Living in the past (Jethro Tull)

Wie geht's?

These posts are always a snippet of my past - you read them just after I've written them, after all. Closest I can get is my immediate yesterday. So...

It started off with some Face Time with Jade and Samantha. Modern tech meant our three locations and time zones (UK, USA, NZ) were all in split screen on my phone for an hour.

What a world we live in eh?

It was great to connect and see my beautiful girls and William and chat.

Following that, our plans were to jump a train into London for the day - maybe see a show, maybe the Picasso exhibition at Tate Modern, maybe FOPP, maybe a walk around Hyde Park, maybe a film, maybe dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Que sera sera.

After lunch at Paul's we checked out Trafalgar Square. Our realtor had suggested The Play That Goes Wrong, I was also keen on The Mousetrap (it's been going for 66 years and every time I touch down in London I have a vague urge to finally see it), and SWMBO advocated Matilda The Musical.

The only show that we knew we weren't going to see was The Lion King - we made a promise that we'd only see it with Jade and we stick to our promises!

In the end we found good tickets for a 3pm Matilda and off we went (we both hugely enjoyed that experience).

Along the way I visited Waterstones and found a copy of The Choice - an autobiography by Edith Eger. The Observer piece on her that I'd read on the train going in was profoundly affecting and I had to find a copy.

More on Edith next time. 

Love and peace - Wozza

Happiness runs in a circular motion (Donovan)

Photo by Almos Bechtold on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

So, turns out I didn't quite portray Jacky's 'I'd love to be more like you' quote as accurately as I could have.

My bad. I often hear what I want to hear. And it turns out I didn't quiiiiiite get the tone right this time 'round.

Rather than, 'I'd LOVE to be more like you', which is what I heard, it was more '(LOL) I'd love to be more like you, but...'

Apparently, she REALLY meant that she wished she could be like me - as in - all Follow Your Bliss with blinkers on, except she's not built that way.

Cool, I thought as she laughed and explained all this after reading that previous post - she's picked up on my use of Joseph Campbell's Follow Your Bliss!

So, as you were - normal transmission will be resumed after this short break...

Love and peace - Wozza

It's the terror of knowing what the world is about (Queen/Bowie)

Stress City, Arizona. You don't want to go there.

Stress comes in all shapes and sizes.

Selling your house, which we are currently doing, is stressful. There's also work stress - been a tough two weeks, and for me to say that...

Some may argue that stress doesn't even exist. My old boss at Cambridge High School, Alison Annan, was a non-believer. 

However, lately my wife (SWMBO),  has remarked, "You look  stressed", so I suspect it does exist. She's never wrong.

The Oxford Dictionary says that stress is a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances.

Okay. So Alison was wrong. It's a thing, okay?!

Do I feel stressed? Not particularly, but for SWMBO to notice it, I guess I act and look stressed.

Particularly when Saturday morning comes. It's like I'm trudging through molasses and if we travel I haven't the energy to drive and my end of the conversation is pretty monosyllabic. 

In other words, after a week of demanding full on brain salad surgery (myriads of decisions and mass human interactions all day long for five days), communicating with anyone, even my BFF is the last thing I want to do.

So this weekend, we went to the beach and that helped, and to Real Groovy in Auckland and that felt GGRRREAT!

I'm back baby!!

Love and peace - WNP

[BTW/ sidebar: here are some ideas to help relieve stress - personally I don't go for the soothing music option - on Friday night I came home and whacked on a Rory Gallagher album and played air guitar to Shadow Play, but, you know, whatever works, right?]

Hello world, today I feel like someone (The Tremeloes)

Christmas 2017 is in the books. So too, soon, will be 2017.

Highlights: Seinfeld with Jade; McCartney with SWMBO; holiday in Keri Keri courtesy of the Purdettes; Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi; first year living in Roch-dene (Maungaturoto version); seeing Dunkirk with SWMBO; Christmas with three of four Purdettes (any time we touch base with members of the whanau is a special highlight).

