Russell and Bernadette's blog

Russell and Bernadette's blog
Saturday 14 October
Bernadette is to receive her Acceptance Delegation very s hortly, congratulations to her for all her hard work. Here she is aat an earlier presentation./Users/russellreinhardt/Desktop/presentation 2004-1 staff .jpg By the endof the year she will also have completed all course work towards her Master's. Capital of Australia Mandolinata is well under way. The Constitution has been finalised and COZMO has been Inc.'d. we had a paddle on the Tathra River a few weeks back, which was fun./Users/russellreinhardt/Desktop/Mimosa Rocks.jpg
Wednesday 21 June
We're back!! After 5 weeks abroad (Germany and Holland), we returned to Australia on Wednesday 14 June. We were so inspired, we have decided to reinstate the Syzygy Duo, featuring ourselves (who else of course?), on Contrabass, Flute, Baroque flute , Baroque guitar, and Mandolin (not all simutaneously, obbbbbviously!) The Eurofestival Zupfmusik Bamberg (25-28 May 2006 Concert Hall Bamberg) was fantastic. We have over 600 photos and some 5 hours of video to edit, so it may be some time before you can see everything, however I have put some photos on Flickr.

Friday 14 April (Good Friday)
It is now Autumn, the leaves are falling all around us. While we were away on the coast a couple of weeks ago, it got down to 0 degrees overnight in Canberra. Glad we missed that.
The sound quality of the FAME recording made at Christmas at the live performances is very good, but the performances themselves sound rather ragged. However I think the DVD will be quite exciting to watch.
Bernadette and I have both resigned from the CMO, much to our regret, as we are no longer able to condone the scheming dishonesty of some of its current members, the way our time has been wasted, and the rudeness and lack of apprecitation shown to us. Very disappointing!
So instead of playing at the National Folk Festival we are resting and catching up on other matters - assignments, the web page, rehearsal for the European tour. In Europe there will be 6 concerts in all, plus a rehearsal - 2 concerts in Frankfurt, 1 in Julich, then to Holland for a concert in Breda, back to Germany for one in Stoljwik, and finally the festival concert in Bamberg .

Wednesday 28 March
Today I was offered, and I accepted, my position as Loans Desk Manger at CIT Reid campus Library. Bernadette has a very sore big toe due to another softball injury. I am investigating ways of scanning photo transparencies and saving to a disc.

Saturday 28 January
Good news - Bernadette's biopsy came back with no findings for lymphoma, and a diagnosis of sarcoidosis. While this will need to be monitored in future it will not require immediate medication, and may even disappear in time. She returns to work next week, having spent a week recovering from the biopsy operation. We are both hoping our next holiday will be less eventful.

Thursday 29 December 2005
See you at the FAME Music camp, Bernadette will be attending both performances, and the Australasian Mandolin Touring Orchestra rehearsal.

Wednesday 21 December 2005
Whoopee! Bernadette has come home on the 'Hospital at Home' scheme where a nurse visits daily. She is allowed to walk a little bit and is having her blood monitored from home. She still has to have injections and tests on her lymph nodes should start about 9 January 2006 when it is hoped the clot will have dispersed enough to allow her to discontinue the Warfarin medication for a while. However we are both much happier as it means she doesn't have to spend Christmas in hospital, and seems to be recovering very quickly.

Monday 19 December 2005
Planning to leave for Melbourne last Saturday 17 December, but Bernadette suddenly became seriously ill on Thursday 15 December and had to be rushed to hospital. Got her into Emergency at 9:30 pm. She was seen at 11:30 pm, but the final diagnosis wasn't made until after 9:00 am Friday morning. She had developed a pulmonary embolism, or clot, on her right lung, which caused cell death or infarction.

This was extremely painful and life threatening. She was also shown to have developed deep vein thrombosis in her left leg above the knee. Scans have also shown enlargement of some of her lymphatic glands, so there was also the worry of sarcoma. So far she is making good progress in relation to the infarction, but it will be several weeks before her lymph nodes can be tested. We were both very worried because of the seriousness of this illness, and its sudden and unheralded of onset.

The specialist treating her has been unable to give any reason for the exact cause of the thrombosis. We are hoping she will be released from hospital by the end of this week, and will at least be able to spend Christmas together. So to all out there, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, sorry we may not have caught up with you, but things have taken a very unexpected turn.

Saturday 14 May 2005

Celebrated my birthday on Wednesday, Bernadette cooked a wonderful Scotch Filet with Hollandaise sauce, fresh vegies and potatoes sauteeed in duck fat. Mmmm. Then I spent the night completing bloody selection criteria. Thursday Bernadette played with the Canberra Pops Orchestra, and they had a full house, very exciting and lots of fun for her. I am in the process of acquiring a bowl back mandolin as my birthday present, and anticipate the instrument arriving this week. Very cold here in Canberra now, days are very short, with darkness falling as we leave work. I have had my contract with IPAustralia libray extended another week. Bernadette is still studying hard. Our few plants are struggling along.

