Auckland and home

Rosie had another MRI on Wednesday but we haven't seen Wirginia about it yet - sometime this week. She's continuing with Dexamethasone at a reduced dose until we see Wirginia. Symptoms are certainly no worse and sometimes they look a bit better.

And now for the last installment of our holiday story which seems so long ago now.
Auckland was our final destination and we spent five days there mostly catching up with people. I had been in phone contact with my half-sister Lena but we met for the first time in Auckland. The girls and I went out for lunch with Lena, Kasi and
Aunty Tina. Aunty Tina hadn't seen Lena since she was a toddler in a cot when Aunty Tina and other young things used to go around to Dad and Ruby's (mother of three of my half-siblings) place for dancing and hanging out when war-time curfews were in force.

There was some opportunity for indulging in cafe society including at this nice beachside place in Mission Bay.

Aunty Tina's daughter Charleyne came over one night with her son Caleb. I'll be able to take some pics of his family to Stanley, another of Aunty Tina's offspring who happens to be our hairdresser in Melbourne, when I go to have my hair done tomorrow at his own swish salon, Archibald's.

Two very influential people in my musical life and also very dear friends are Janetta Newhook (MacStay), my piano teacher at Auckland University and Heather Smith, my violin teacher for several years before university. We had morning tea/lunch at Janetta's. There never seems to be enough time to talk about everything but my visits with Janetta are always nourishing.

From there we went straight to Heather's place where we also saw Lorna Ansell, mother of Gillian from the New Zealand String Quartet. Gillian and her brother Simon were also pupils of Heather's for many years so we all go back a long way. Heather is and artist as well and one of her recent discoveries is nail polish. She gave the girls a quick lesson in nail polish art and Sophie has continued to use the medium back home in Melbourne.

Later that evening we joined Kasi, Raymond and Aunty Tina for a meal at their local Chinese where the girls also did some artistic posing for the camera.
The next day we picked Kasi up after lavishing some attention on her dog, Chum, and went to Rainbow's End, one of the non-negotiables of a visit to Auckland. We did just about everything there although poor Rosie was banned from a couple of the rides (by me) because I wasn't yet sure what was going on in her brain and a few of the rides say "not suitable for head injuries". Kasi and Sophie weren't too sure about the pirate ship - they had to huddle and keep their heads down for most of
it.

We cut our stay in Auckland short by a day so that we could spend a day in Sydney on the way home. At Christmas I had spoken to Aunty Carlo (Sophie Carlotta is named after her - that was Mum's nickname for her) and realised her liver cancer had progressed a lot since I had last been in touch. I wanted to see her again and I'm really glad we did. We had a very good visit with her and Uncle Rocky and her niece, Makita, from Auckland who was staying for a week. We stayed at an apartment
near Darling Harbour and managed to fit in a visit to the sushi train restaurant there that Rosie had been fantasising about since out last trip to Sydney. It was good to be with Aunty Carlo on what was to be one of her last few good days. A couple of weeks later I was back in Sydney for her funeral and then, shockingly for everybody, Uncle Rocky died six days after her funeral so nine days after farewelling Aunty Carlo we were all together again to farewell Uncle Rocky.

Finally our epic adventure came to an end and Peter met us at the airport. At home Rosie had a few more birthday presents since Peter hadn't been with us on her birthday. The special one was a framed certificate which summed up the previous year.