SWMBO/Woz, Fanfa, Adam/Ashleigh, Jade/William

Things to look forward to: Christine and Tom arriving in January; new goals for 2018 (hop over to Baggy Trousers for the details. Go on - off you go); starting each day with Venerable Master Hsing Yun's 366 Days with Wisdom (seen in the Keri Keri motel and ordered from the Buddhist Temple in Auckland); planning for Christmas 2019 (no idea where beyond a northern hemisphere location - exciting)

Be here now: today, right now - seems I have picked up a cold from somewhere; Arsenal are live within the hour - playing Crystal Palace; SWMBO has a cracked rib from a recent farm accident and is feeling sore; I'm about to have some brekkie:

Love and peace and happy new year - Wozza

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me: a partridge in a pear tree.

Apart from the lack of snow...

Christmas means digging out that long box that houses our Christmas tree and the other box of decorations we've accumulated over the years.

For the last two years we haven't used them because we've spent Christmas in London at Patrick and Randy's house.

Last year we had Christmas dinner at Acoustic, the cafe opposite their house in Stoke Newington. Freezing cold outside. Lovely and warm inside Acoustic. A great meal. Just me and my best girl. 

Great times.

So...the Christmas tree and box of accumulated decorations has been stored in various garages we've owned over the last three years (Otane, Waipukurau, Mangaturoto).

But this year we have family flying in from the U.S.A. (Fanfa), Oztraya (Adamski and Ashleigh), and Palmerston North (DLG and William).

Christmas at home meant I went in search of the Christmas tree in the long box and the other box of accumulated decorations. I remembered where they'd been stored - the tool shed.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. Over the years, various rodents had visited the box it appeared. Tell tale little blue pellets on the top of the long box. Boy did it stink.

When I opened the long box I immediately saw why it stunk. At some point in the past three years, Ratty had made his or her home in the fake branches - mixing scraps of cardboard with string. 

A very dead flat rat lay underneath the fake branches.

Doh!!

2017 version

For some reason SWMBO wouldn't entertain me cleaning off ratty's home and water blasting the branches. 

So, off to the Warehouse we went. The last one in the store became ours.

We constructed the new Christmas tree and unpacked the accumulated decorations (separate box and not penetrated by ratty).

Looks good huh!!

Its now sitting decorously and calmly in the lounge, waiting for the Purdettes and their significant others to visit.

Roll on Christmas.

Love and peace and ho ho ho - Wozza

My theory is 98 percent of all human endeavor is killing time (Jerry Seinfeld)

I came into close contact with Jerry World last week. 

I had some time to kill and Jerry was all around me.

Jerry reckons that there are only two parts to his world - 'sucks' and 'great'. And actually, as he points out, they are pretty close.

Certainly, I didn't do my best work last week. Had to let that go. 

Because the weekend was great, so let's focus on that. 

It started off well with signing up to Bein Sports (via Sky TV) just in time to watch the thrilling second half of Arsenal's 4-3 win over Leicester.

Pootling off to pick up DLG at Auckland Airport we saw an accident's aftermath just before Te Hana. That sucked.

Spark Arena in Auckland was buzzing for Jerry (the air was electric that night my friends).

The warm up comedian was good. But Jerry was GREAT. An hour and a half of continuous laughter. Joy to the world!

Jade and I polished off a couple of donuts on the way back to the hotel where SWMBO had settled in and we all awoke refreshed.

Small things like Jade's flight being delayed for a few hours just meant a more leisurely Sunday morning. It all evens out for me.

Next big adventure - Macca on December 16. Ooh baby!!

Love and peace - Wozza

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

I can tell you been hurt by that look on your face (The Osmonds)

Been thinking about that slightly embarrassed guilty feeling I had when buying the Donny Osmond autobiography.

I would say, we all have those kinds of feelings from time to time. But who knows, could just be me!

These are not guilty pleasures, more guilty non-pleasures: the kind of items  avoided because of their severe lack of the cool cachet, the kind of things my mates back in the seventies and eighties would have riffed on mercilessly if I'd have expressed interest, the kinds of things I would have dissed them big time for too. 

They are the kinds of things I won't buy, or if I ever do I want to carry them out in a brown paper bag.

They are not to be confused with stuff that I just hate and would never buy - top of the list, James Last style muzak springs to mind. 

Instead, people like Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond and groups like The Osmonds, and Abba are examples. 

