Memorial to Tanya Burr, killed 15 September 2002

Some related emails from the days immediately before Tanya was killed, especially in relation to the damage to her flat at 12/15 Hilda Street, Rotorua, while she was away.

Hello. How is it going? I hope you got there safely? Its 725pm im guessing you guys are in aussie or close to it. I hope everythings well. I went around and saw the cats and the house, Emma called around while i was there i think she got a bit of a surprise to see me there. The cats are fine. Crazy as always. Its funny but i actually miss ya :( Anyway enjoy your hoilday Take care and be good. - Love Anita xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hey there hows it going? Its all good here, the cats and the house are fine. We have had 2 really nice days apart from the cold wind. I now have a washing machine again woohoo. My car failed its warrant to day some thing to do with the stearing. Insy is going to get fixed up tommorrow. Nothing else has really happened. Hope you are having a good time. Take care. Lots of love, Anita

Hi Anita, Tanya has just left for London (rather she leaves the airport in an hour). It would be nice if Kieran left too!!! Regards, Val

How was russel wedding? When do you come back? Take care, love anita

The wedding went really well. I'll send you some photos when we get back from Trondheim on Sunday. We get home next Friday evening. We do the last bit from Wgn. by train. I guess the others got to England okay. At least we haven't heard any different. Regards, Val

Val, Thats great. Well the cats are fine im going round there tonight but the house is a F***en p.....  infact its discuting i havent seen cate, i didnt want to tell tanya because you know her she will worrie and i didnt want to rune her holiday.What should i do????I thought about taking photos wat do you think?? Anyway enjoy the rest of your holiday. Love anita

Hi Anita, Probably best not to worry too much about the house until Tanya is due back. Kate might have a mad tidy-up before then. That is better than have her walk out and mess up the rent payments etc. So just box on and keep in touch. I'm home Friday evening. Regards, Val

Hi Anita, Kieran and I are safely home again - but somewhat jet-lagged. Hopefully everything is still going relatively okay up your way. Regards, Val

Hello val, Yip its all good here. Hope tanya having a good time i miss her. I think i saw maras mum today im not sure though i dont really know what she looks like now.

The house is still a dump i cant even stand to go round there anymore, i went there yesterday and soaked tanya pot plants in the shower as cate has let them die. The cats seem fine they seem soooooooo happy to see me when i pop in .

I have finally got my 2 cats fixed now working on the dogs. Anyway really glad you are home safely

Lots of love, Anita xxxxxxxxxxx

Good to hear from you. I'll bet the cats are happy to see you under the circumstances. Phoebe's kitten was the first to appear when we got home. Then she wouldn't leave us alone. She's relaxed now though.

Tanya will flip out if the place is a mess when she gets there. I have figured that Kate is a bit thoughtless already - re that couch.

Its good to hear your cats are fixed. That is what is about to happen to this little one.

I'm half asleep. The jet lag from the return trip has been quite rough. I'm almost falling asleep and Coronation Street hasn't even finished. Really feeling the cold too.

Haven't heard a peep out of Tanya. I hope she's doing okay too. She thinks she will drive home the day after she gets here. By the way we feel even now, I doubt it. I could barely drive the next day as I felt slightly odd (kind of dizzy) from the flight - or the take offs and landings.

Regards, Val

I think the recovery time will be very important. We have all found the stuffing knocked out of us. We didn't have time to notice it when we got to Norway, but now the excitement is gone and there is nothing much left. We keep waking up very early in the morning and falling asleep about 8-9pm! Better go get Kieran from school. Regards, Val

Hi Erika, I was thinking yesterday that I'd forgotten to write to you. We got home safely last Friday 30th, but very jet-lagged. Just about over that now. Tanya leaves Heathrow at 10:30 pm on the 10th. I guess it will be the safest flight she will ever fly on!! It was INCREDIBLY hot in Norway. We thought it would be a middle range autumn (fall), but it proved to be the end of the hottest summer in Norwegian history. Gotta go for now though. I have to spend the week in Wellington at a heritage training workshop - collecting Tanya on the 12th to come home.

