Flying Breast Peak in January

I wasn't up to flying this day, so I went along as a driver along with a couple of other keen para-groupies... We sat at the top of the hill drinking a rather nice Pinor Noir Rose wine and nibbling some cheese while the lads and ladess' took off. It was a perfect day.


Kat taking off.

Jan, Ruth and Quentin were other para-groupies on the day.

Grant took Tom the station owner for a flight, he got to spend an hour cruising around his farm enjoying the veiw from a new perspective!


You can almost see my house from here!!

Back in Nelson

So finally i put some more words on the page.

I have been meaning to update this for so long, and the longer it waits the harder it is to figure out where to start. I wanted to get some photos downloaded and actually write about some of the things I have been up to, but never got there. Grant and I have had some great adventures this summer and autumn.

- We spent a great week sea kayaking in Stewart Island, and some shorter trips on Lake Wanaka and the Abel Tasman National Park.

- I have carried on flying, and had some fantastic days flying around Wanaka and Nelson (and one flight at Taylors Mistake in Christchurch)

- We have got out on the mountain bikes in Westport, around the Port Hills in Chch, and of course Sticky Forest in Wanaka.

I have healed up nicely since my adventures last year. It is almost 6 months and I am pretty much fixed. I just have to get fit and strong again... I was very lucky to have injuries that could heal fully.

Now i have a job and I am working in Nelson for a couple of months. It is great to be living in Nelson again (my home town) and I am enjoying the fact that i keep bumping into people I know. I will hopefully head back to Lake Hawea in a few months and have enough work to do to pay the mortgage. By then the ski season will be in full swing which will be great!

12 weeks to the day

On Friday i had my first flight since the crash back on 30 October, twelve weeks after that day.
We are up in the Wairarapa on holiday and so i had a short but lovely flight from a local hill here. Since then i have managed a couple more short flights and some thermalling... i am very happy to be airborne again!!!

Anyway some pictures etc might eventuate if i can get organised with a good connection and my camera any time soon...

It is 30+ degrees hot every day, with light northerly winds and cloudless blue skies at the moment, this feels like what summer used to be like! Long may it last.

Stuff I've been up to

Another big improvement in my recovery has meant that i can now do some stuff that i really love. I have been out swimming, kayaking, biking and walking now... all relatively small adventures (generally 20 mins is enough to tire my out) but all good to be there.

The weather has now come right after a long period of crap and I am loving the hot days and the compulsory (and still really chilly) dips in the lake. There has been a terrible number of drownings in NZ this year, 12 since Christmas, and we witnessed a near drowning at Lake Hawea the other night when we went for a quick swim. The young girl is very lucky to be alive by the sounds of it but the volunteer fire brigade, a quick response st johns and a normal ambulance turned up.

On Sunday Quentin Kate and I took out some kayaks on the lake and blatted over to a wee island. Quentin has a fancy video camera that is waterproof and he recorded this wee clip - check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEdfuHfwA3Q&feature=channel

He has got some other pretty cool videos on there now too - check it out.

Life in the southern hemisphere

I got back to NZ two weeks ago and this is my first attempt to update the blog, bad I know.

The flight home was long (as usual) and a bit tiring (also usual), it was made challenging by the fact that I had 5 large pieces of baggage and I couldn’t lift a single one of them… the saddest part of this story is that I couldn’t buy any duty free alcohol as I was carted around on a golf cart!

I acquired a walking stick which I used to my advantage, it makes a big difference with injuries like mine when there is something physical for people to see… otherwise they push you around like normal. I got special treatment by the airhostess – they were great! I was also upgraded to business class (which is the only way to travel long distance I am telling you!!!).

It took a few days to recover from that trip when I got home. My energy leaves have been very low and I haven’t been keeping up with communication.

I am definitely improving on the energy front, I am managing to last some days without nana naps most days now and I am definitely more active. I am going to physio. I had my first 10 minute session on an exercycle yesterday and will be doing more today and after New Year I start a rehab programme in the local pool which will help fitness.

Yesterday I went 24 hours without taking any strong pain killers, it wasn't particularly comfortable. The one good thing to come from this accident is that I am lighter than I have been since I was a teenager; I am down to 66kg which means I have lost about 8kg over the last couple of months. Only problem with that is that I will have to carry ballast on my paraglider as I will be too light now.