Mind you, some of them have turned into guilty pleasures since then. Things like the deeply uncool The Carpenters or The Partridge Family.

It's a cruel (stoopid) world.

 


SWMBO's response to me reading the Donny Osmond book was interesting: why on earth are you reading that?? Donny Osmond?? He's horrible.

I think he'd be the first to say he's not perfect, the book certainly details much inner soul searching about his public persona (the one SWMBO was reacting to), and even his self deprecating humour gets a bit strained throughout the run down of his successes and failures.

Hey - he's a human being and he allows us to see glimpses behind the mask in the book. Kudos for that Donny!

Love and peace - Wozza

It's build a house where we can stay, add a new bit everyday (The Housemartins)

Hey team - wotcha!

Feeling a tad cream crackered today - the SWMBO horse yards (a.k.a. Habibi 2) are nearing completion. It seems I've been working on them FOREVER but in reality only three weekends and a disrupted week of the last holidays.

The roof is the problematic part - the actual yards are a breeze (being my third edition) - as I'm not a builder. ANNOYINGLY, I make mistakes because I'm not a builder.

Plus everything takes me longer BECAUSE I'M NOT A BUILDER!!!!

The piecemeal building programme has driven/is driving me nuts. All my tools and all the materials have be put away after each day's use.

Last night I cam home from school, spent an hour putting up the anti-penultimate sheet of roofing iron, before darkness descended on me. GGGRRRRRRRR.

Still, the end is in sight - a couple more nights and a weekend to hang the gates should do it.

Okay - rant over - time to luxuriate in my favourite version of the Housemartin classic by the most wonderful Zuni.



Love and peace - Wozza

There's no discouragement shall make us once relent (School hymn, Woodford House)

Rambling Man (You may say I'm a dreamer - Chapter 10 part 2)

The Purdettes at Alpha Street

Elsewhere. Further out. Forward.

Recently, one of my students asked me if I'd ever moved to a school and regretted it.

My immediate answer was, "Nope". Then I corrected myself a bit - the first term or so at Waimea College was a tough adjustment, but then I loved it. The first half year at Woodford House was another instance of that.

So, no, I have never regretted a move forward, but I have regretted any collateral damage that happened to the family along the way.

Cambridge High School posed a whole new series of challenges which I also loved. This was where I washed up as Deputy Principal in 2000.

The Principal, Alison Annan, was a great boss and mentor for me. She's not for everyone - working for and with Alison was like having an ice bucket challenge every day. Some wouldn't like that, but it was exactly what I needed!

She made it clear in my interview that my children would be expected to go to the school as well. Hindsight is wonderful. Keegan hated that idea and I should have listened to him and fought his corner much more than I did. Suffice to say, Cambridge High School was not a happy place for him. Adam had a much better experience and Samantha loved having me at the school when she also started there.

The Barney dress

Jade meanwhile was sorting out the staff and fellow students at Cambridge Primary and then taking on Hautapu School. She thrived at both in her mature and self assured way.

While all this education was happening Jacky started work at Hamilton's Southern Cross hospital as a theatre nurse and then moved to Waikato Hospital in Cardiac Care.

Our Alpha Street house from 2000 to 2004 was quirky, cool, and large enough for us all to have our own spaces. I even had an office set up to tear my hair out on my UNITEC masters degree (in educational management). I had a computer set up and woe betide any child who messed with my set up!

We had chickens. We had a couple of sheep. We had lovebirds, in the outrageously amazingly wonderful aviary that I had built before leaving School House. We had cats - Persia and Lewis from our time in Nelson.

And, after Wynton, we had Bazil.

Samantha worked on me (with help from Jacky and Jade) for two years before I gave in and okayed her puppy present for her 13th birthday.

Grandad and grand daughters

And so Bazil - a border collie, arrived and would become a focal point for family love for evermore, until I had to take him to the vet last year for a final visit. By that stage he was old, deaf, night blind and in pain. It was still a terrifically hard thing to do.  Bazil was always Samantha's dog but he was a buddy to all of us. I sat with him and cried my eyes out before the vet put him to sleep.