Regards, Val

From: Val, Monday, 9 September 2002 12:31 a.m., To: Anita, Subject: Tanya's pending arrival

Hi Anita, If you can, it might pay to remind Kate that Tanya returns to NZ on Thursday and will be home on Saturday or (preferably) Sunday. Then maybe the house will look tidy and the shit won't hit the fan. We haven't heard from her at all. I'm just sending her a fax though - to the hotel.

Regards, Val

Hi there, Tanya got back safely today and we just got home. She wants to know if you will get her a carton of duty free mild tobacco when you get to NZ. She is going to leave the money with me. Its about $NZ30. She says to add that she has bought you three a present. Kieran wants you to know also that he had made a little picture for his new cousin. Me, on the other hand, hasn't dun nuffin, so I'm feeling guilty..... (been at a workshop thing all week)

Regards, Val

Hi Anita, Tanya duly appeared at Wellington Airport on cue today, much to our relief. We got home about 9:00pm and then I found your message after collecting Kieran. Presumably you had gone to sleep by the time Tanya phoned back, but not to worry. She's had a great time. We've been searching through her goodies tonight. I'm getting the rest of her photos developed tomorrow so I will see them sooner rather than later.

Regards, Val

Thanks Glenn. Tanya's now safely home this afternoon. Just Russell and Jenna to go now, and they leave Norway on the 13th and get home on the 15th I assume.

Regards, Val

Other emails between 1-12 September showing how everyone was recovering after the trip. 

We had arrived home on the evening of 30 August 2002, and I retrieved my computer from storage on 1 September.

From; Val to C. (Norway), Sunday, 1 September 2002 about 2:50pm. Subject: Hello from NZ

Hi, Just a quickie email now I've got my computer back and downloaded the many emails.

The flight home was fine, but it was very sad to leave Norway. We had a lovely time. Next time (hopefully there will be one), I will certainly designate a few extra days to explore Oslo!! We saw the folk museum, the Viking museum and the Resistance museum on the Tuesday, as well had taking a ferry ride and almost missing our train as it changed platforms at the last moment.

Anyway, after that things went well....

I'm still quite jet-lagged, but doubtless will recover soon. I really enjoyed the time I spent with you, and it was good to see all the sides of life that were viewable in your neighbourhood!!! I'll write more when I recover from loss of sleep and so-on. We got home at 7:30 pm our time (Friday morning yours), after about 45 hours in transit I guess. Then rushed to the shower!

Regards, Val

From Val to Norway on Sunday 1 September 2002 about 3:30 pm

Hi there everyone,

Most things are starting to come back to normal now. Driving the car yesterday was hard, as my concentration wasn't good, and later I got rather sleepy. I gave Kieran the option of me driving the car down the other side of the road. He wasn't too keen....

It will be good when I stop waking up at night thinking I'm still in the plane - and I guess the dreams will soon stop about having to look after Jasmine the kitten at Heathrow, on the plane, and various other worrying places (because she has insisted since we returned upon sleeping on my bed to make sure she wasn't abandoned again).

Kieran and I both woke at the normal time yesterday morning craving variously for bread and cheese, and bread and caviar (guess which was which!), however, the range of bread was limited to what was left in the freezer and some rather elderly (??) cheddar cheese left in the fridge. Better than nothing I guess. The caviar had survived NZ Customs, so Kieran was happy. People can bring in up to 500gms of that type of caviar per person, but it must not have been opened.

We visited Sigga and Johan B...... in the afternoon, to tell them how everything had gone, and ate cheese and biscuits (our new addiction it seems). Kieran demonstrated his new skills with the Norwegian language and they were very impressed. The B........'s had seen the copies of the photos I had emailed to a member of the Scandy Club. Kieran also learned about Norwegian language dialects and how numbers used to be said differently when Johan and Sigga were growing up.

