The cars hiss by my window like the waves down on the beach (The Doors)

The clans are converging on San Francisco over the next two weeks for the irrevocable melding together of Wozza's world and Jesse's world. Although Jesse and his family have been members of Wozza's World for a few years, it's now time for Jesse and Fanfa to marry after officially ratifying their commitment to look after each other till death do they part earlier this year.

So this means the Purdy, O'Neill and Smith branches of the whanau are in the city by the bay for a short while to share in the joy.

Jade arrived a week ago and we (Keegan, SWMBO, and me) arrived yesterday. Adam and Ashleigh arrive next week along with the O'Neills and Mr Smith.

We've been busy bees since landing - a walk around the Castro area, a walk across the Golden Gate bridge, and a Jesse city tour have been great introductions to this fabuloso city. We've all fallen in love with it!

Tomorrow we visit Alcatraz and I finish writing my father of the bride speech. Photos to come (I can't figure out how to load from my camera to the iPad just yet).

Love and peace - Wozza

And they whirled and they twirled and they tangoed (America)

Wozza's world has been gearing up for Samantha's wedding of late. Jade has flown to San Francisco already and the rest of us head there in the next week or so. Happy day is on the 27th April.

We've been looking after Jade's pooch Tango (hence the lift from Muskrat Love for the title) while she's been in America and untangling Tango - every day he manages to get himself in some bizarre tangles involving his lead and the fences around his dog house. Amazingly he does not seem to learn from his mistakes so every day SWMBO has been trying to out think him. What will Tango do next? has become a private game involving the two of them. So far Tango's ahead on points.

I have been at work all week - my last week of relief teaching at Woodford House before I start there permanently as Head of English next term.

What a fantastic school and a fantastic place to work. I am very lucky.

We had Shakespeare Day at school yesterday and so the staff and a lot of the students dressed up in period costumes. Including me - I'm pictured (far right) with the rest of the English staff.

During the day I left my keys in a computer room. They were found by some girls and handed to the DP (also in the English Dept and pictured third from left). The girls said they were Mr Purdy's.

When Catherine (the DP) asked the girls how they knew that, they said, " Because they smell like him". Whaaaaat? I'm hoping it's my after shave but who knows.

Next posting comes from San Francisco inshallah.

Love and peace - Wozza
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There's a mockingbird singing songs in the trees, singing just for me (Barclay James Harvest)

I've just finished 7 days of relief teaching at Woodford House and I've loved it.

I'm in my element in the classroom. I'm not sure exactly what that phrase/cliche means.

Let me put it this way - I got home from school last Tuesday, it's a 30 minute drive, so it was about 6pm by the time I grabbed a drink and headed out onto the deck at home - slight autumnal features - liquid blue sky about to go down in a fiery red sunset; slight breeze moving the few yellowing leaves off the trees, and I remember wondering 'when was the last time I was this happy?'

The thought/feeling kinda blind sided me and I felt self indulgent and great at the same time. It was a fleeting moment - those kinds of feelings tend to be like a movement in your peripheral vision. When you try to deliberately isolate it, it's no longer there.

Autumn often puts me in that kind of mood and the day of teaching had left me tired and fulfilled.

People at school have been asking me if I have any regrets. No. I tell them.

I don't.

Love and peace - Wozza

You may find yourself in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife (Talking Heads)

You may find yourself in another part of the world; you may find yourself sitting at your desk in the teacher workroom at Woodford House and you may find yourself teaching English again and you may say to yourself, "Well. How did I get here?"

In brief: SWMBO and I returned to Nu Zild from China in February and waited to hear from my Chinese boss about our pay and flights and visas and such. And waited…and waited. When it became obvious that we weren't going back to China (and weren't going to be paid for two months work) we went searching for new jobs. As luck would have it we were offered jobs on exactly the same day – mine was Head of English at Woodford House in Havelock North (a thirty minute drive from Otane) and SWMBO has casual nursing hours at Waipukurau Hospital (a ten minute drive in the opposite direction from Otane). I was also offered a position in the Middle East as well, and, although it was much more lucrative, the words 'permanent full time' tagged to the NZ job swung the deal.

We wanted to be normal again, you see, and stability is a condition I have come to yearn for after three years of zapping around the earth.

Woodford House is a delight too. It's a smallish school of around 300 girls nestled in the Havelock North hills. It's largely a boarding school for Hawke's Bay girls but there are some day girls as well from around Hastings. Class sizes are small! I have 12 girls in my Year 9 English class! Somebody pinch me (http://www.woodfordnz.com/ for more info on my new school).

Life has been busy with preparing for a re-entry to the NZ workforce (I started last Thursday), planning to go to San Francisco for Fanfa's weeding and getting our house sitter out of our house and our stuff back in.

We gave her a month's notice but things have not gone smoothly. She initially acknowledged that damages to carpets and furniture (done by her cats) were her responsibility but she has since refused to pay for repairs and replacements. During the six months she was house sitting she moved about two households worth of stuff into and onto our property and that has taken her weeks to remove. All traces have now been removed!

Sadly that has meant no time for blogging of late but the A.R.T. room is now looking like my space again and so are SWMBO's Habibi Stables.

So now I'm back and the normalcy means the blogging will kick back into gear. Hurrah!!