Back at Alpha Street, though, Bazie was a puppy and a particularly messy, noisy pain in the ass puppy. The first few nights were horrible as he howled and whined from dusk till dawn.

Samantha was devoted to Bazil, teaching him a variety of tricks and eventually started his training. She created increasingly elaborate agility courses around the house. He loved doing those but otherwise, puppy training with Bazie was a disaster. Socialising with other dogs? Disaster. Walking on a leash? Disaster. Trying to 'work' sheep? Disaster.

And still, he became the coolest dog in the world. 

Whenever I went out to do chores around the farmlets we owned, Bazie was only ever a few metres away from me. Until his hearing went in old age, when he'd disappear after  the scent of a rabbit into the furtherest spot in a paddock (his appetite and sense of smell were always a constant).

Your sis-ter (Purdettes with Ma belle and Kerry Dix)

During our Alpha Street life Keegan finished his education via Correspondence School, and then moved out of our family home to go flatting with some friends from Cambridge High School.

During 2004, things at school started unravelling for Alison Annan and I decided to leave the school after she reneged on a promise she had made to me to resign and recommend me for the Headship. I'd now been to Scotland, visited my relatives in greater Manchester and fallen in love with English life.

We (Adam, Samantha, Jade, Jacky and me) decided as a family to leave Cambridge. We sold Alpha Street and moved to a rental (owned by Cambridge High School). I remember spreading out a giant map on New Zealand on a table there and we all wondered where we could go next.

We couldn't decide an anywhere. In the back of my brain I was thinking England. The family were okay with that so I sent off applications for senior management positions. I was shortlisted a few times, phone interviewed even, but ultimately - nothing came of it.

By now I was anything but daunted by the scale of what I was attempting. Instead, it was clear that I couldn't get a job from New Zealand. I would need to travel to England and front up in person.

So I did. 

When Jacky dropped me off at Auckland Airport before my three week trip to London, staying with friends Tina and Paul in Balham, I promised I would come back with a job!

Love and peace - Wozza 

The taste was much sweeter than chlorine and wine (Baroness)

Easter has bin and went like all the Easters before it.

Easter always leaves me in a reflective melancholy mood but during it there were family occasions aplenty to keep me occupied.

Our visitors from the west coast, my outlaws, visited us on Rochdene for the first time and hi jinks ensued as the tour party swept through Havelock North and Napier!

Photographic proof:

After Gavin and Mabelle departed for the left hand coast again, SWMBO and I started attacking some of our fuddy duddy furniture, including the dining table and chairs.

We went for a shabby chic look:

With pretty stunning results, if I do say so myself.  Out went the mahogany and in came the French creams. Voilà!

Love and peace - Wozza

I see your sun is shining (Jeff Beck)

Since returning from London at the end of January, my weekends have taken on a familiar pattern. One that involves physical labour around Rochdene.

The pattern is necessary for a couple of reasons: things need doing (they bug me); I need to be busy.

Both, I admit, are deep psychological problems (the unexamined life is not worth living remember).

The first one started as soon as we returned home - I see loads of things that need doing around the place and save them up for my weekends. Stuff like painting the house, building pergolas, hanging sails. Then there are the smaller items like hedges that need trimming, an unfinished garden seat, gardens that need taming, mess that needs tidying (I've lost count of how many times I've sorted out the garage frinstance)...you get the idea.

All week I make a mental list of chores and then spend the weekend ticking them off. I'm driven. I'm focused. I'm nuts.

Result: stuff gets done but I don't relax (which for me means reading while drinking tea in Abbey Road Three).

Second one - the need to be busy. I can blame SWMBO a little here. She can't sit still. After thirty three years of marriage that's bound to rub off a tad.

But I'd be lying if I was to leave the impression that I'm not to blame. The puritan work ethic is alive and well inside my core being. Once I get started on a project I can't stop until it's done. It's the way I roll baby!

Next weekend is Easter break and apart from a trip to see Jade in Palmerston North, I should get started on the next project - a garage for the horse float.

Now, where did I put my concrete mixer?

Love and peace - Wozza

The love you take is equal to the love you make (The Beatles)

Having been accused of some grumpiness and curmudgeonliness lately, I wondered this morning, as I pootled along in the Purdsmobile school wards (it's a 40 minute commute so I can ruminate until the cows come home) about the things that make me smile and feel a lovely warm rosy glow at the moment.
Here's five!!

