Don't look for love in faces, places. It's in you that's where you'll find kindness (Ray Lamontayne)

Photo by Maria Teneva on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

So, here we are in 2021. I wonder what's in store for us all this year.

Decades ago, future thinkers wondered about what life in 2020 would be like. Here's what they came up with. Mostly they were pretty close to our reality, although no one specifically predicted a global pandemic.

Whatever the outside world looks like, I plan to start each day in 2021 the way I've started each day for the last three years - with that day's reading from 366 Days With Wisdom (by Venerable Master Hsing Yun).

January 1 is headed with this advice - Each day one needs to speak kind and gentle words. Each day one needs to do what is beneficial.

He goes on to say:

Begin from today! That means not to procrastinate. This day is very precious. Everything is best done today. Allow yourself to ensure that you live unto the fullest this day. We need to eat satisfactorily and rest well. Also, we should not put off till tomorrow what should be done today. Let us seize any available opportunity and time we have today!

We all need reminders like that, don't we?

Love and peace - WNP

And lashings of Ginger Beer!

 

Five go exploring: Mabelle; Jacky;
G Brian; Gavy and Wozza

Wie geht's children?

Today's blogpost contains some highly classified excerpts from Five Go Mad in PekaPeka, by the popular children's writer Enyd Blyton (not to be confused with that other popular children's writer Enid Blyton).

Are you ready children?

  Earlier that day at Maple Grove -

Mabelle: Adventures? That's all we ever have! Always hearing secret conversations, digging up buried treasure, chasing people down tunnels. Why can't we just do something else for a change?
Wozza: Like what?
Mabelle: I don't know! Just... walking around a wetlands at PekaPeka.
Wozza: I'll pretend I didn't hear that!

Jacky: Steady on you two - the hols have only just started!

Later that day, at PekaPeka wetlands -

G Brian: Well, here we are at the PekaPeka wetlands. Who shall we have to lead us through this labyrinth of walkways?
Mabelle: Follow me everyone!
Wozza: Hey you lot! There's a map over there!
Mabelle: We don't a map Wozza! Follow me everyone!
Gavy: I don't like the sound of this Wozza!
Jacky: Neither do I Gavy!
Wozza: Let's go down the left hand walkway!
Mabelle: Follow me everyone (as she heads in the opposite direction)!
G Brian: I've got a damaged hand and I can't walk far.
Mabelle: Follow me everyone!

As Mabelle leads us successfully out of the wetlands -

Gavy: Thanks, Mabelle. You really are a proper little explorer. Not like Wozza, who wanted to go on the other walkway!
G Brian: Yes, thanks Mabelle. I wish I was an explorer too!
Gavy: Really, G Brian! You're only a boy! 
Wozza: Thanks Gavy! Well, that was exciting. Everyone! Let's go back to Maple Grove for some of Jacky's trifle and lashings of Ginger Beer. 

Jacky: [putting her hand on his arm] You seem so grown up, Wozza.

Love and peace - Wozza

Well, I don't know what to say, except it's Christmas and we're all in misery (Ellen Griswold in Christmas Vacation)

Wie geht's?

Well, we're almost there. I'm referring to our annual run down of our favourite Christmas movies. Actually, Just Love Actually to go.

In case you want to catch up, our hardy perennials are: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation; Die Hard; About A Boy; Love Actually; It's A Wonderful Life.

We've branched out a little this year thanks to Asher, and added: The Grinch; Polar Express.

Recently, while Jade and Asher visited, we also tried The Vacation as a new addition (won't be adding it to the roster though).

A few others didn't get a viewing because of their lack of availability on Netflix or in my DVD collection: Scrooged; Die Hard 2.

Speaking of movies - Peter Jackson's recent sneak peek of The Beatles' Get Back means that 2021 will single-handedly eclipse our lingering memories of this year. No worries!

So anyway, Christmas eve/Christmas Day/Boxing Day are rapidly approaching and we have the outlaws arriving for a few days to help share the joy.  

Love and peace on earth (not forgetting the good will to all) - Wozza

I'm a boy, I'm a boy (The Who)

Keegan, minus 36 years

Wie geht's?

The 19th of December, which is coming up, is our oldest's birthday. Happy birthday Keegan! Here's a revisit to his origin story.

But really the day is more about me and Jacky, right?

That origin story misses out a crucial bit that tells you a lot about us, where, getting on dinner time on the 19th, Jacky - dozy with labour pain and then relaxed by epidural but mindful that Purdy's need regular food, said that I should go and have something to eat.