Love and peace - Wozza

Didn't take too long 'fore I found out what people mean by down and out (Led Zeppelin)

Real books and real sounds from my stereo. It's so good to see you both again. I've missed you, so much.

Reading ebooks is okay but only when you don't have access to the real thing. Listening to an ipod dock is okay but only when you don't have access to the real thing.

It feels like we're on a holiday of sorts (a holiday in limbo land) as we wait to see where the maple leaf is heading next. During my holidays I often get a hankering for reading a Stephen King novel so I visited the Waipawa Community Library.

Reading books from a library is a pleasure I've enjoyed since I was a wee nipper living at 18 Korma Ave., in Royal Oak, Auckland with mum and dad and Ross.

First library mum ever took me to was down the road in Onehunga.

The Carnegie Free Library in Princes Street had been opened in 1912. Apparently, it was one of eighteen in New Zealand built with funds from the American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

It was a grand building with a large entrance way with a decorative crest and it felt like I was entering a secret Roman Temple.

It was amazing; you could borrow a book to read! You didn't HAVE to buy the book in a shop. You could go to this building and they would let you walk out with a book without any payment. Crazy and amazing. Try getting that idea off the ground these days!!

I LOVED it!

It's no longer a library but I'm happy to know that it still exists in Princes Street even if it is now a restaurant.

The Waipawa library isn't so imposing. Libraries are noisier places these days (they even have a radio playing fer goodness sake). Seems the place is a de facto youth centre come after school drop off zone but the Waipawa book stock is fantastic so I can put up with noisy teens playing games on the computers (what a world we live in huh).

I found two books by Mr King that I had never seen before: Duma Key and 11.22.63. 

I'm nearly done with Duma Key. So far so Stephen King (weird dolls, zombies, a narrator with mysterious powers, all set in a backwater town in Florida called Duma Key). Perfect for a holiday escape.

Love and peace - Wozza

I thank the Lord for the people I have found (Reg Dwight)

Where are we now? You ask.

SWMBO and I have just returned from our trip across the north island from Hawke's Bay to Taranaki. Otane to New Plymouth actually.

Along the way we stopped off to check out what DLG (a.k.a. Jade) was up to in Palmerston North before setting up camp with the outlaws in New Plymouth (Mabelle and Gavey babe).

We found time to also enjoy the company of other whanau members during our tour of the central provinces (Raewyn, Paul and Jacoba). We intended to call in on Eric and Jeanette in Stratford until Eric rang me and asked why we weren't home! They were in Otane while we were in Nu Plimff. Crazy. We also wanted to catch up with Graysy and Jansy in Palmy but ran out of time on't way home.

Like Elton in the song quoted above (Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters) I have found some great people.

Nu Plimff was resplendent in sun and blue skies. While I was there Mabelle introduced me to Vinyl Countdown. Great store for cheap (and good) vinyl as well as CDs T shirts and more.

I came away with four albums and two CDs for 22 bucks. Score!

1972/1973 are my coming of age rock and roll years. They continue to have such a solid hold on me. A check of my purchases showed that three of the six items came out in those stellar years: The Guess Who - Artificial Paradise (vinyl); American Flyer (vinyl); and Gentle Giant - Octopus (CD).

I snapped up the American Flyer album for $2. Fantastic. When I picked up the sleeve from the rack I noticed a sticker on the front cover indicating where the album was originally bought in 1972. My first thought was 'What wally puts their business sticker on the front cover of an album??'

Then I took a closer look. It read 'Smiths Radio and TV Ltd' (sic). Under that sober title it listed what the store belonging to Smith sold: Hi Fi - Colour TV - Video - Records - Tapes.

Hmm I thought. Nu Plimff. Smith. TVs etc.

My father-in-law is, as you'll all no doubt recall, Brian Smith. The Smith family had owned a radio and TV shop in NP for many years, including the pivotal seminal 1972. Could this be a long lost artifact from Brian's long ago emporium?

It could, and it was (confirmed by SWMBO and Mabelle who both recognised the silver sticker) and I felt quite chuft.

Funny ole world innit?

Love and peace - Wozza

With the strength of a new day dawning and the beautiful sun (Uriah Heep)

A catch up post for y'all this time out. I get way out of routine when I'm travelling. This one comes to you live from the A.R.T. Room (Abbey Road Two).

We are back in Otane at the old homestead (a.k.a. Red Phoenix Farm, also called Southfork by Jan of Al Ain) at present.

The place is parched at present. The grass has all been burnt off by the baking sun with no real prospect of rain anytime soon. By comparison, my weather guide on the computer tells me it's 4 degrees and raining in Wuxi today. Funny old world innit?

Loads has been happening recently: we were on Waiheke until this week while SWMBO had her MRI (results yesterday were fantastic and such a relief after a long period of agonising) where we spent time with Keegan and Margo/Clayto; flew to Napier on Monday and went to see Jade (and Tango) in Palmerston North yesterday. 

A new day dawning (who'd a thought Uriah Heep would provide the very appropriate post title - from July Morning if you were wondering - you know you were).

We have a visit to Taranaki lined up for the near future as we await instructions about a return to Wuxi (we had a one way way ticket home as there is a suggestion there may be changes afoot in Wuxi). All a tad unsettling but we are enjoying the beautiful sun and heat in Nu Zild while we can.

Love and peace - Wozza

P.S. My pictures are still not loading so I'll have to resort to Facebook again.