clinic@cavershamphysio.co.nz; 4877323
CAVERSHAM PHYSIO NEWSLETTER No.35, December 2017
Hello again everyone from sunny Caversham,
How lovely it has been to have a return to warmer weather – just in time for summer holidays too! No doubt you have all been enjoying getting out and about making the most of more of our beautiful Otago outdoors. Geoffrey and Margie certainly enjoyed the beautiful weather that greeted them, and the many thousands competing alongside them in the Queenstown Half Marathon recently. Congratulations to everyone who took part in the various options – it was a perfect day, and a fun time. Margie despite the usual university sickness playing havoc with her training managed a great 1.48 half, and Geoffrey came home in 1st place for the over 60yo’s in the same event in 1:26:37, with our great friend Dave Gardner from Waimate finishing behind him for 2nd place in 1:35:09 – a great run by all!! Barbara enjoyed watching it from afar whilst on puppy duty back in Dunedin, being almost more up to date with it all than those on the ground thanks to the handy wee app that allowed her to follow the splits and finishing times up to the actual minute! Very exciting for us (and that included Geoffrey’s training partner Millie, and her pups seeing these exciting results!!!).
Another great event we were thrilled to learn more about recently was the epic South Island Traverse that our friend Allan Brent with 3 friends from Otago embarked on last “summer”. It was the worst 3 months of climbing weather imaginable, but they still managed the 600hrs, 1000kms, 53,000 vertical metre ascent and 19 Main Divide crossings in that time! Allan presented with Lydia McLean to the NZ Alpine Club meeting at The Staff Club at Uni last month, which was superb. Congratulations to all four adventurers – what an epic feat, and very proud of your awesome achievements Allan.
As most of you will know (thanks to the many lovely posts Blair has been adding to the clinic Facebook page), our four legged member of the Caversham Physiotherapy team, Millie, our German Shorthaired Pointer had a beautiful litter of 9 pups to her boyfriend Zac (Chad Butson’s lovely pointer – Chad many of you will also know from the running scene in Dunedin!). The pups are heading off to their new homes in time for the Christmas break, which we imagine Millie will be a little bit relieved about possibly, as it is fairly busy being a Mum of 9, but she is doing so well, and they are just starting to be a little more active – eek! Quite a busy time for us all coming up over the month leading up to Christmas (just in case we weren’t busy enough!). Anyway, here are some snaps for you to enjoy of them becoming little personalities. 6 boys and 3 girls. As you will see, 3 in the litter are the liver and white colour, as opposed to Millie and Zac who are both pure liver (they had siblings and parents this colour though, hence the lovely mix we have!)
Ben timed his return to New Zealand perfectly, touching down from London two days before the pups landed – we are thrilled to have him back in Dunedin for a wee while, having returned to be at his lovely friend Jeff Notman’s wedding, and kindly making himself available to do our house painting whilst he enjoys life back in New Zealand before heading up to his next wedding in Nelson for another great friend Luke Johnston in January. Fun times. He is being taught a few tricks of the trade from Sam, and Geoffrey’s house painting skills from his varsity days are coming out of the closet too. Sadly the weather was not very summery for the first week – just a bit more northern hemisphere orientated so he didn’t miss it too much, but it seems to be coming right now, so it will be great to have this all done and dusted before Christmas, hopefully!! He will no doubt be returning to London for a rest!
Geoffrey, Barbara and Blair all headed across the ditch in October to attend the Australian Physiotherapy Association conference in Sydney. It was great to be there with Shelley from Newington Physio at Mercy Hospital, as well as Denise and Mark from Rotorua, so in between the very hectic 3 day schedule, we had lots of fun catch ups. It was another very stimulating conference, and having about 15 different streams concurrently, meant there was always something fascinating to learn. For Blair it was a return to his old stamping ground and getting reacquainted with the hectic traffic – which on the first rainy morning for 2.5months was not so pleasant. We are thrilled that Otago is his preferred location and despite some hairy encounters on the roads here at times, it is nothing like that very hectic, fast moving city traffic. We were lucky to find an Airbnb near the venue, so Geoffrey, Denise and I were able to just walk 5 minutes and be at the conference – making it very handy for before and after events each day – including our fun 1920’s night on the top of the Convention Centre – very handy being able to take a carry on bag of gear to wear from Fairies, Wizards and Gifts over with us too! Lots of fun.
Blair has also been at a wonderful course in November learning more acupuncture skills. Prior to this weekend, Geoffrey has been our sole acupuncturist since Clare left the clinic, so it is great to have Blair able to utilise this wonderful modality to great effect on his patients now too. The course was taken by two very impressive NZ physios from Auckland and Central Otago, and they created a very stimulating learning environment, with lots of great ideas combining other treatment methods that physios utilise alongside acupuncture, so Blair is just fizzing about all this and sharing it with us.
We are having our annual Otago Acupuncture Case Study Presentations at the clinic in November – this is a great evening for all the local Registered Physiotherapy Acupuncturists from Oamaru south to attend and share wisdom about various techniques, with each presenting a case of special interest. Usually around 15 Physios attend and share their learnings with colleagues, then everyone discusses the findings and this stimulates discussion which further enhances skill level.
In November we sadly farewelled our wonderful Vanessa, who is adding to her family in early 2018, and needed to have some family time before that exciting event occurs for them all. We have thoroughly enjoyed Vanessa’s expertise here in Caversham, and in the meantime Geoffrey will be doing some extra hours in the clinic until we find that next special person to assist us with cover at the clinic.
Christmas seems to be looming at a very rapid rate, and it is hard to believe there are only a few Pilates classes left for Term 4!! Our term ends on 14 December this year, and then it will be a wee break until the week after Waitangi Day – we usually find that it takes a while for parents to know their schedules with after school activities, so by then it is usually all sorted and they can plan some Mum and Dad time. Our classes are virtually full for each of the Monday and Tuesday classes but there is some space for new attendees in our Thursday class at 5.30pm, so if you are keen to join up in 2018, do let us know, as we will be asking current attendees at the end of the term if they can continue, so it is good to get an idea of those who are keen to join next year well in advance, so we can try and accommodate everyone. Those of you coming on Thursday will be enjoying our new instructor and another top Otago athlete, Bella Bloomfield, who is doing a great job. We were lucky that she could adjust her schedule to take over from Kate Doig, when she headed off on her OE from us in early November, and it is nice to see Bella settling in so well as she completes Term 4 for us. It was really fun to have our annual Pilates dinner on Kate’s final week – we all enjoyed our evening at Mitchells over the road (about 50 of us attending on the night, which was great fun!). Thank you everyone who was able to join us and make it a great end of term/year gathering and Kate’s farewell.
Over the Christmas break we will be here most days – Geoffrey is covering the Wed – Fri after Christmas, and then the following week, after New Year we will cover the Wed and Thurs, before Blair returns on the Fri 5th to cover until Geoff and Barbara return. Leah is taking some time off over Christmas too, returning on 10 January to resume her Wednesday and Friday Massage Therapy work at the clinic. We are loving having Leah and she is complementing our physio service beautifully – if you are wondering what to give someone for Christmas, we all highly recommend Leah’s skills. Such a treat!
Wishing you all a wonderful, happy and restful holiday period, with lots of fun activities and outside fun with your friends and family this summer. We will look forward to seeing you all in 2018, hopefully as fit as you have ever been, and energised with good healthy eating and activity.
Best wishes from Geoffrey, Barbara, Blair, Nicki and Leah, clinic@cavershamphysio.co.nz. 4877323
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