Paul's last leg home was really tough (in terms of time, not actual flying problems) and then he went to work the next day - which clearly had not been a good idea. Consequently, by yesterday when he phoned me for a long talk, he was completely stuffed. He'd had very little sleep and said much of the problem was that he was the only member of the household that was suffering jet lag, so the others weren't giving him any peace and quiet. I think pouring out all the difficulties to someone who knew what he had been doing over the previous several weeks will have helped. Anyway, I just talked to Natalie (who didn't know where either of her parents were), and she seemed to think he was improving. She also said Jess (Jenna's dog, if anyone doesn't realise this) was fine.

Bruce got a call from Pam on Tuesday, and they were then in London. He couldn't remember anything else that was noteworthy about the conversation unfortunately.

We haven't heard from Tanya as yet, but I guess we would have if things were not fine with her.

Anyway, I just got invited next door for a cup of tea (don't know about any more cheese and biscuits though!!), meanwhile Kieran is visiting his friends who have been babysitting his fish. I guess that means the stupid fish will shortly return.

Regards,

Val

From Val to R. (Wellington) sent Mon 2 September 2002 c1:30pm

Hi, I saw you on Friday as you got off the train (or your double), but after about 45 hours in transit from Norway, I preferred not to meet up with anyone I knew! Kieran and I were in the front carriage - near our many cases/bags.

Apart from that, I'm working my way through this pending workshop, but have a feeling I'm not going to get to the Somes part. Having to get someone to look after Kieran for two nights is hard enough, without going for three nights.

We had a fantastic time in Norway. NZ's 'old buildings' pale into insignificance alongside theirs. We visited as much as possible heritage-wise in our almost-3 weeks. Norway is very much like NZ. However, we struck its hottest summer in history (hot and humid) - and now are suffering from NZ's cool weather.

Regards,

Val

From Val to T. and Russell Tue 3 September 2002, 12:00 noon

Hi, finally I'm getting started on these (photos). We have both been extremely tired and are only now starting to regain our 'get-up-and-go'. I guess when we went over, we had many things to motivate us, but this time we ground to a halt. Kieran keeps falling asleep about 8:00 pm. Theoretically, Pam and Dennis must just about be in transit from Auckland to Wellington. They arrive at Wellington about 1:30 pm (i.e. in 1½ hours).

Anyway, these are the photos taken at the airport last week (28/8/2002) just before we left and just after Russell & Jenna returned from up North and headed for Oslo.

From Val to C. (Norway) - Tue 3 September 2002 16:29 (abridged)

Hi, Still suffering the dreaded jet-lag. Worse this time than the outward trip, but perhaps because there was so much going on when we arrived then. We keep starting to nod off at about 8:00pm.

I'm glad you are enjoying those books. I thought they would be a very appropriate gift for you, given your other research and what you have done for us. I liked your final sentence too - as now I know what your table etc. looks like, and can imagine things with some grounding, instead of just wondering.

Re the trip, I could have given you practically an hour by hour detailed itinerary!! We left Gardermoen at about 5:30 pm on Wednesday - and I seemed to sleep through India! Thereafter I couldn't sleep much. We were exhausted when we got back. The last two hours was by train - admittedly NZ's best train, but still we were too tired to appreciate much.

Thanks for typing out all the details below. It would have been very hard to absorb verbally. Once again, I really appreciate all the effort you have put in. It would have been impossible for us to have done such research - let alone intrepret what comments and other side issue might actually mean.

Kieran had a down day about his trip to Norway yesterday. Just part of the jet-lag, but today he was back to normal. Yesterday a friend of his described his recent trip to the South Island, and how they had been ice skating and doing various other 'fun' things. I had therefore to put a trip to Norway into perspective - such as that you don't travel that far just to do things you could do in NZ. Anyway, today he went to school with a box of his little treasures from Norway, and a greater understanding of the point of the whole exercise.

