I am what I am a family man (Fleetwood Mac)

Keegan, Jade, Samantha, and Adam Purdy

Wie geht's?

Jade and William have released their wedding photos and they record, in spectacular fashion, a wonderful day for our two families.

Weddings provide a rare opportunity for the six of us, in this particular branch of the Purdy family, to get together, and getting our fantastic four in one spot is an especially proud moment for Jacky and me.

It's no mean feat getting Keegan back from Guangzhou in China, Samantha back from Los Angeles, and Adam back from Melbourne to join Jade and us in Nu Zild.

So this post is shamelessly devoted to them! Raise your glasses and toast the Fantastic Four!!

Here's to the next reunion for Jacky's 60th in a couple of years' time.

Love and peace - WNP

The first time ever I saw your face, I thought the sun rose in your eyes, and the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave to the dark and the endless skies (Roberta Flack)

Wie geht's?

The 26th of February is clearly a very special day for me each year (my autobiography has details about when Warren met Jacky, 37 years ago in 1983).

1983 - a bigger than Ben Hur year

Jade wondered aloud a few days ago about whether love at first sight really exists and she often kids me that I stalked her mother whenever I relate the origin story, well, she should know that both are true.

If I had not gone to that party, found out where Jacky Smith was working, been flatting with those people, been rejected by dozens of schools and found myself teaching at New Plymouth Boys', I would never have met and instantly fallen for the 20 year old Miss Smith.

If she had not gone to that party, been curious enough to talk to me, dance with me, say yes to a date, get married, raise children together, Jade would not exist.

So, yes Jade - I believe in love at first sight because it happened to me (I'm not proud enough to believe it was love at first sight for Jacky but there was clearly something there for her to stick around and allow love to grow).

And yes to the stalking - although I'm not sure if that's an accurate portrayal given I asked my flatmate during the next few days after February 26 who Jacky was and then where she worked. If I hadn't followed through and walked into Accessory House to see her for that second time - again, no Jade!

A lot has happened since, in those 37 eventful years: four gloriously gifted children, three blissful weddings, sadly - some funerals (1983 and 2009), and a beautiful grandchild spring to mind, but whenever I hear The Four Tops singing, "I can't help myself - I love you and nobody else", there's still only one person I think about.

Love - now and forever - W

Yeah it's a mad hurricane (Deep Purple)

Photo by Alessio Lin on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

Highlights from the last few days since that last post: 

• The trip to Gisborne to visit my campus there took up two days and meant a fair amount of driving - four hours there, four hours back, so plenty of time to listen to Radio Wozza!
• Apart from the fact I struggle with my own company, and have to go through Wairoa, the trip was fine. Oh and being passed at speed on the left by some idiot! I saw him coming in my rear view - a big black car with multiple dings in it, I was doing 103kph, there were cars in the oncoming lane so what did he do? Well this brainac decided he'd move onto the hard shoulder and speed past me on the left - triffic. Reckless and idiotic!
• Barrelling along the motorway on my way back home singing  along with Ian Gillan on Highway Star! My air drumming on the steering wheel and air guitaring is coming along, to say nothing of my Jon Lord keyboard skills!
• Reading David Copperfield has continued apace and I'm now over 100 pages into it, into the rhythm of the language, laughing at bits, depressed at others, agreeing with Nick Hornby's enthusiasm, and hoping young Davy finds some happiness eventually.
• We're up to date on The Blacklist (as far as Netflix goes which means waiting impatiently for the next episode to drop) and now having an arm wrestle over various shows and movies I want to watch but Jacky doesn't. I'm losing.
• Jade and Asher came to stay for a couple of days midweek - the little guy is now crawling and motoring around the house with gay abandon. Time to put up screens, barriers,  and remove items that produce a gleam in his eye like the poker for the fire! Go Asher!

Love and peace - Wozza

Look at him sitting there with his hooter scraping away at that book (Paul's grandad to Ringo in A Hard Day's Night)

Wie geht's?

Books bought:

• Showdown At Yellow Butte (Louis L'Amour)
• David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
• Fathers And Sons (Turgenev)
• Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)

Books read:

• The Polysyllabic Spree (Nick Hornby)
• David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
• That Glimpse Of Truth (David Miller)

Deeply ashamed at my failure to buy a book for a while (as reported in the last post) I made it a priority to visit The Little Red Book Shop last week.

Actually, it meant two trips because the first time, when I went midweek, they were 'exceptionally closed' (according to the sign on the door).

I was on a mission to buy some Dickens in particular. That's also a source of shame.

As an English teacher and a lover of literature, I have to come clean and admit that, although I've enjoyed David Lean's films and BBC adaptations, I've never really read any Dickens; A Christmas Carol and that is it. I know! None of the biggies!

From time to time, I've flirted with the idea, but never followed through (when Fran stayed with us a few years ago she was reading a Dickens' novel and I felt a sense of shame then too).

Until the Nick Hornby collection that is, and his devotion to David Copperfield. If it's good enough for you Nick, it's good enough for me!!

