classic!
well, this week we went back down to invercargill for fran's 3 week check up. a 5 hour round trip for a 5 minute appointment where a doctor we didn't know asked fran how his leg felt, and had a look at his scar. . . and that was it! I tell you, if we weren't getting fuel expenses I'd have been blowing steam out my ears when a telephone call or GP appointment would have sufficed. to make the day more interesting, as we approached invercargill the car started acting up and got progressively worse as we went through town to the hospital, to the point where it felt like the wheels were about the fall off as we drove along. after dropping fran for his appointment I found a local mechanic whole told me one of the CV joints had gone, but not to worry - lulu (the car) would take us back to queenstown, only if the wheels started wobbling to stop and put her in reverse and full lock and drive a bit to dislodge the stuff making her wobble. on the way back I got to complete this maneuver a number of times, though it was a good excuse to raz through some gravel in a general wide-boy kind of a way ;)
so here are some pictures from my time in invercargill, and the day before fran's accident - his birthday! invercargill is near the SE coast of the south island and generally known for it's minging dreary weather, so I was pleasantly surprised that it was mild, sunny and spring-like most of the week I was down there. it's also where burt monro was from, from 'the world's fastest indian', which if you haven't watched is an excellent film with anthony hopkins, and gives you a flavour for the 'southern man' as folk down in otago and southland like to be known.
a cheeky kea (alpine parrot) at the birdlife centre we visited on fran's birthday, these guys are super inquisitive and will check out anything they can lay their beak on... they particularly like rubber seals on cars and will fight over them with their mates!
highly over priced indoor golf, but good for a laugh, including lifts, gondolas, space rockets and a zillion tubes your ball might disappear down.
bizarre jack-in-the box eskimo on the volcano hole.
magnolia in blossom outside the old nurses quarters at the hospital
tres cute parrots at the avairies in queen's park
walk in aviary with budgies, cockatiels, dove, turtle dove and peacocks. amazingly after spending 20mins in there, nothing had landed, or fallen, on me!
dusk one evening walking home from the hospital
and finally - some art! although this one went wrong I now have a set of three in this theme I'm working on. I'm also doing some textile/machine embroidery work which I'm loving, and now that fran's much more mobile you'll hopefully be seeing photos of here soon.
fran's recovery is going well - he walks on crutches with 50% weight on the broken leg and has a heap of exercises to do to retrain his leg muscles which were pretty unused for 2 weeks. we have great physios and they're arranging a gym & pool pass for him which will really help with the rehab. the exercises and massaging takes about 5 hrs a day at the moment so there's not much sitting around going on. I'm hanging out for when fran can drive himself around so I have more time and flexibility for my own work!
