over with.

Our weather is very strange at the moment. We have alternating days of really fine weather and weather bombs. Today was a great day for golf. Looking very relaxed at the 10th. As we only play 9 holes I had not lost a ball yet. In fact, it was a very good day if I say so myself.

No, this is not preparation for another radioactive adventure. We were contemplating buying a nice rugged 4 wheel drive camper van. But after calculating the costs and looking at Nienke's holidays we concluded it would absolutely not be a cost-effective investment. Far from it even. So I decided to work a bit on our current van. I sprayed the whole bottom with a anti rust chemical and afterwards a nice layer of bitumen. That'll protect it for years. Nienke already came up with the idea to paint the rest of the van in flower power motifs during Christmas. Mmmm. I was thinking orange.

This beauty is still not happy with her hair. I asked her to let it grow again when we were in South America. Reluctantly she did. Except for herself, everybody seems to like it. 

A few days ago we decided to climb the Colonial Knob (I know, horrible name) once more. It was a practice run for the Keppler track. At that point we didn't know about an operation date. In the background you see the outskirts of Wellington city and the Cook strait (the one fake hero Abel Tasman ignored because he wanted to go home)..

We did this track it in the past, but it seemed a lot easier now (or we became fitter 😅😂😉).

Unfortunately the view on the top was obscured by a sudden sea fog. Even in the fog our salmon/avocado sandwiches were amazing.

Just a few meters further down the track we were able to look all the way from Mana island to Kapiti island and beyond (= our home).

As we were a lot faster than we had estimated we had time to visit a new development on the Paekakeriki hill road. There were 9 sections, this one having an amazing view over Mana island and the South island in the background. Not much of down sizing though as it was 20 hectares of steep land. Lots of birds, quietness, great views, but according to my wife... too much wind.

Very nice dinner with our friends, celebrating their new house. They merged two households which explains a still overloaded garage.

Yep, bought a bit of paint. Going to paint our house, inside and out. Have started in the bathrooms and the hallway. 

We just have to upgrade the colours of the house again like nature does in the garden.Look at the Tui bathing in the sunlight

My mother was enjoying the white asparagus from the Limburg province in the Netherlands. Traditionally served with ham, mashed potatoes, boiled egg and butter. No white asparagus here, but we managed to copy that menu pretty good. Amazing taste. I guess, a benefit from the catheter/urine bag in December will be that I'll miss out on that typical smell of your pee after asparagus.

And a full day in the kitchen to prepare an Indonesian meal for my South island trip compadres. Beers and food, memory lane......

Great night. Those arms? Nothing serious, they are just trying to hide the beer bellies for the camera. Hang on, there's one missing. Where is Gavin?

And the arts trail was on again. We've been so often now we could hardly imagine there would still be artists we had not visited yet. So we were only going to visit one, or two..... And most likely not buy anything as we do not have much more space in our house for it anymore. Well, we failed.... Loved this lady of chicken wire. Would rust away at our property in no time. Nice project though. We did buy a painting here, a 'Dutch pour', a certain paint technique. Great for in the bathroom according to Nienke, therefor validating her purchase as of course, there is an empty wall in the bathroom. For a reason....

And then we deserved a rest. A glass of wine and some snacks. Not sure why Nienke had popcorn on there, but the salmon and asparagus with Parmesan cheese were delicious. The summer has not even started properly yet.

A few years ago we introduced Sinterklaas to our friends here in NZ. We did leave zwarte Piet (black Pete) out, realising the controversy in the Netherlands would soon spread over the world. This year everybody prepared their food and poems for a great night at Cindie's place.

Yes, exactly, where is Nienke? All the  ladies were present for a group picture, but my lady was discussing the progress of the ham with the guys at the barbeque.

Mr. Tui (he refuses to drink any other type of beer) got a 12 pack of different beers, in a Tui box. With a very funny poem.

Some presents were hilarious, Like Cam's tea towel with the Oldies text code on it.

I got a stress ball in the shape of Donald Trumps head. Not very useful but I can use it as target practice as my plastic magpie ceased to exist. Not that I need it, as I shoot rabbits on a daily basis. Probably 35 a week. The egg alarm is to support his head as it won't stand up straight (much like in reality). The hand sanitiser speaks for itself I guess. 

