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Tribute to my father

Tribute to Duncan McKenzie Fraser that I shared at his funeral along with those by my siblings, by mother, his friend Prof Eric Bateman and colleague Prof Jenni Case

My dad's reached the finish line

On Saturday night my dad, Duncan, had a massive cardiac arrest in ICU and died after an intense 12-day battle following a major stroke, subsequent pneumonia and heart issues. The ICU staff tried to resuscitate him but could not.

On birthdays and grateful joy

When James was celebrating his eighth birthday, he made the following comment:

Not the One (Lego) Ring

RingsAs a family, we love both the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien and Lego, so we've really enjoyed the Lego Lord of the Rings and Hobbit range... however we were puzzled to obtain not just one, but many powerful magical rings with the various different Lego sets we bought ... What could be happening? Was the Lego company, to save costs, supplying other, less powerful, magical rings (having recovered some of the others mentioned in the ring verse - presumably those given to the dwarves, or the elven rings), or had they managed to produce their own rings with identical properties to the original (since that was quite clearly destroyed)?

Time in Nagoya

I've posted photos of my time in Nagoya. It was such a treat to visit friends, and the work arrangements there went well.

Work in Japan

A brief update ... I've had a fantastically successful week of work in Japan. We've been working with our partners here developing and configuring a system for a refinery, and today we had a meeting with them and got very positive feedback, which was very rewarding. I'm totally loving being in Japan again! So much seems so familiar even after a long absence. I've posted photos of the trip so far online.

News update, Japan trip and some photos

Some brief news updates after a long hiatus:

International Day at James's School

I've posted some photos from James's International Day at school that they had recently - he decided to dress up as someone from Afghanistan with a real Afghan hat that my uncle sent him - the rest was pure improvisation! We're off next week to Kwazulu/Natal for a holiday with Danielle's parents and sister to celebrate her mom's 70th birthday! Really looking forward to it. There's lots of chickenpox going round at the moment so trying to work out what to do about that... and then it's into the Christmas holidays!

Last few months

Since our holiday it's been the flu season in Cape Town - swine flu, other flu, and serious pneumonia going around. We've all been sick in turns and James has spent quite a while off school - two weeks a few weeks ago, and then the first three days this week. He could have gone back earlier the first time but we didn't want to risk him getting a more serious infection. He's back to school today. Tomorrow is their dress-up-as-a-Letterland-character day which he's really excited about (yes, he's going to be Jumping Jim).

Back from holiday

We got back on Saturday from a wonderful holiday in the Eastern Cape. We really benefited from having a concentrated chunk of time together as a family... and we got to see lots of animals, which we loved!

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