There ain't nothing like a friend who can tell you you're just pissing in the wind (Neil Young)

Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

Friends. No not the artificial ones on the TV sitcom. Real friends.

We all have them - companions to travel through life with.  

One school of thought is that there are four types of friend:

• Friends like flowers
• Friends like weighing scales
• Friends like mountains
• Friends like the earth.

The first two types are negative influences. A flower like friend is a fair weather friend. A weighing scale friend only is one when you are in a position of power. They drop you like a stone once you are no longer of use.

The other two types are the true friends - they go the distance, they support you no matter what.

It takes a while to figure out who they are - the mountain friends. Like the men in that old Mainland cheese advertisement - these things take time.

My friends who are still friends after 30 plus years are true friends. I've learned to appreciate them more and more as the years go by and I value their sincerity, honesty, helpfulness, and acceptance. 

Love and peace - Wozza

Orange crate art was a place to start. Orange crate art was a world apart (Van Dyke Parks)

Wie geht's?

Recently, Meg Gallagher asked her Facebook friends to reply to her post with something that brings them joy - could have been a quote, a line of verse, a photo - anything.

Without a second's reflection, I instantly posted the picture above. 

Not only does music bring me great joy, but records in particular bring me constant joy, and even more specifically this album by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks is just a joyful collection of sounds.

Brian is freed up - he was employed by Parks as a singer only - not a songwriter or a producer ( both of which he is phenomenally talented at, btw).

I've loved this album since I bought a CD of it when it was released back in 1995. Having just returned from Palmerston North and a visit to JB Hi-Fi, I'm delighted to now be the possessor of a vinyl copy (it's finally now been released in that format).

In his sleeve notes Van Dyke Parks calls it a 'paeon' (sic) to California. He means a paean - as in - enthusiastic praise for California. A mythical, or at best, a long lost California that is: Sun dappled orange groves,  gorgeous music like Lullaby filling the air, as beautiful ladies (some called Jeanine) in bonnets frolick amongst the wild flowers. He really does conjure up those sensual delights in this album.

It's a gorgeous collection of music.

A paean to California? Oh, yes!

Love and peace - Wozza

I'll find the constant flow of all the harmony. Everybody needs a helpin' hand (Santana)

Wie geht's?

Back in the bib and tucker this week, with two days in Gisborne and two in Hastings. Travelling early in the week tends to zap my brain cells a bit and my routines get all out of whack.

The blog regimes definitely get disrupted, and so I haven't found the space to eek out anything for a few days.

Oh me oh my.

The drive to Gisborne from Takapau takes me about 4 hours. I usually stop off in Wairoa but the cafe I like isn't open on Mondays so this time I drove straight through on both days. That means roughly three and a half hours of driving the testing up and down and twisting road to Wairoa and then onwards to Gisborne. Not a lot of fun.

Gisborne is lovely when you actually get there, but like many places in Nu Zild you need a compelling reason to go (I'm thinking of places like New Plymouth, northland, and the whole of the east coast of the North Island).

When you think about it, vast tracts of both islands are very isolated - makes covid-19 inoculations extremely challenging because the vaccination needs to go to the people, not the people to the vaccination for a large percentage of Kiwis.

Anyway. I'm back at Maple Grove. Ready for an extra long weekend (Hawke's Bay anniversary and Labour Day) and more vegetable garden planting. 

Keep it real (and please - get the jab).

Love and peace - Wozza

Baby will you call me the moment you get there, baby? (Aretha Franklin)

Wie geht's?

Time for a project update with the study break coming to a conclusion this weekend.

Window sills: not quite zero, we did buy a mouse sander to get into the little nooks and crannies around window frames but that's it - no, like, actual work, like.

Irrigation system: good news here, as I managed to repair broken lines to the vegetable patches and create three new lines through different parts of the Maple Grove gardens. That even includes a line to two new flower baskets on the western deck.

This took up most of the week as it meant multiple trips to Mitre 10 Waipukurau for various pieces of irrigation and having to project manage fiddly bits as I went. 

Mundane jobs like this are good for the soul. They certainly keep you humble.

Working with water is endlessly frustrating but paradoxically it creates a great calming experience within the stress. Water finds its way and when you add a pressured situation - then leaks are a fact of life. That's this post's very deep bit.

Still, the garden jobs are pretty much done. Just have to build a wire netting cover for one of the vegetable beds before I head off to Gisborne on Monday morning for what should be my last visit this year. 

Love and peace - Wozza

Look through any window, yeah. What do you see? (The Hollies)

Wie geht's?

Okay, so here we are in week two of my term break from school. I didn't have much ompf last week for anything major but this week I'm feeling the need for some projects.