Amazing night and lots of fun. What other Dutch traditions could we introduce? I was thinking of 'klootschieten', 'carbid schieten', 'fierljeppen', 'elf steden tocht schaatsen' or 'sjoelen', to name but a few. Now that I have participated in curling, they could do something weird too ay?

Dick and Nettie had organised an evening with Fred and Liesbeth. Fred and Liesbeth had traveled through the America's and England for 5 years in an old mercedes. They gave their (I think 68th) presentation, amazing adventure. Great to see some of the places we'd been to well. I guess after the operation I will have some time to complete our presentation/photo book.

First a few jobs I have to finish on our property. Our drinking water was a bit smelly said Nienke. OK, definitely not a 1959 Margaux, but also no Chateaux Migraine either. I did not smell it, but after changing the filters (I must admit, I was a month late) Nienke's nose still picked up the odd smell. So I had a look in the water tank. Quite some leaves and other muck on the bottom. Our first flush system is supposed to take care of that. That is the big white thing in the picture. The first water coming from our roofs is going through the big white pipe on the right towards the storage tank. That first water has the sand, dead insects, bird poo and leaves in it. When the flush tank fills with that dirty water a ball will close of the entrance at the top and 'clean' water will run into the big tank. That's the theory. Our first plumbers ('plumber of the year' in NZ 👹) installed that flush tank horizontally under the ground. Indeed, that guy missed the elementary lessons about physics in plumbing school. Well it never did. So a new plumber was going to make it all right, while we were in South America. He was going to shorten the tank so it would end up above the ground, giving the flush tank the opportunity to empty itself and me to get the bottom cap of in order to clean it. Well, they must have had a few beers when they did it, but it ended up with the bottom in the ground. A bracket fixed to a pole in cement (that helps draining the water very well 😕) holds the tank up straight and is mounted in such a way that is was nearly impossible to unscrew the cap. When I eventually managed to do so (after digging up all the pipes) it was full all right. Full with dirt. This water storage tank by the way is Kiwi design. See the manhole at the top? If you don't own a helicopter you have to put a ladder against it to reach the lid. So where do we place the pipes? Exactly, right underneath. And what to think of the electrician? A power point, right underneath the overflow pipe. I have added some rain pipes to lead the overflow water away from a certain electrocution site. Kiwi's are absolutely great people, but often we wonder where their brains were. I am now busy creating a proper drain pit with river stones in it underneath the first flush tank and will make a will line the pit you see with retaining wall timber and put a very firm lid on it. Sorry, had to get this of my chest. Not enough rabbits around today to calm me down today.

Meanwhile my lovely wife is enjoying herself. At work as well as of work. Although her work is full on, she really loves it. This night they had the Council Christmas party. Staff and partners were welcome. The organising committee had rented the Waikanae golf club as the party venue, but forgot to ask the fire department how many people were allowed to attend. When the finally were told no more than 200 were allowed inside the building all the available tickets had been sold and a lot of staff would not be able to attend. So me and a few other good blokes offered our tickets to staff members as it was their party after all. Nienke picked up Margareth, don't they make a lovely couple (I agree, that jacket is awful)? OK, that's it for today. No ranting about COVID or Donald T. I'll add a few really good ones without comments. Have a laugh. Next time we'll probably have some very exciting news (does not involve my private parts) and I'll update you on my operation.

Translation: Of course there are more corona infections because we do more tests. If we did more IQ-tests we would find more idiots too.

So you have been eating 'frikandellen' all your life, but you refuse the corona vaccin because you don't know what's in it? (A frikandel is a skinless sausage made of 'rest-meat'. Loved by many, despiced by others. Usually eaten with raw onions, mayonaise and ketchup. One of the worst attacks on Dutch coronairy arteries ever invented)

Translation: Sometimes I wonder;what were our parents doing without the internet? I asked my 12 sisters and 9 brothers, but they didn't know either.

 Wishing you all a very good December, cheers, Hans