{"id":693,"date":"2017-01-03T04:43:48","date_gmt":"2017-01-03T04:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lrd.co.nz\/wordpress\/?page_id=693"},"modified":"2017-11-04T01:19:17","modified_gmt":"2017-11-04T01:19:17","slug":"december-2016","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/lrd.co.nz\/?page_id=693","title":{"rendered":"December 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

Haere Mai.<\/p>\n

The month began with our annual club bonsai workshop at Pirongia with Nobuyuki Kajiwara, our Japanese bonsai master.
\n\"\"
\nAs always it was an informative and fun weekend.
\n\"\"
\nNobu\u2019s been leading these workshops for 10 years now
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

We also had our final club meeting of the year \u2013 an afternoon of fun, frolics and food! One club member organised a quiz (a mixture of bonsai and general knowledge questions) and Ann showed off her movie trivia with the fact that Clint Eastwood sang \u2018I talk to the trees\u2019 in the movie Paint Your Wagon!<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nHoney\u2019s itching has become worse again and the wonder drug from the USA is not working properly so the vet took some bloods and these were sent off to Australia for testing. The results showed that Honey is allergic to 9 different foods (including the lamb and rice we\u2019ve been feeding her the last year to try and sort out her gut problems) plus a multitude of grasses, trees (even ones that we\u2019re growing in the paddock for firewood) and other stuff. So now she\u2019s on a special diet and an allergy desensitisation programme which involves regular injections (two each time as she has so many allergies). Ann\u2019s nursing skills coming into play here. Honey doesn\u2019t seem to mind the injections at all although Maxie is very interested and tries to get her nose right into the action! In fact Honey wriggled so much one day and Maxie just wouldn\u2019t butt out that Peter had trouble holding Honey still and as Ann finished the second injection she managed to stab herself with the needle. That was Christmas Day \u2013 so no vet support available unless we wanted to pay megabucks! But as Ann didn\u2019t start frothing at the mouth or growing hair between her toes we didn\u2019t panic. It took a few hours of researching on the internet to find a food that Honey could eat, and finding treats that she can have too. She now has a seafood diet at meal times with tiny squares of venison for treats. Maxie continues with the same old stuff \u2013 luckily she likes it.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAnn had lots of lovely gifts from work colleagues and students including several in gift bags. When she got home Maxie was very interested in one gift bag and kept sticking her head inside. So we left it on the floor and every so often pop a treat in it for her to find. It\u2019s an amazing bag which magically produces treats for Maxie. As it\u2019s noisy when you put your head inside Honey hates it and won\u2019t go near it \u2013 so no worries about her eating treats that she\u2019s allergic to.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nSadly this month we also said farewell to Peter\u2019s dad, John. His health had deteriorated over the year and he passed away on 2nd December. Due to the complexities of paperwork these days (and a waiting list for the crematorium!) the funeral wasn\u2019t until 21st December. Peter travelled back to the UK on 16th December and returned home on Christmas Eve!<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAlthough both Ann and the girls missed Peter whilst he was away Maxie pined the most. Every day she would sit at one of the windows and watch down the driveway hoping to see Peter arrive home in his Ute.
\n\"\"
\nWhen he finally arrived home she was ecstatic!
\n\"\"
\nWhilst Peter was away Maxie also managed to sneak up onto the bed.<\/p>\n

Peter was nominated for two awards at work, Customer Service Engineer of the Year and Service Engineer of the Year. Unfortunately he will have to wait until he goes back to see if he won as the awards ceremony was on the Monday he was in the UK.<\/p>\n

The weather was lovely here in New Zealand whilst Peter caught a cold in the damp grey UK. Ann managed to do lots of mowing and weeding in the garden, and made jam, chutney, mince pies and cookies.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nChristmas Day was quiet. Peter and Ann had books and CDs whilst the girls had new a lead each. Maxie enjoyed unwrapping hers but of course Honey refused because of the noise the paper makes.
\n\"\"
\nShe ran into the study (her place of safety) and hid under the desk. Not even a special doggie chocolate treat could tempt her out.<\/p>\n

News from Home<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n


\nTwo of our long time friends got married. Duncan and Lyn tying the knot in Worcester on Dec 8th. They’ll be spending their honeymoon in New Zealand in a couple of months time!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

< November<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 January ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Haere Mai. The month began with our annual club bonsai workshop at Pirongia with Nobuyuki Kajiwara, our Japanese bonsai master. As always it was an informative and fun weekend. Nobu\u2019s been leading these workshops for 10 years now We also had our final club meeting of the year \u2013 an afternoon of fun, frolics and … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-693","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lrd.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lrd.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lrd.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lrd.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lrd.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=693"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/lrd.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1374,"href":"http:\/\/lrd.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/693\/revisions\/1374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lrd.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}