Heroes of all shapes and sizes
Heroes come in all shapes and sizes.
It has been a time of celebration. The Junction Zero Waste Hub (https://thejunction.org.nz/ ) nominated Rory for a Kiwibank local hero award (2024) for his volunteer work, and he won! We didn’t know. One afternoon he appeared at home proudly carrying the medal and certificate https://nzawards.org.nz/local-heroes/
In addition, our care group for PG Nops Reserve won the Taranaki Regional Council Environment Award for Environmental Action in Biodiversity (2024). We attended the awards event at the Devon Hotel in New Plymouth where Colt delivered our speech on stage. We were proud to be amongst so many passionate people working to make a difference to the environment of Taranaki and Aotearoa.
There is always time for an incident with Rory. On Wednesday night he got stung on his middle finger by a wasp which had hitched a ride inside on the washing. We were lucky to remove his rings before the finger and part of his hand turned red and swelled. I gave him an antihistamine for two days and the swelling subsided somewhat. On Friday morning Rory sneakily soaped his finger and slipped a ring back on which aggravated the wound. It swelled to its former size and turned red, with the ring cutting off his circulation. By the time he owned up to Sean and I it was very serious. We considered making an emergency dash to the hospital. Instead Sean used a Dremel tool to cut the ring off Rory’s finger. He was very careful but made a shallow cut in Rory’s skin which bled considerably. It has been dressed. Today the swelling has reduced but some sections of his finger are still very red. We are monitoring it closely.