Tuesday 18 January 2005
Happy New Year one and all. Well here we are back in the sheep paddock, our travels being without incident. We were amazed at the apparent lack of water restrictions in Mildura, (being right on the Murray River I guess) and had a good Christmas day with Bernadette's sisters and their families, and her father, Ian. We stayed long enough ( 4 days) to try a bit of river fishing, which was fun when I wasn't catching trees. We toured the wineries and a Yabby farm.
In Melbourne we stayed at my mum's (Val, thanks for your hospitality) place for a week, I spent a week at the Federation of Australasian Mandolin Ensemble's FAME music camp (held in Melbourne this year, and played mandolin in the FAME Concert Orchestra concert on Friday 7 Jan. Bernadette spent time with her sisters while I rehearsed. We spent a lot of time driving in and out of Melbourne to and from Black Rock, therefore we were unable to catch up with all our old mates. We came back with lots of gifts, but also managed to rescue a few desperate cheeses from Queen Victoria Market. So much variety, and much, much cheaper than any comparable item in Canberra (petrol was 20c cheaper too).

Sunday 12 December 2004
Congratulations to Bernadette and the Lightning Strikes softball team on their Bronze Medal win at the Gold Coast Pan Pacific Masters in November. Study is over for the year, and Bernadette has passed all her subjects this year. We have had a few good bike rides around Canberra, and I will be taking part in the annual FAME music camp, but playing mandolin this time. Nice to hear from those people who have listened to my audio files ...

Monday 25 October
Bernadette is working hard at her study for the Masters in Patent Law, and putting in a lot of time. We have enjoyed a few local bike rides, even got as far as Yarralumla.

I have joined Canberra Mandolin Orchestra, and am playing mandolin for a change, rather than guitar. The two compositions are not recent, however I am taking the opportunity to explore the possibilities for posting audio music files on our web page. I welcome any feedback on my efforts. Next step will be to post visual score samples.

Wednesday 22 September 2004
We have just returned from a weekend away at Bateman's Bay, about 2 hours drive from Canberra. Had a look around Tilba further down the Coast on Saturday, and caught up with Nick, Tiziana, Rochelle and Danielle on the Sunday. Good weather on Saturday, but as you can see from the photos Sunday was overcast with some rain. The weather was very mild compared to Canberra's, which was cold to come back to.

Tuesday 7 September 2004
Yeah, verily yeah! We have had rain!! Two days, so far, of fairly steady rain. Bernadette played with the Camberra Community Orchestra last weekend, a programme at ANU of Mendelson, Prokofiev, Beethoven. They had a good turn out, and played well. She starts with Canberra Symphony soon, so she is going to be extremely busy with her work, study, and 'bass practice.



Friday 20 August 2004
Celebration - Bernadette received official written confirmation of her permanent appointment as an Examiner of Patents with IP Australia (Intellectual Property). (Have added another photo album and new photos, and have generalised about the content headings, I hope you will get my drift.)

Monday 16 August 2004
Two weeks ago Bernadette and I went for a walk around Lake Burley Griffin, and heard part of a performance on the Carillion, the biggest bell weighs in at tons . Last week we had an enjoyable night out at a Chinese restaurant with family to celebrate Carolyn's birthday, and a BBQ the following day at Ginninderra Lake park, in beautiful weather. Blue sky all day long, and little or no wind.

The temperature has dropped as far as 6 deg. below zero overnight, Bernadette is giving serious thought to sleeping on an electric blanket. There has been snow on surrounding hills on a couple of occasions, but so far no snow in Phillip.

Wednesday 30 June 2004
After a bit of much appreciated feed back, I have reduced the size of the pictures in the gallery, most by about 50%, I hope this makes viewing a less tiresome procedure. As you can see, I have also removed the background photo on this page to make for easier reading. :-)

Friday 28th May 2004
Well here we are now in Phillip, Canberra. Bernadette is happily walking the fifteen minutes to work and back each day, and enjoys her new working environment and its challenges and opportunities.

There is not much to see around the unit (or Townhouse as it is called here), but there is a lovely Banksia outside one of the windows. The flat has 3 bedrooms, so we have an office, and another room for music and yoga. We have covered most of the windows with cardboard, there is no sarking or insulation in the ceiling, and all rooms have at least one floor to ceiling double window and sliding door, great in summer but freezing in the winters here. We have already had several nights well below freezing, and expect more.

We have unpacked in Canberrra, and now have a tenant in our house in Brisbane as of the begining of June. The old house looked pretty good when we left, floors all polished, new guttering in place, and fruit trees laden. We are already missing our friends in Brisbane.

The shade house, chook house and run have gone into storage, along with over half the rest of our belongings. We hope to start looking for a new house in the near future. I have taken the liberty of including some snaps of our recent weekend at Montville (before we left Brisbane), and an earlier one taken at the Bunya Mountains. Hopefully the web site will keep improving, but without too many buttons, rollovers, bells and whistles.

Russell

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After 2.5 years in The Gap, we are on the move (again!).

The garden is looking fantastic, with many plants such as our banana palm, grape vine and custard apple fruiting for the first time.

Have formed friendships with our neighbours and Bernadette had settled into two local softball teams (go Waratahs, go Lightning Strikes!). However the necessity for incomes and job satisfaction has precipitated a move to the ACT.

We'll miss our walks along Enoggera Creek, and we'll also miss the opportunity to renovate our 50-year old home. We've sanded back the flooded gum floorboards in the front two rooms, and finished them with tung oil followed by wax (a much healthier option than the more popular estapols which are known to emit toxic fumes). They look great, but we won't have time to do the study and hall, which we originally intended to do.

A deck. Wouldn't it have made a huge difference to the living space of this house - oh well, can't have everything! Just never got that 'round tuit'.
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Xena, Beavis and Butthead will no doubt have to find new homes (perhaps in Russell's belly?). Such a shame, as they had only just moved into their new highset timber home (a castle, really). They seem happy, as we are getting 1.5 dozen eggs a week at the moment.
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Bernadette