I have sent my glider away to get fixed, it will still be a few weeks before it is all together and flyable and I am thinking I will be ready for it then. Grant took me for a tandem flight a few days ago. I was a little nervous in the air but that is to be expected. I think I have a healthy regard for the ground at the moment!!!

It is funny being a minor celebrity in the paragliding world, everyone has heard or wants to hear about my crash… shame the celebrity status isn’t for something a bit more impressive or skill related!

More Lucy Happenings

Another week or so has passed and i am still on a rather too slow for my liking recovery (but at least there is progress). I have got to the point where i can walk/sit/hang out for several hours at a time which is nice.
I went for a check up at the hospital on Thursday and got the all clear. My back is healing well, my ribs etc are on target and i am going to have problems in my shoulder/collarbone area for a while yet. I also got the go ahead to fly to Armenia. I had to wait to do so as i had to allow my burst lung to recover fully.

I managed to get through Heathrow airport on Friday and travel to Armenia, where i am now. It is SO nice to be back in Kapan where i have so many friends pleased to see me. I am really glad that i came back. I had a hassle with returning after my accident as the General Manager didn't want me to come back (he made me redundant a month ago...). He wanted my posessions packed up and sent surface to NZ which would have taken 3-4 months.

Anyway after some discussion which didn't go very far (it wasn't actually a discussion if we are honest) he allowed me to return at my own expense and pack up. So, here i am.

I am packing and hanging out with people and convincing them that i am not half dead (i dont know what the rumours were around here but there were obviously poorly informed!). It is the first time in a really long time i have been in Kapan and not been stressed. Work had become extremely stressful over the last few months and i am rather grateful that i dont have to return to that environment.

I am flying back to London on Thursday then flying to NZ on Sunday the 14th Dec.

I am organising dinner on the 12th in London for anyone who is arround and wants to come - so if it isn't too late and you are in london keep the date free!

Take care all
Lucy

Home, Sweet Home

Almost anyway - i am staying at my mum and sister's bedsit in London. It is another good milestone to leave hospital. Another of my sisters is also here, she is helping me out and waiting for her new job to start next week.

I am walking every day but not that far yet, it is improving everyday. On Saturday we walked to the new Westfield mall in Sheppard’s bush. It was a little further than we realized and when I arrived I was pretty sore. Even getting into the building was a problem – we had to walk another block to find an entrance with a manageable number of stairs … It was once I got home I realized how much I had overdone it…I couldn’t even reach for the loo paper I had stiffened up so much!

I am constantly having to be more realistic with my goals... But everyday i am improving. This part of the journey isn't particularly fun or exciting... I am aiming to be on a plane home to NZ by mid December (Already pushed out later than i orginally planned, hopefully this is a realistic timeframe this time...)

Life in Wellington Hospital, St Johns Wood, London

So now I have access to facebook but not to my blog… these things are sent to try us. (Kris has posted this for me....)

I arrived in London last Tuesday, the trip went well. I loved flying business class on the seats the lie flat and the good food, service and entertainment… I was taken by ambulance to Wellington Hospital in St Johns Wood where I have been ever since.

Wednesday I had more x-rays which showed that I had broken my transverse process, a little sticky out piece of vertebrae (L2) in my back. This wasn’t completely surprising as I have had a lot of pain there.

I didn’t sleep well and woke in the night feeling sick – nausea. I had taken some laxative the night before which the nurses thought may have caused this. To cut a long story short I started vomiting and didn’t stop until I had a stomach tube inserted through my nose and down my throat to remove the contents of my stomach manually. It isn’t nice vomiting with broken ribs.

X ray showed an obstruction in my small bowel so I was started on IV fluids and not allowed to eat or drink anything at all. I spent a couple of days like this with just a little ice to relieve the pain in my throat where the tube was rubbing. On Saturday afternoon I was allowed a glass of water and some clear soup. I have started to have a low residue diet and will slowly work up to normal meals as my tummy allows.

Problems with bowels are common after spinal injuries and this is just a little strange that it took so long to develop. …

So, it has been a bit longer in hospital than I thought I would be… I am just relieved that the hospital identified the problem quickly and did the right thing as the nausea was horrendous. Now I am slowly coming right and starting to think about getting out of here- before the end of the week!

I'm Leaving Delhi!!