So I did. I hopped in the car, which was parked in the Taranaki Base Hospital carpark by maternity, and drove to McDonalds for a Big Mac combo; drove back to the maternity wing steps and ate my dinner there; walked up the stairs just in time to find Keegan was finally ready to launch himself on our world.

The rest is history.

Love and peace - Abu Keegan

It's a boy (The Who)

Wie geht's?

Early sighting of the Adam grin

Time to celebrate the birth of Adam Lennon Purdy (December 11, 1986).

We (Keegan, Jacky and I) were living in Windmill Avenue, Mt Eden at my grandfather's flat at the time, when Adam made his appearance, just in time for that year's Christmas celebrations.

It topped off a pretty good week for me - the summer holidays were starting (I was teaching at Macleans College), Arsenal were top of Division One (the Premiere League was a fair way off yet) on 38 points, and I was blessed with two sons.

It's a wonderful life.

Happy birthday Adam.

Love and peace - all of us

I'm so tired, I haven't slept a wink. I'm so tired, my mind is on the blink (The Beatles)

Wie geht's?

John Lennon (born 9 October 1940, died 8 December 1980) knew a thing or two. For one, that sleep was important.

Jerry Seinfeld concurs! And so do I!

As Jerry would say - I'm on no sleep. That's thanks to either a cold or allergy (I think cold, Jacky says it's the pollens), the sudden heat producing muggy nights, or Rey barking endlessly at something - that was last night.

With three more days of school for the year, that all adds up me freaking out man!

Love and (looking forward to some) peace - Wozza

No time for a gentle rain, no time for my watch and chain (The Guess Who)

Photo by Kyle Head on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

Jacky and I spent Sunday and Monday in New Plymouth this week. We were there, with a number of Jacky's whanau, for the funeral of Gavin O'Neill's mother (Gavin being our brother-in-law).

It was a lovely celebration of Ruth May O'Neill's life which included a lot of music. That's not unusual at a funeral but Ruth was a singer who performed with her sisters (The Bond Sisters) and later with choral groups in New Plymouth, so there was more music than normal and that was really cool.

While in New Plymouth, Gavin gave Jacky a tapestry and a heavy ornate frame and I borrowed an autobiography written by Gavin's brother, Paul. It is a short but powerful record of his life.

Paul, who passed away a couple of years ago from cancer, was the same age as me and he also loved music (curiously he never mentions his mother's musical background in his autobiography). Apart from that though, we have/had very different backgrounds.

A few thoughts having read it:

• It was a great way of understanding Gavin's background and personality (now I know where all the wisecracks come from).
• Writing an autobiography should be a task that everyone undertakes before they shuffle off this mortal coil.
• Life is short. 

Love and peace (rest in peace Paul, Danny, Terry, Allen, Ruth)

- Wozza

We gonna come together, we gonna celebrate, we gonna gather 'round, like it's your birthday (Kings Of Leon)

 

Wie geht's?

Name the year!

Here are your clues:

1. The first penalty shoot-out ever in the F.A. Cup took place (Rotherham v Scunthorpe in case you were wondering and Rotherham won 7-6)
2. Sir Robert Muldoon resigns from parliament
3. Eurythmics Greatest Hits was the year's top selling album
4. Jade Michelle Purdy was born

Yes, that's right, it was 1991, 29 years ago, when, on November 28, Jade popped along to add more joy to our lives.

OMG - she still looks like that when she's asleep

Happy birthday DLG!

Love from JFP and me

Ooh, when it gets through to me, it's always new to me - my double vision gets the best of me (Foreigner)

Photo by Camila Quintero Franco on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

Me? Well, last weekend was a write off.

The first sign I'm getting a migraine used to be tingling fingers, then my vision altering by jagged lines and then a blazing all consuming headache hitting and pounding away for 24 hours.

Saturday's one was different - started with the jagged lines and changed vision, but after I took Jacky's migraine medication and retreated to a dark room to wait it out, the headache didn't cripple me as before. Now it's just a dull ache above my affected eye (or eyes as was the case on Saturday because for the first time ever my vision was affected twice - first my right eye, then, two hours later, the other one).

The two days afterwards haven't changed though - two days of lingering aftermath that Jacky and I know as 'eggshells'. 

Fellow migraine sufferers know the drill.

My triggers have remained the same over the years - some dehydration, lack of sleep, and some stress. Mix those three together and hey presto.

Unfortunately that was the recipe for Thursday and Friday last week.

My father used to say that only intelligent people get migraines. Now that could have been a bald-faced lie given to lessen the blow to a teenage me but it always made me feel slightly better.

