February

Rosie and I saw Wirginia last Thursday and she reported on the previous week's MRI. It seemed to confirm what she had told us after the one before, that the progress was basically good but there was temporarily quite a lot of swelling which was causing the right-side wonkiness. Because they had used contrast for this scan we could see the AVM itself quite well and it is quite clear that it has shrunk considerably, probably by about half so that's good. Wirginia thinks it'll take months rather than weeks for the side-effects to calm down and she didn't think keeping Rosie on the Dexamethasone would affect that so we are now in the process of weaning Rosie off it. She's got her slighly puffy cheeks back and her enhanced appetite. This time it's been largely directed towards organic weetbix, her latest craze. One morning she ate 10! Anyway, that should all go back to normal soon since she should be completely off the steroid in a few more days. She's been keeping up with swimming pretty well and tennis somewhat and is enjoying netball at school so isn't suffering too much.

We had a very nice visit from tall NZSO violist, Norbert Heuser a little while ago. We ate out in Carlton and then had dessert at NZ Natural ice-cream shop.

Also around that time we got a new Fisher and Paykel fridge which is a thing of beauty.

The reason it has taken me some time to blog is that last week Nigel Kennedy came to town and I'm only just recovering. He did three sold-out shows with a small group from the MSO and yours truly got to play a double concerto with him. The whole thing was the most fun any of us had ever had and there were several very late nights. Nigel likes to party and he's very generous about inviting the whole group back to his luxury suite till all hours where he played more with a black singer/songwriter who was travelling with him. His wife and son were with him for most of the Australian tour but they left just before Melbourne so there was no stopping him. Peter and the girls came to one of the shows and even stayed for the whole thing - with the intermittent stand-up comedy routine and lots of musical improvising too, the show didn't finish till 11:15. I took them backstage at interval to meet Nigel and get their programmes autographed.


On Saturday we had the biggest rain for ages with lots of exiting lightening and thunder. Jessye was walking back from dance classes when it hit but we managed to scoop her up in the car in the nick of time. The house sprang a few leaks and the girls were tickled pink by the cars rushing by on Nicholson Street spraying water everywhere.

Sophie discovered afghans when we were in NZ and luckily there is a recipe in our Edmonds Cookbook so we've made them a couple of times, most recently on Sunday. Pies and sausage rolls were on the menu for dinner since I got home at 5:45 am that morning after our last Nigel concert and was in no mood for slaving over a hot stove.

We took photos for the girls' yearly tram and train concession passes. Jessye's and Sophie's were painless but Rosie is still very camera-averse.
 
 

PS Wirginia says that unless something dramatic happens they won't do another MRI for three months so we have an appointment on May 22 at Chidrens' Hospital where they have a brand new MRI room with coloured twinkly stars on the ceiling.