I am off to London in the morning!!! i assume i passed my x-ray this morning cos no one said i didn't and i am now packing up (read: i am sitting in bed directing and managing while poor Kris is busy packing up). We are moving stuff around cos i am worried the airline might damage my glider - kind of ironic isn't it??

So i am up to walking about 50m now, the sacro-illiac (sp??) joints in my back are still causing grief but i am going to survive. I I was pushing a little hard to get active in the last day or so and have had higher levels of pain and exhaustion as my companion as a result. Today i slept most of the morning and this afternoon i had two sessions of physiotherapy.

We had a dinner party in Austalian Chris' room tonight. We managed to get my dinner sent down to his room. The food and beverage manager loves Australians(his son lives in Canberra) and thinks that Kiwi Kris and I are both australian so he keeps sending complimentary meals up to Kris... we stopped trying to correct his mistake after a while. It is funny. The only thing missing was the kingfisher beer.

Quick update on my status

I am feeling better everyday, my improvement is really quite remarkable. My lung has re inflated, and now i am doing exercises to make it stronger. The pain in my lower back is slowly reducing, although i do have problems with the joints between my back and pelvis. The rib is bearable except when Chris makes terrible jokes. Chris is an Australian i was flying with in Bir, three days after my accident he had a bad landing and managed to break his back... Funny how his accident was so much less impressive but worse damage. He is in a room two floors down so i spend much of my day scheming on how to convince the nurses to wheel me down there to say hi. They wheel my bed into his room and so we can lie together like two munted peas in a pod.

Today i got out of bed and had a shower, walked about 50m, sat in a chair for 40min and did 5 sessions of physiotherapy for my chest, neck lower back and legs! I managed to walk to the toilet a couple of times too - such an improvement from a bedpan! The other day i had a bad day when i missed the bedpan twice - i have to say i was a very small child last time i wet the bed and it isn't a nice feeling! Now if i can find someone to help me i can get to the toilet!

So, i am on track to be capable of leaving India on Tuesday - to leave i must pass one last chest xray on Monday and be able to sit in a wheelchair for about 90 min and sit upright on the aeroplane for landing and take off. i have to be able to move between chairs and fly for 8 hrs and make my way to the loo if i have to go. I hope it is all achievable as i am pretty keen on a change of scenery.

Old Delhi and markets

The streets are heaving with people. There is so much work being done. people are carting stuff everywhere. Looking down at part of teh Spice market where people are busy buying presents for Dwali


Autorickshaws can fit four tourists plus driver - as long as everyone keeps their fingers and toes inside!


When it all gets too tough for the rickshaw riders they just jump off and push.. We were pedalled around the old city for an afternoon and just had to place our full trust in our driver.

Delh in pictures

I think you have to be born in Delhi to love it. The smells, sounds, sights are pretty overwhelming.


The parliment and presidental buildings are large and rather impressive - very British. We are looking at various ministries in the photo.

I visited a Sikh temple which was beautiful i was shown around by a sikh teacher who went to great lenghts to explain the persecution they have endured from muslims. There were many graphic pictures showing sikhs with their heads cut off.


Kris got close and cuddly with some vipers... makes me shiver.


This is a great indicator of the state of energy in Delhi, the lines make great gyms for the monkeys... not sure about supplying poewr to the masses though!

Crash photos

The dark ridge in the foreground is where I crashed - where it is "flat" in the middle, and just on the other side. Photo taken just before the rescue team left the Police Station to start the climb up to rescue me!

If you want to see more than to to this Album http://picasaweb.google.com/kiwilucy/DharamsalaCrash#

I should probably mention that there are actually photos of both my and Chris 's crashes. He had a bad landing two days after my accident and ended up compressing his spine so we both visited the same hospital. He was also airlifted to Delhi and is lying in a bed a couple of floors down. We occassionally get orderlies to push beds to go and visit each other!

Faces of Himachal Pradesh

Cleaning a pot in a flooded rice paddy



This lady has three children and she is 30 yrs old


My troup of children followed me giggling and skipping down to the road after i landed in their village.

A part of an Indian wedding was held at the resort we were at. A huge outdoor kitchen was set up and these guys were the chefs, the cooked for 400 people and served excepional food. We snuck out into the kitchen and they started to cook and feed us everything there. I am sure the food tasted better when we watched it cooked! The only strange thing about this wedding was that there were NO WOMEN present. They were having their own party up the road. Kris E said that the night reminded him of a Gay Disco -and he would know!