Love and peace - Wozza

How can I walk with this ball and chain? How can I land in this hurricane? Or is this part of man's evolution to be torn between truth and illusion? (The Band)

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

School stuff has been front and centre of Wozza's World these last two weeks (yes - it's Wozza's World - you just live in it).

"Why is that exactly?", I hear you ask politely.

Well the Education Review Office (ERO) has come a-calling to my two campuses during these last two weeks.

Being inspected can be a testing time for staff (students don't really give a monkeys).

During a visit, part of me wants to show off the great places where I work, highlight the excellent staff I have the privilege to work alongside, celebrate everything that makes our campuses great ones, but part of me is also a tad hesitant in case they don't quite get us, or else a tad worried they'll think we're big 'eads.

The use of different reviewers has meant that the ERO checklist of compliance issues wasn't directly used at Gisborne, but certainly has been at Hastings.

In both cases I have wondered whether I haven't said enough or else have said too much.

I'm great at second guessing myself as I pootle homeward in the Purdmobile; I shouldn't have said 'x', or, I wish I had said 'y'. I hear myself rewording things in a much better way - I know I'm not alone in experiencing this semi-tortured state.

The reviewers are probably not giving anything I've said a second thought. But then again, maybe they are.

Ah well. What are you gonna do? It's done and dusted. It's in the books.

As I said to someone today: don't sweat the small stuff. And it's all small stuff.

Love and peace - Wozza

P.S. To answer Robbie Robertson's final question in the heading (from Forbidden Fruit on The Band's great Northern Lights-Southern Cross album)...yes.

This is the easiest task I've ever had to do. Reason had harnessed the tame, holding the sky in their arms, gravity pulls me down (REM)

Photo by Mayank Dhanawade on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

As your ace cub reporter indicated a few posts ago - a recent trip to the docs and subsequent horror at my weighing in at 84.7 kg resulted in me launching a weight loss regime to reach 80kg (no inbetween snacks, no fizzy or alcohol).

Three weeks later, and happily I can now report on job done as my weight is fluctuating between 79.95kg and 80.2kg.

And, even more happily my knees have been amazingly fine since I started losing the weight. It's brilliant - just 5 kg less and gravity is my friend suddenly!

The x-rays, btw, didn't reveal any knee issues that need further interventions.

So, I just need to stay away from the snacks et al and enjoy the benefit of pain free knee joints. Worth it as I can now climb ladders and stairs without winching!

Love and peace out - Wozza

I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it (Donald Trump)

Wie geht's?

Wow - that was a dramatic week that's just passed.

It began with Samantha celebrating her wedding anniversay and ended with Adam and Ashleigh celebrating theirs. Along the way Jade glammed up and went off to a medical ball, I battled a tummy bug while away in Gisborne and the American's took an age to declare a President-elect in the U.S. election.

It dawned on me what a different system the British parliamentary one is. Here and Australia and the UK, the party, ministers and the Prime Minister are elected at the same time. Makes sense, right.

In America the President is a stand alone election, and then, apart from a running mate, he or she creates the team around themselves after they win. Weird when you think about it. Blind faith is the order of the day.

Anyway, we (the world) survived four years of Trump and his swamp creatures (Rudy Guiliani is just the unhinged tip of the stinking iceberg). 

Now that he and his family have been fired, he can go and play golf, tweet to his hearts content, and badmouth everyone who doesn't toady to his every word. Oh wait - he does all of that now.

So, erm, maybe now he'll have to face up to all of the lawsuits from the women who have claimed improper conduct, front up to the banks over all those loans, pay taxes, and spend some time with Melania.

What's that sound? Apart from the chickens coming home to roost, that's the planet's giant sigh of relief.

Love and peace - WNP

Carry on till tomorrow there's no reason to look back (Badfinger)

Recent 2020 passport photo

Wie geht's?

Recently, very recently - last Sunday during our weekly family zoom in fact, Keegan wondered whether I was on a nostalgia trip. I believe he said (I'm paraphrasing obviously) something along the lines of - I don't care about 2007, I wanna know what you are doing now.

First up - no I'm not on a nostalgia trip per se. More that I don't have much going on really aside from the work/sleep/work/sleep treadmill, with a fleeting side interest in football, music, American politics, books. I'm pretty boring. Shock horror probe!

Plus I had fun taking a photo folder at random for the recent posts and seeing what it had to share.

But anyway - for Keegan and anyone else who cares - here's what I'm currently doing:

Losing weight (a week ago during a visit to the doc about my painful knees and she says to me, she says - have they hurt more since you put on weight? She says. Erm, as I squirmed - maaaybe, says I. I rushed home and weighed myself - 84.7kg. The heaviest I've ever been. So I determined to lose the excess 4.7kg. The plan: no to cakes, biscuits, snacks between and after meals, fizzy drinks and yes to fruit, water, three simple meals a day. The result? The loss of 2.5kg in a week. Nice. 2.2 to go before I celebrate with a donut from the Little Frimley Kitchen). Ha ha!

