Do you think you will be happy, buttering the toast of your semi-detached suburban Mr. Most (Manfred Mann)

The Royal Oak roundabout,
ten years before I arrived

Wie gehts?

A while ago, I mentioned Tracey Thorn's wonderful book about her roots in suburbia, Another Planet. Specifically I alluded to her need to get in touch with her easy childhood and testy teenage self who lived in 1970s Brookmans Park (an hour train journey north of north London).

During the book, she goes on a pilgrimage of sorts, a 'day trip into the past', back to that small suburban commuter town and finds a lot of things unchanged. Except for her self. Like all of us, that's a person from another planet.

Where would I go if I was to follow her example? Because she's right:

So many of us live in some version of suburbia, the majority of us I suspect, yet we heap scorn upon the place, and what does that do, I wonder, to our sense of self. 

As they like to say in dramatic TV programmes, 'it's complicated'.

In the UK it's easier because it's not tainted with rosier childhood/ testy teenage memories. 

My history there isn't at touching distance - it skips two generations back to my grandfather who emigrated to New Zealand from Rochdale with his brother and parents in the 1900s. My father and I were born in NZ.

In NZ though, a pilgrimage back to my suburban roots/routes would take in a very small part of Auckland where I lived from zero to mid twenties (I lasted longer in my home town than Tracey did as I didn't travel away from home for University).

Here's a list of things I'd be able to walk to if you dropped me off at the Royal Oak roundabout, Auckland:

• Seymour Park (football from age 4 onwards)
• Royal Oak Primary
• Manukau Intermediate 
• Oak Street (my first house from 0-2)
• Korma Road (our house at number 18 was demolished some time ago, I lived there from 2-15)
• One Tree Hill (where I was born and roamed as a kid and teenager)
• The Royal Oak shops (like Brookmans Park, some are still there, like Ollie's Ice Cream)
• Greenwood's Corner
• Fernleigh Avenue (tennis club)

A short bus ride in a variety of directions would mean visits to:

• Auckland University
• 4 Ramelton Road, Mt Roskill (my house from 16-25)
• Mount Albert Grammar School
• Queen Street, Onehunga
• K Rd and Queen Street, central Auckland (where Greg and I walked and visited record shops)
• Shackleton Road, Mt Eden (where Greg lived)
• Disraeli Street (where I had football practice)

The universe was very small and comforting in suburbia days. Eventually, like Tracey's version, it would also became stifling. I've explored a bit more of the world since then.

That exploration is now over, and I'm ready for a smaller part of the planet again.

Love and peace - Wozza

Life is a game we play (Oasis)

c. Jesse Rowbotham

A return to positivity. Familiar territory.

Visiting Los Angeles on the way back to NZ from England was lovely. We stayed with Fanfa for a few days and Jesse's picture (above) hangs on her apartment wall.

It's an awesome reminder of Nu Zildness: the relaxed pose, the emptiness, the open space, the remoteness but at the same time the sense of purpose in a crazy world, and my binary love/hate stop/go attitude to the land of my birth. 

Jesse has a talented eye and he managed to capture the essence of the place succinctly.

Sometimes, it's good to go away because you appreciate what you left behind when you return.

After 8 months living and working in England, we are back to the relative warmth of life in our home country: New Zealand.

It's genuinely good to be back (yes, really) and to be able to announce that, finally, I'm done with living in England.

Austerity and bad Brexit vibes have transformed a place I love, although I still have a feeling of belonging to pre 1974 Lancashire and my relatives in Ramsbottom, Bury, and Rochdale are very important to me*, I know my place is no longer there. 

It is here, with family and a grandson who will need our TLC.

All up, I am cured of my wanderlust.

I know my family will be shaking their heads with a resigned look on their faces which is fair enough. But I'll prove them wrong. 

We're back baby!

Love and peace - Wozza

*Huge shout out to Irene Purdy, Christine and the Kirkhams (Fran, Tom, Lew), the Geddes and Haigh families.

Sorry that I keep apologising

Apologies - I'm in transit back to Nu Zild, normal service will resume shortly!

Liar - oh everybody deceives me; liar - ooh, why don't you leave me alone? (Queen)

Wie gehts?

This is a public safety warning: don't be sucked in, as I was, by clever advertising for James Patterson's Liar Liar.

Constantly walking past London Underground billboards proclaiming Liar Liar features the female Jack Reacher did me in big time.

Unfortunately I had nothing to read on a return journey, so when LOML needed a comfort stop between the London Bridge tube station and the Southern rail service to Caterham, I ducked into a WHS Smith and bought Liar Liar too quickly.

Bad bad bad mistake.

My heart started sinking on the train and then I went through a bloody minded phase - I paid 8 quid for this so by crickey I'm going to read it - that lasted until an hour ago, when I stuffed it into the bag of stuff to go to the charity shop tomorrow.

Why is it so bad? 

• The writing fails abysmally compared to Lee Child  
• Juliet Blue is NO JACK REACHER
• It's a serial killer story (I avoid them)
• It's set in Australia

Yes, my expectations were high thanks to the advertising, but that's not my fault is it?

But, yes, I agree, I should have taken some time on due diligence before handing over my debit card. Mea culpa.

So: don't get sucked in like I did and avoid this novel (and James Patterson) like the plague.

Love and peace - WNP

I think I want to reconnect with the self I left behind (Tracey Thorn)

Wie geht's?

If you look closely, you'll notice Tracey Thorn's third book (Another Planet) in my 'to-be-read-before-we-leave-England' pile pictured above.

This pile is constantly being added to (Liar Liar by James Patterson - got sucked into the advertising: meet the female Jack Reacher) and having items removed (finished the underwhelming Eric Idle Sortabiography - he spends more time documenting parties and name dropping famous friends for my liking).

Tracey Thorn is the real deal though.

Here she is in the preface (the preface!) nailing my current feelings precisely:

I think I want to reconnect with the self I left behind. It's partly that common impulse of curiosity - which informs a TV programme like Who Do You Think You Are? or a song like 'Where Do You Go To My Lovely?' I want to look inside my head and remember just where I came from.

Love and peace - Wozza