Re eyes, actually, mine are starting to give trouble too. Must get new glasses lenses I think. I thought it might be a good idea to wait until I recovered from the trip though. I don't know if tiredness effects eyes, but I guess it wouldn't help much.

Anyway, I'd better go collect Kieran from school. His hockey practice might get a little shorter today - as its just started raining! Getting use to the cooler temperature again has not been fun. I don't normally have the heaters on full, but had to over the past several days.

Did I say in the earlier email, that we traded the open Caviar tubes for a closed (still sealed) one, and got that into NZ okay. Our Border folk are very strict on such things. Anyway, Kieran is probably about the only kid in NZ currently going to school with Caviar sandwiches.

Regards, Val

From Val to L., Tue 3 September 2002 5:00pm (abridged)

We get the photos back tomorrow, and then get to look forward to all the 'sticking in albums'.    

I heard a tiny bit about problems at the YJC* (or on stuff.co.nz when in Norway), but hadn't heard about the break-out. Most interesting.    

Regards, Val

* Lower North Youth Justice Centre, just under a kilometre from our home, where barely two weeks after this email was sent, Tanya's killer would be held overnight.

From Val to Tom (Norway) - Fri 6 September 2002 12 Noon

Russell emailed me to say he'd taken you all out to dinner to celebrate it. Very good.

I have a neat photo of Lucas here from one of Tanya's films that I brought back. I'll email it tonight!! We ended up with about 20 films to develop and another in one of my cameras - plus Tanya's other films yet to come.

Seemingly most of our Norway stuff has now migrated to Whakarongo School. I think they are watching the video I bought at that Troll place today. All Kieran's photos went along today also. For all my fears of the very cheap camera Kieran was using, the photos came out surprisingly well. Had I known where the camera would end up, I would have bought a better one. However, it did okay - apart from a few fingers over the lens (even I managed that a couple of times). The slides look pretty good. I'm looking forward to seeing them properly displayed. That camera is probably still the best of the lot, despite being 30 years old.

Pam and Dennis got back safely a couple of days ago. So only Tanya (due 12th) and the newlyweds to go. We haven't heard a peep out of Tanya, but she was safely there waiting for Pam and Dennis when they duly reached Heathrow (I finally learned yesterday). The next day Pam and Tanya went by train into London to the hotel, and then visited the big museum (forgotten its name), which was very close by. After that, hopefully, she was okay in Contiki's hands. After finding that the money from the estate had finally appeared the day before leaving Norway, I made her a donation a couple of days ago. Hopefully that means she will again be able to eat! As it happened, my MasterCard still managed to run out at Sydney, as the payment made online from your place, hadn't caught up with the account by then. Not to worry.

Better go do some work I guess.....

Regards, Val

From Val to Russell (Norway) Fri 6 September 2002 12 noon

Hope Willy ('Free Willy' the whale) survives. I read about it on Norway Post and that Aftenpost (spelling?) online paper. In last night's paper here (E. Std.) it said that if he gets stuck in the fiord, he will not survive the winter.    

Bergen will be on our next visitation wish-list too. We are already compiling our list!!!!    

Good to hear that you were able to take everyone out for dinner. Finding that money had arrived was a real boost - even if for us it was only at the very end. However, Pam had no idea it was there till she got home. I guess Paul didn't know either. My Mastercard took a while to catch on too. We ran out of its credit at Sydney, even though I'd paid most of it the day before leaving Norway when I spotted the money. We had to put back a koala bear Kieran had wanted, but still got the kangaroo stuffed toy he wanted even more. Next time I guess.    

Can you please send me T. & B.'s postal address? I made myself my own postcard of Årnes, seen as I couldn't buy one the day we left, so will send it to them as a thankyou card - complete with the backing sticker that turns it into a postcard!! 