Ivan Turgenev's classic was an impulse buy ($3) as I searched for the Dickens. I was sure Nick makes mention of it in The Polysyllabic Spree and regardless - I love stories about fathers and sons.

The Louis L'Amour is there because I couldn't find any Zane Grey and I had a hankering to read a western!

Especially after reading Steven Crane's short story in A Glimpse Of Truth to Jacky. 

The Bride Comes To Yellow Sky has some wonderfully descriptive passages:

The California Express on the Southern Railway was due at Yellow Sky in twenty-one minutes. There were six men at the bar of the Weary Gentleman saloon. One was a drummer who talked a great deal and rapidly; three were Texans who did not care to talk at that time; and two were Mexican sheep-herders who did not talk as a general practice in the Weary Gentleman saloon. The bar-keeper's dog lay on the board-walk that crossed in front of the door. His head was on his paws, and he glanced drowsily here and there with the constant vigilance of a dog that is kicked on occasion. Across the sandy street were some vivid green grass plots, so wonderful in appearance amid the sands that burned near them in a blazing sun that they caused a doubt in the mind. They exactly resembled the grass mats used to represent lawns on the stage. At the cooler end of the railway station a man without a coat sat in a tilted chair and smoked his pipe. The fresh cut bank of the Rio Grande circled near the town, and there could be seen beyond it a great plum-colored plain of mesquite.

Okay - it's back into the David Copperfield for me. Caio for naio.

Love and peace - Wozza

Did you write the book of love? (Don McLean)

Wie geht's?

Books bought last month: 

• none

Books read: 

• Murder as Usual (Hugh Pentecost)
• Brenner And God (Wolf Haas) Abandoned
• Mojo January 2020
• The Polysyllabic Spree (Nick Hornby) On-going
• Swimming Home (Deborah Levy) On-going 
• That Glimpse Of Truth (short story anthology) On-going
• The Boy In The Stripped Pyjamas (John Boyne) On-going

The idea for the above list is down to Nick Hornby who compiled his monthly literary essays (?...not articles, not reviews) about his monthly reading habits for US literary magazine, Believer. Each essay in the collection begins with his list of books bought and books read. So, there you go.

Of course, being insanely wealthy and living in north London means he can cruise around trendy niche bookstores and supplement the plethora of free books that drop regularly through his letterbox by buying up large. Must be nice.

Lucky sod! I bet he's a regular visitor to Upper Street's Waterstones and I bet the remainder stores he talks about used to be across the road, just down from Caffè Nero, and the charity shops. 

In contrast, I bought diddley squat. Nada. Zip. Nought.

But I read a surprising amount, or tried to, at the very least.

Petty jealousies aside, I've loved Nick's stuff since I picked up the jacket of Fever Pitch in Auckland's Unity Books back in 1992, and noted that he was the same age as me (born in 1957), he had a teaching background, and he supported the same team as me (Arsenal F.C.). Not only that - he lived overlooking Highbury.

If there was ever a book written for me by a bloke who could be my brother, Fever Pitch was it!

The essays in Polysyllabic Spree are pretty addictive. I know - a book about reading books, right? But the lad does well. Back of the net for the most part.

I was looking to expand into the hard boiled detective genre (if Patti Smith and Rory Gallagher love them, there must be a reason) , which explains Murder As Usual (good enough but not overly exciting) and Brenner And God (which had a tiresome narrator so I ditched it).

The Glimpse Of Truth is that nifty short story anthology that Jade bought me last year - it's the one I read aloud at night to Jacky. Patchy best describes the standard of stories. The dire life conditions of Victorian Britain produced some pessimistic writers/stories if the ones in Glimpse are anything to go by. But we have had one hilarious story by an Australian writer about his dog and we're currently reading/listening to a Stephen Crane story about a western marriage which is memorable.

Teaching a Year 9 English class explains why Boy In The Stripped Pyjamas is in the list and the Deborah Levy is there because I love her writing and happened upon this short story collection before Christmas at the Little Red Book Shop. I've only just started it.

Speaking of the Little Red Book Shop - clearly, I need to get back there and stock up so that I fill that Books Bought column.

Love and peace - WNP

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book? It took me years to write, will you take a look? (The Beatles)

Wie geht's?

This picture, showing Asher's deep concentration on his book, is a joy to behold. Not only that, but he's now able to turn the pages for his dad as he reads along. Wow!

This is a great landmark.

It signals a few things to me.

He's curious. What's happening in the story and what's happening on that next page? Curiosity is incredibly important!

He loves books and that's down to his mum and dad...(and me maybe - if I wasn't a reader, then maybe Jade wouldn't have believed in the importance of reading either. Just saying). Loving books and loving reading is incredibly important!

He can focus! And as we know - your focus determines your reality!

I love that photo. Love it. Love it. LOVE. IT.

Peace and love - Wozza

Give me a sign, there's something buried in the words (Breaking Benjamin)

Wie geht's?

Love and peace - Wozza