She talks in stereo, she sounds so good to me (Gary Myrick)

Wie geht's?

We're just back from a mini break, taking in the spectacular sights of Hampshire, Wiltshire and West Sussex, in that order, before heading home to Surrey.

Along the way I visited an HMV in Winchester (of course I did), got talking to the friendly shop assistant and came away with a turntable and speakers (turntable includes a CD player and radio tuner).

While I was looking for something more traditional, this space age version (christened Elroy after The Jetsons) suits me just fine. 

It plays vinyl and gets Radio 2 so I'm a happy chappie.

Love and peace - Wozza

Keep smiling (Santana)

Wie geht's?

Relentless positivity is in high demand when faced with oodles of red tape and bureaucracy. 

So...to change something at our bank recently we needed a letter to indicate where we lived. Forget passports and visas. They needed an invoice.

Not just any invoice though. Had to have both our names and our address. Sounds simple right?

Except we've only been here ten days and in the flat for seven, so we only had two likely contenders.

A Council tax letter but only with my name on it and even that was misspelled (bizarrely, everyone wants to add an e and change it to Purdey). 

So that was no good.

Next up - a water bill. Unfortunately, there were three errors on that one - my middle initial was changed to an 'M', Jacky became a 'Mr.', and they got the flat number wrong.

Considering I filled out the request for water myself, and all they had to do was cut and paste it, that is an impressive set of bungles!

Love and peace - Wozza

And it stoned me to my soul (Van Morrison)

Window on the way to our flat in Stonecourt

Wie geht’s?

Like you, I’m really missing my daily blogging rituals.

But buck up! We’ve moved permanently to the UK and things take a while to gear up here: we’re without internet for the next week.

We’ve survived until now on B and B or hotel wifi/internet, but now we’re in our own flat in Caterham, we’ve found that Vodafone’s reach doesn’t extend to our building without an internet boost.

So: silence and a quiet desperation. For a bit longer. Arrghhh. Just goes to show how reliant we are on the interweb these days.

Can you last for a few more days without your daily Wozza fix? Well, you’re just going to have to suck it up!! Like me.

Love and peace - Wozza

I Love LA (Randy Newman)

Wie geht's?

You find us half way along the journey, in LA. Today's adventures took in pancakes in NoHo (that's north Hollywood to y'all), a Farmer's market, a Beverely mall (Jacky needed shoes) and din dins at a great Italian place, the name of which alludes me.

All set for the second leg tomorrow to Heathrow.

Love and peace - Wozza

I want to live the real life (John Mellencamp)

Photo by Aditya Chinchure on Unsplash

Wie geht’s?

You find me in a kind of limbo land – as SWMBO succinctly summed up recently - we have no house, no cars, no pets, and there's only a week left before we leave New Zealand to live in England.

It’s vaguely unsettling, exciting, and curiously satisfying. All at the same time. John Mellencamp famously called for life to be lived ‘close to the bone’, and this is our version.

Currently, we are staying in idyllic surroundings in a one bed unit - an air B and B by a lake in the countryside. We have all we need – a place for our suitcases, cooking facilities and a bed.

There is no coverage in our unit but last night I put on my winter woollies and managed to find a signal ten metres away and conducted my phone business in the UK by moon light.

No dramas, apart from my inadvertently standing in the way of the driveway’s early alert beam. The owner saw the funny side and was relieved to find me holding various pieces of paper, a phone, and not anything more threatening.

Love and peace - Wozza