Crash

I crashed my paraglider in the Himalayan mts on the 31 October and end up lying on my back in a hospital in Delhi, India ever since.

I am fine, it was a close call, but i will fully recover. In the meantime i have spent the last week being happily drugged. Now they have reduced the pain medication to sensible levels, and i am becoming coherent again.

I will leave the story of the accident to another day when i am up for writing it (hopefully i will have some cool pics too) in the meantime i can post some pictures of flying and travelling in India before my accident.



Launch on a beautiful day.


This is the closest picture i got of a Himalayan Griffon Vulture. These guys love to thermal and they also love to come pretty close to paragliders as we all share the sky. They may look a little scruffy on the ground but they a so beautiful in the air. One came so close to me at one point he flew straight over me and i could see his shaggy cuddly looking underbelly...


On glide with friends, it is so nice to just hang out in smooth air with friends, we are all just cruising here.


This was my longest flight ever, about 40km and i landed in a rice paddy near a village, in microseconds i had lots and lots of kids coming to watch. They were adorable children and i felt like the pided piper leading them all away from the village back t the road.

I made it to Delhi

I arrived in Delhi after a rather disorientating 14 hr stop in Munich (which i managed to fill effectively with some shopping- a beautiful pair of black leather boots - and a trip to a concentration camp).

Delhi is an assault on the senses. There are a hundred different smells, sounds, sights at every turn of the head. I saw an elephant yesterday, and cows with big humps on their backs - ox i think, and so many people. Some in rags and others in riches - and they are all going in some direction (which probably isn't the direction the traffic is going in).

He-who-does-not-wish-to-be-named (but i am sure some peoples can figure out the paragliding pilot i am travelling with) arrived today, a day late (after he forgot which day he was supposed to be on the aeroplane). He was lucky - he managed to have his ticket reissued and left me to it yesterday to get acquainted with the madness that is Delhi. Tomorrow more paragliding people will arrive and we will all head to Dharamasala (in the north) on Saturday.

I will try to post some of the millions of pictures i have now taken as soon as i find some wireless Internet!

The Good and the Bad

So, the good news - I bought a house - it all went proper on Tuesday.

My Mum and I have been working on buying for a long time, and my friends were looking to sell. It just worked out that Mum and I managed to buy their house and they have got something else now too. It is in Lake Hawea and is a lovely wee place, not big but definitely cosy and a good location.

The bad - the whole worlds economy is taking a turn for the worse. The financial news keeps getting worse. We are protected from the day to day and I have only read things on the internet and watched CNN but it is not good reading!

Tomorrow they are laying off more people from work. At the moment it has just been one or two here and there; a couple of obsolete departments. Now we are going to see some large cuts and it is going to hurt. Out of our 1500 employees we could easily lose 300 or more. I don’t know how well the town is going to cope with this. There are definitely going to be expats going. All I hope this is enough to keep the place floating while the world goes mad.

Curiosity the cat (and me) PART TWO

So by the way, what ever eventuated from my sister's request for my friend and blogger Karen's address? I know this happened ages ago but i never did get to the bottom of it...

What did she send you???

High risk adventures in kapan

This is probably the most dangerous thing i have done in a long time, and i do like to do the odd 'extreme' sport in my spare time. I was having a couple of beers at one of the lovely summer cafes in town with a couple of the lads when they decided that we needed to move cafes. Apparently there were not enough pretty girls walking past our location.

I mentioned that i had considered risking my life by having a ride on the old, rusty ferris wheel in the park. Peter gallantly offered to come with me and even paid the 100AMD (30 cents) entrance fee. He and i jumped onto this ancient soviet beast and secured the rather ineffective seat belts. Calling this ferris wheel old is like saying that the US financial markets are in a spot of bother.



The whole ferris wheel had that unmaintained, broken down kinda feel. It was surprising how it still operated!


We got surprisingly high, and had a great view over the tops of the four storey buildings around us. We could see the lights of kapan running down the valley. Actually, we are getting close to the local governement elections and so the street lights really are being installed and turned on at night. There are actually quite a number of lights visible now!


So, Peter didn't actually hold my hand, but i am sure i wouldn't have got on the thing without his company. Afterwards we adjourned to another cafe in town where we sat and drank more beer while the boys 'bird watched'.