There's been a lot of sadness and madness this week, the saddest being what I hope wasn't my last conversation with an old friend, Adele Frost.
She was the fresh-from-nursing-school nurse at the boarding school my darling was packed off to as a callow youth.
Beautiful and curvaceous, nurse Adele caused a terrible outbreak of hypochondria among the adolescent boys who longed for her tender touch.
She got a miraculous reprieve from her cancer five years ago and had to cancel the marvellous funeral arrangements she had made, but it has sneaked back fast and furiously and all her friends and family can hope for is that another miracle will happen.
We all have our fingers crossed.
It is an absolute miracle my darling is still here with us - I don't really like leaving him on his own, as he is such a magnet for disaster.
On Thursday night, I had to go to Dunedin to take youngest child back to student squalor for her last exam.
My darling had forgotten to mention he had 15 golfing mates coming for a barbecue, and even I thought he could manage alone.
Now that he is 62, I should let him do some things for himself, but I didn't mean for him to set the entire barbecue, including the gas bottle, on fire.
Apparently it was a very exciting and frightening display and certainly sent those Auckland golfers home admitting that Queenstown is a much better bet for the adrenaline junkies.
Maybe I better hold off giving him so much independence until he is a bit older.
Maybe as old as my Dad?
Dad refused to let us organise an 80th birthday party for him on Friday and instead organised his own celebration.
He wanted to ask all the people in Arrowtown who had made a simple (very simple) immigrant with four kids and a pregnant wife so welcome when we arrived here 42 years ago.
It was fabulous and so much fun catching up with all these great people.
Dear Bill Dagg was there - he's over 80 and still riding his horse everywhere.
When I was a short, fat learner rider on a short, fat pony, Bill had us on a leading rein all the way to Macetown.
My pony, Dusty, was so short that he floated behind Bill's horse on most of the river crossings.
My Dad had invited the volunteer firemen as well, and at 7pm there was a callout.
I would just like to tell everyone that the rumour that my Dad sent me out to light a fire in a rubbish bin in the main street just to keep those firemen from running up his bar tab too high is not true!I may have mentioned my beautiful cross-eyed niece in previous columns.
She went off to the specialist last week, who has said the corrective glasses she is wearing are not working and she will have a small operation to get her seeing straight.
When her gorgeous mother took her to Montessori the next day, she told the teachers they didn't need to worry about making my niece wear her glasses any more and that her eyesight was fine without them.
With that, my niece walked straight into a post, making her look a complete liar.
I'm often accused of lying, or at least of wild exaggeration.
But I'm definitely not lying or exaggerating at all about how brilliant the new Queenstown cycle trail is.
Kaye Parker rang and asked me if I felt like coming for a sneak preview of some of it.
We had to wear fluoro jackets and carry our passes, as it won't be formally opened until the end of next year and it still has a long way before it is finished, but this 2.5m-wide cycle trail links the old Shotover Bridge with Morven Ferry, Arrowtown, Whitechapel and Gibbston.
It's got beautiful bridges - one is over 80m long - and a tunnel under the highway, stunning views that hardly anyone will have seen before, swimming holes and endless gorgeous spots for picnics, not to mention all the opportunities to take a little detour to some of the basin's best restaurants, wineries, cafes and art galleries.
This is the sort of cycling I love - the sort that if there is an emergency, such as the weather not being exactly how I like it, or perhaps a little rubbing on my thumb or maybe a little weariness in the legs, I am only minutes from salvation and an opportunity to get off my bike and do something else.
If you want to keep up with what's happening with this, go online to the Wakatipu Trails Trust and see for yourself.
And don't forget today is the Trail Blazer - it's a great community event and helps fund our local walking, cycle and horse-riding trails.
I forgot to thank Josephine Green for recommending Anna Funder's Stasiland to me - a terrific and terrifying look at life for the East Germans under communist rule.
Funder has also written another novel, All that I am. It's what I call a "nearly true" story.
Historical fiction is tricky because often there is a hint of a story in letters and documents, and clever authors can weave new "facts" into it to make it work as a novel.
Funder has done a great job.
She has done a lot of research but the book doesn't let us know which bits of the story are drawn from life and which are straight out of her busy, brilliant brain.
It's more or less the story of Ernst Toller, the German author and playwright, who, along with his friends, had to escape Germany and live in England helping with the resistance.
As you can imagine, there aren't a lot of laughs, but it is a fascinating look at this period and Anna Funder is an expert at bringing alive the people she is writing about.
I can't wait for her next book.
