Lean sideways on the wind, and if it bears your weight, you are a daughter of the Dawn (Mervyn Peake)

Lounge to Brynderwyns

Nature Watch Part 2: On the inside out.

Roch-dene in a winter repose. I love it here. Looking out.

ART room looking north

Kitchen

Laundry

 Love and peace - Wozza

Sidebar - week 24, book 28 was Unknown (Didier Van Cauwelaert). Yes, the book that inspired the movie starring the great Liam Neeson and the very wonderful January Jones. Actually the film only uses the opening premise (car accident, amnesia) and then creates its own fiction. The book is vastly different and I wasn't impressed with either the plot, character development, or writing. Sorry Didier.

Week 24, book 29 is currently wowing me completely though - Gun Machine (Warren Ellis). More on this next time.

Storm's coming up Ani (Jira)

View south-west towards Maungaturoto

The much anticipated return of nature watch. 

Part 1 - Outside now: Roch-dene has been a little battered of late by rain, wind and frosts.

The ground is boggy and the horses are unamused by puddles, especially Grace (they are definitely enjoying the new yards as their overnight stay out of the water).

But the sun peeked through recently for a few days, and the blossom outside the ART room was another hopeful sign that winter is in retreat.

Sunset on the Brynderwyns from the front porch

Beetlebaum and Gracie - nice and dry

A new hope

Love and peace - Wozza

Sidebar: Week 23 book 27 Let's Go Crazy - Prince and the making of Purple Rain (Alan Light). 

To celebrate, I rewatched the film again and, apart from one or two laugh out loud bits, both the film and the music stands up pretty damn well after 30 plus years. 

At any rate, it's way better than Under The Cherry Moon which is absolute drivel!

They danced a tango up and down until the yellow dwarf went brown (Mervyn Peake)

Rereading books is not really a thing for me. I can only think of one that I've read three times - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, as my readers already know.

Many years ago, when we left NZ to live in England for a spell, I sold a lot of stuff - books, records, CDs. From time to time I have regrets about that - when I go to find an album I know I own, DOH! or a book that should be on my shelves, DOH!!

The Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake was something I read back in the late seventies for pleasure, and then for study at Auckland University.

This week I read his A Book Of Nonsense (week 22 book 24) and had an urge to reread Titus Groan, and Gormenghast (and to complete the set Titus Alone - maybe I'd get the gist of the third book now).

I have a feeling that in this post-truth-Trump-Brexit world the coiled malevolence of the characters would make a lot of sense right now.

The lead up to week 22 was taken up by book 25 - Maestra (L.S. Hinton) - a potboiler about art swindles and femme fatales; appropriately bought cheap from the Warehouse. I'd started, so I had to finish.

Now tackling Philip Roth's The Humbling (book 26). Jacket says it's a 'thoughtful meditation about life and increasingly death'. Should be fun.

Love and peace - Wozza

The winner takes it all (ABBA)

Draws. The British and Irish Lions and All Blacks fought out a series draw after the third test ended up at 15-15.

The drama of sport? It felt more like a cosmic joke. 

A tantalising win for the AB's seemed on offer until the bizarre French referee ended the game in a complete anti-climax.

Leaving aside the cowardly decision by the ref to change his mind after another annoying check with the video ref (too many refs spoiling the game), the hollow feeling we all felt because of the result was interesting.

Americans can't stand a drew. Someone has to win.

Other sports can't stand a draw. Someone has to win.

So we have overtime (NBA/ NFL/NHL/MLB), or a tie-break (tennis), or a penalty shoot out (football/ hockey), or something else entirely to break the deadlock.

Why? Because we need someone to win, to dominate, to provide bragging rights, to satisfy some deep need/craving we have.

On Saturday night Steve Hansen trotted out the 'kissing your sister' analogy again - I really don't like that tired joke. Something vaguely off about the hint of incest involved.

Instead, I do love the genius opening to Woody Allen's Stardust Memories movie (which turns out to be a movie within a movie by Sandy Bates of course):




That's the feeling, precisely, of a draw. Somewhere - there's another train, a better existence, a win, that we gaze at longingly, but it's out of reach - impossibly on a parallel track. We long for it, and we try for it anyway, but without success.

In the end Lions and AB fans were all together wandering aimlessly around a rubbish dump while gulls circled in the sky.

Love and peace - WNP

If there's a rock show at The Concertgebow...we'll be there...Oo Yeah (Wings)

December 16!! Oo Yeah! SWMBO and I'll be there!!

Maybe (whisper it) the final ever opportunity to see Macca in the flesh so, you know, it has to be done, no matter what the cost, no matter what the sacrifice.

Oo Yeah!!

Love and peace and two thumbs up - Warren Ono Purdy

Ketchup soup and puree, don't get left behind (Paul McCartney)

Hats off to the Minister of Defence (and his gorgeous daughter) this past week!

Brian Smith (a.k.a. Smithy, a.k.a. Minister of Defence, a.k.a. the father-in-law) has spent the last two weeks hunched over my 1953 Ferguson tractor repairing and restoring it to life. 

His beautiful delectable sexy eldest daughter (a.k.a. SWMBO, a.k.a. Light of My Life) has been assisting, while I have been hunkered down at school, bringing home the bacon (and beer).

Lawdy mama! He was successful. The patient lived!

In other news (a.k.a. random thoughts): Paul McCartney tickets go on sale this week; August and the Jerry Seinfeld show got a month closer; July means Keegan takes off for China; SWMBO offered a new job in SCBU; Jade and William are done with being star witnesses; SWMBO's new glasses are cool; loving Gotham season 2 on Netflix - amazing production values...

...tomorrow is the weekend and I get to hang out in Abbey Road Three again and, weather permitting, harrow the paddocks on my rebuilt 1953 Ferguson tractor.

Love and peace - Wozza

Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering and it's all over much too soon (Woody Allen)

Hope you're keeping up with the 50 books in 52 weeks countdown. You're not! For shame.

We're up to Week 20 and Books 21: Memories Dreams and Reflections (Marianne Faithfull) and 22 The Wishbones (Tom Perrotta) have come and gone. 

I especially enjoyed Marianne's collection of thoughts, much as I did her first autobiographical effort. Mick Jagger still looms large over her memories and that's cool.

The Perrotta novel was taken a punt upon because the back cover said - The American Nick Hornby. Which turned out to mean he was working the same sort of subject matter as High Fidelity, rather than a reflection of Nick's style.

I'm onto number 23 this week: ...but we need the eggs (Diane Jacobs). It's subtitled 'The Magic of Woody Allen'. Published in 1982, it's a look at Woody Allen's films up to and including my favourite - Stardust Memories and before the Mia Farrow person life tabloid meltdown/train wreck.

SWMBO hates Woody but I find his work hilarious and fascinating. Reading about him can be a chore but I love being reminded of these classic movies.

Love and peace - WNP