Reading (Mojo's October issue, My Life in Red and White - Arsène Wenger's autobiography, and James Sallis' Drive) - two of the three are up-to-date, of the moment texts - I'm counting Wenger's as such because it was just released.

Listening to music (high rotation awards go to The Beths latest album released this year, and Bruce Springsteen's latest)

Watching - we've just finished watching season 1 of The Queen's Gambit and we continue to enjoy Modern Family - both on Netflix.

Working wise - ERO are due a visit so that stokes up the paperwork.

Travelling - two trips to my Gisborne campus in the next two weeks - one is my regular visit (where I'm typing this right now!! at the Portside Motel), the other is for ERO. A week after that they visit my Hastings campus.

Miscellaneous - Walking, mowing lawns, some gardening, some Jade and Asher visits...that all makes up my now.

And you're up-to-date!

Love and peace - Abu Keegan

We are family, get up everybody and sing (Sister Sledge)

Star of the show: Irene Purdy

Wie geht's?

Nine years ago, in August 2011, Jacky and I took a trip from Al Ain to the UK for Irene Purdy's 90th birthday celebrations.

Yes, you're right - that means Irene's 100th is just around the corner! Covid permitting, we aim to be back to Bury for that one as well.

While there, we loved catching up with my northern hemisphere relatives and, afterwards, going on a road trip to the Lake District, and back to London via Yorkshire and Castle Howard. More to come of the road trip in the next few posts. 

In the bosom of the family

Jacky and Christine's Samantha

The Kirkham Three

 

Next post: that beautiful spot by Lake Grasmere where William Wordsworth lived with his sister, Dorothy.

Love and peace - WNP

Riding on a long blue paper plane (Status Quo)

Wie geht's? 

This one's about one's hobbies!

Bruce Springsteen was asked recently about what he did outside of music, what were his hobbies?

He said something along the lines of, I'm not really a hobbies guy.

No surprise there! 

My brother though, certainly is. He loves flying remote control planes (pictured on the right above). Has done since he was a youngster - starting with those model kits we both used to do as kids.

Except as his model building got more elaborate and bigger and bigger in scale, mine stopped.

As a hobby it suits his fastidious, pain-staking, inquisitive personality. He's amazing at it!

That he's still doing it 50 plus years later is, like the Springsteen answer, no surprise.

I'm the same! As I type this, I'm listening to a record album I first heard and bought in 1972 - Emerson Lake and Palmer's Trilogy.

The buzz of excitement I get listening to it is the same (From The Beginning instantly transports me back to 1972)

So raise your glass to hobbies!

Jacky has her horses (still going strong), my brother-in-law has his vintage truck, my father-in-law has his videos and Little Theatre, Ross has his planes, our mother loved flowers - floral arranging and gardening, our dad loved electronics, and I collect and listen to music (including the new Sprinsteen album).

You don't know what you're missing Bruce!

Love and peace - Wozza

I want to get back to my city by the bay Ooh, Ooh (Journey)

Samantha always knows where the camera is!

Wie geht's?

This post is our final stop in the return to 2007 and our first trip to San Francisco.

In the wash up after the wedding dances we went to the zoo, the Hard Rock Cafe, a diner with everyone to watch the Golden State Warriors, and then it was back to New Zealand, leaving our hearts in San Francisco!

The sisters cutting a rug

Watching the Golden State Warriors

Jade was there! True fact!

Love and peace - Wozza

When the lights go down in the city and the sun shines on the bay I want to be there in my city, Ooh, Ooh (Journey)

The stage is set

Wie geht's?

And so to the wedding of 2007 - Jesse Rowbotham and Samantha Purdy in Marin County at Jesse's mum's stunning place with views of Mount Tamalpais and the bay.

Americans have some different traditions when it comes to weddings, such as a pre Wedding get together called a Rehearsal Dinner. Of course, I thought this meant a rehearsal of the wedding - who stands/sits where, who says what and so on. Nope.

Instead, both sides of the family mix and mingle over drinks and a meal in a semi-formal fashion. An ice-breaker, really.

Then it was the wedding in the beautiful Californian sunshine at Cathy and Dan Kennedy's house. First - pre-wedding drinks by the pool.

And, finally, on to the post wedding photos.

Next post - post wedding knees up and wash up of the SF trip.

Love and peace - Wozza