Its of the mare and foal statue in Årnes. The locals didn't think the town important enough for its own postcard!!   Seemingly just about everything from Norway has now migrated to Whakarongo School. I think they are showing the video of Norway today. Our million photos are now in albums, and I'm looking forward to showing the slides. I hope Dad's old slide projector still works.  

I hope to go and show Jenna's parents the photos tonight, as otherwise it is going to get tricky, due to other committments for the next week. Otherwise tomorrow morning. Tanya took a neat photo of Lucas (I got her first film developed too). His eyes glow and make him look like the devil dog!    

Gotta go.    

Regards, Val

From Val to Tom (Norway) Sun 8 September 2002 11am

Thanks for the photos. At the very least I want to put many of them onto CD-ROM - now I have the necessary thing installed in my computer.    

I saw on the internet that your weather was not so good anymore. Apparently the weather was lousy here all the while we were away - and immediately it improved once we got back!!! Its just a pleasant cloudy day here today. I really felt the cold the first few days. It was awful. But now things seem to be back to normal other than being tired at times of day that I'm usually wide awake.    

I think the school is getting lots of opportunity to learn about Norway. Apparently the teachers had talked about it and realised no-one knew much about Norway, so they were taking a close interest. Kieran seemed to cart most of our stuff (books, video, CD-ROM, toy animals, photos, etc.) off there during the week, but I think most is now safely home again. He had a down moment last Monday when a friend rang up to say he was back from a holiday in the South Island and that he'd been doing all this ice skating, fun activities etc., where he assumed Kieran had only been to lots of museums!! So I had to reassure Kieran that you don't go to the opposite side of the world just to do the things you can do in NZ. Anyway, that, the arrival of the MANY photos, and explaining that the friend was probably envious, made Kieran happy again. 

Re the Norwegian-Maori, I thought it was really unique when we were at Pasotorpet and had two young children running about the house and area, and both were ethnically Norway-Pacific kids.    

I guess it must almost be a forgotten experience to be all alone again. I don't know how I could have handled that many people in my home. A dishwasher certainly helps. I think Britt has been amazing to cope with so many people to look after!!!!!!!!    

Now its raining here too now.....    

Tanya gets home this Thursday. She leaves Heathrow at about 10:30 pm on Tuesday 10th Sept - which perhaps is quite good timing. She gets home to Wellington at about 2:30 pm on Thursday - about an hour before a heritage training workshop I'm attending in Wellington this week also. Pam will collect Tanya from the airport (as she knows where to find it). Then I will track down Pam.  

Pam's first full day at home included crashing her car into their carshed wall. Not a good start.    

Anyway, better go do some housework I guess. Still heaps to do unfortunately, but most of the unpacking is well out of the road. Its all the new treasures we brought home that I need to find homes for.    

Regards, Val

From Val to E. (Canada) Mon 9 September 2002 08:15am

Hi, I was thinking yesterday that I'd forgotten to write to you. We got home safely last Friday 30th, but very jet-lagged. Just about over that now. Tanya leaves Heathrow at 10:30 pm on the 10th. I guess it will be the safest flight she will ever fly on!!

It was INCREDIBLY hot in Norway. We thought it would be a middle range autumn (fall), but it proved to be the end of the hottist summer in Norwegian history.

Gotta go for now though. I have to spend the week in Wellington at a heritage training workshop - collecting Tanya on the 12th to come home.

Regards, Val

From Val to Evan (PN), Thu 12 September 2002 11pm

Hi Evan,

I've got many plastic bags, so you are welcome to them. That little gift is now ready to deliver any time we can cross each other's paths. I've been in Wellington all week, so couldn't do anything till now.

Regards, Val

From Val to A. (query via a website ) Thu 12 September 2002 11pm

This late night computer usage is not too healthy, is it? My daughter returned this evening from London, hence taking so long to check my emails - and found yours when I uploaded all the replies to same.     

Regards,  Val Burr