1 Opening the fridge at work and finding milk for my tea. It's something I can sometimes take for granted (when nothings there, there's hell to pay from the staff!).

2 Music: 40 minutes is easily enough time for a CD. This morning it was The Best Of The Guess Who and I sang and beamed and bopped along to American Woman, No Sugar Tonight, Bus Driver, Share The Land and the rest.

3 The sunrise and the hills on my right as I drive in. The view just after Waipawa from a rise in the road is particularly wonderful.

4 Painting the house. WOAH! "Hold up", I hear you say - "You hate painting, Wozza!" Well yes I'm not a huge fan but...but - I love the new paint look. We're painting the house at present and getting rid of the yucky yellow and replacing it with a soothing neutral cream is a great feeling.

5 SWMBO: I watched a great TED talk recently (it'll be on this week's Jewels For The Thirsty blog so watch out for it) about how happiness is aligned to your key relationship. Thanks LOML!

Love it seems I just can't find (Status Quo)

Introducing the twins: Jean and Judy!

Yes - we have had twins.

In a shock move: SWMBO and I find ourselves doing 4 hourly feds throughout the day and night. Yes - NIGHT.

This has come as a bit of an affront to the system. I thought those days had gone forever after Jade started sleeping through the night about...oee...22 years ago. But - no. No, I was wrong.

The back story?

One of our ewe's - we suspect the one who had triplets last year and then abandoned them all - has done it again. This time twins.

You know the drill - worst possible conditions: freezing weather changing to rain and she delivered two girls. By the time I got to them one (Judy) was on her last legs curled up under a tree. The other one was more nosy and demanding (Jean).

We tried all sorts of things but the stoopid mother abandoned the wee mites - with a full one head butt to Judy that dazed and confused her as a parting gift.

So - SWMBO and I have had to step in. The twins now recognise us as mum and dad!

They are super cute which is just as well as we trudge down to Hababi stables at 2am!

Of course, we are also in the middle of moving house this week but what can you do? We can't abandon them as the stoopid mother did, can we?

Oh - and the names? Jean comes from Fringe (the name of the cow!) and Judy is for George Martin's other half - the lovely Judy Lockhart Smith.

Love and peace - Wozza

P.S. Yes - you're right - there are three lambs in that photo: Judy and Jean have a step brother as of yesterday - Lazurus (in the foreground) was one of triplets but pretty much dead. Miracle Max (a.k.a. SWMBO) and I got him back to the land of the living somehow.

Through falling leaves I pick my way slowly (Fourmyula)

As you've read, Red Phoenix Farm has become Brown Phoenix Farm over December. The land is parched and so are the animals.

Currently the farm plays host to two horses (Dee and Neo), 21 sheep, two dogs (Dookie and Bazil), Rocky the cat, two lovebirds, four canaries, sundry rabbits and at least one hedgehog.

All except the rabbits and hedgehog have water provided for them.

Sallie informs us that hedgehogs struggle to get water in summer and often die from dehydration.

This poor wee mite was found by SWMBO down by Habibi Stables. She thought it was a pine cone until she noticed two eyes staring back at her.

Looks a tad grumpy doesn't he!

Love and peace - Wozza and the menagerie.

Down at the end, round by the corner (Yes)

The fourth and final of the holiday slide shows: and the theme of this one is the end of family holidays!

Family holidays have a limited shelf life. By the late teenager years we become more independent and our horizons shift from the family to friends and new adventures. A pity - but natural and that makes our family holidays increasingly special as the years drift by.

Our last family holidays took place at the Taupo house (mum and dad's holiday house at Rainbow Point).

SWMBO and seasoned bush walk adventurers

One Tree Hill - with Wynton. Fanfa
concerned about my hair - even then

Not sure where this was taken

Taupo - a rare bush walk for the lion hearted

We'll always have Paris

The girls in Leigh-on-sea

Jade and the snake

Northern holiday to the Kirkhams

Tourist central!

The much loved Taupo house

The Fantastic Four sign off on family hols

Love and peace - Wozza