The irrigation system to the various gardens has been in a state of disrepair since we moved into Maple Grove three years ago, so I've started on a proper rebuild. It's been interesting so far - all seems okay until I actually turn the tap on from the well and various leaks in the alkathene rear their ugly heads. But the warm sunny days mean it's okay to fool around with the watering.

The villa we live in at Maple Grove is 120 years old so there are always maintenance and repairs with which to occupy our time during breaks from school. This week Jacky and I plan to sand down and re-stain the various interior window sills that we noticed needing doing when we bought the property. That's why there are pictures of three of the rooms attached to this post - there are a few of them!

These projects have come to the top of the list because we are wary of travelling to other provinces and getting stuck there. We were planning on going across the island to Taranaki but the Delta variant is on the move north and south from Auckland - swallowing up Northland and Waikato provinces in the process.

The government reacts quickly to outbreaks and there is always the possibility of escalation to a higher alert level. 

On the family zoom, we were detailing the incidents that lead to the covid-19 virus affecting KatiKati (one person who moved there after 5 negative tests) and Northland (a sex worker it appears faked documents and spent 4 days touring around the province); Adam (living in Melbourne) expressed amazement that we knew details of individual cases.

That gave me some perspective. Nu Zild is a small town.

So- we have decided that discretion is the better part of valour and we will stay safe at Maple Grove. That means ordering more records from Vinyl Countdown, Real Groovy Records and Marbecks while listeing to album club selections Mild Orange and Sufjan Stevens as we sand the sills.

Stay safe, wear a mask, please get the jab (I know readers of Wozza's Place are a responsible, considerate bunch, but you never know - an undecided may stray onto this page by mistake).

Love and peace - Wozza

There's you, the time, the logic or the reasons we don't understand. Sad courage claimed the victims, standing still for all to see (Yes - Close To The Edge)

Photo by Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

We have a dilly of a pickle brewing in Aotearoa (New Zealand) around our response to the pandemic and its Delta strain.

According to our leaders, to move away from lockdowns we need around 90% or more of the eligible population to be vaccinated.

So far we look to be around 50% fully vaccinated, with 80% having had at least one dose. Which, if we presume the 30% are willing to get the second dose, leaves at least 10% to go to get to the 90% target. That last bunch is tricky to get.

Source: Ministry of Health

Tricky because they put up what seems like a cogent set of arguments and reasons to remain unvaccinated [BTW - these folk should not be linked to the rabid conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers who are clearly both a very small minority and, let's face it, nuts].

The following points relate to the vast majority of vaccine-hesitant people who are not nuts. They do not have a political agenda and are not committed to an anti-scientific cause. They are just undecided.  

1) Some want proof that there aren't long term effects from the vaccine. That requires time. Time in this case would be measured in years and that's a luxury we don't have.  See point 3 and please get the jab!

2) The elimination strategy NZ has employed successfully to date has now reached its use by date. Living with the virus poses serious issues - just looking at the UK doesn't generate much confidence. Melbourne's bet each way is neither one thing or the other and isn't currently very successful. I don't want endless lockdown yo-yos. Do you? Please get the jab!

3) Trust issues that people had before the pandemic have continued and are spread by folk, often via social media. Basically if you don't trust the World Health Organisation when they say the vaccine is safe for adults and children, like I do, then you'll not take it. Trust is fragile. It doesn't help when misinformation is deliberately spread by influential, seemingly intelligent people. Please don't be fooled. Don't give in to your inner confirmation bias. We have to trust certain things to live our daily lives. I trust people will obey road rules so I need to trust that on-coming traffic obeys the white lines on the road and won't drive into me, I pay tax and trust that the money will be spent well. When I donate money to World Vision I trust they will use my money wisely. I trust my doctor when he prescribes an antibiotic drug - don't you? Please get the jab!

4) Some people still believe the flu jab gives you the flu. Some people don't want to get the covid jab because they think it's allowing something dodgy into their system. Doesn't appear to matter that, as many health practitioners have repeated, the risks of severe side effects from a vaccine are tiny in comparison to the risk of the disease itself. Please get the jab!

5) Fear of needles is real for many people. I didn't especially like them when I was a kid but as I grew older I realised the fear was in my head. The vaccine doesn't hurt. At all! Please get the jab!

6) Complacency is a factor for some. The healthy fit young people out there seem to think they can ward off the virus with Vitamin C and a trip to the gym. Now I'm a huge fan of Vitamin C but even I know that it's not a panacea against Delta. Please get the jab!

7) For some people COVID-19 became politicised as ‘government control over my life’ and an infringement on individual choice and rights, not as a health issue. It's a democracy in NZ. The people elected a Labour government in NZ. I believe they have led us well and have competently managed a response to covid-19 to date. Oh sure it's not a perfect response and some people are pissed off with MIQ but let's keep our perspective. Governments didn't create the pandemic. It's a health problem. Please get the jab!

We all face challenges in our daily lives. Covid-19 is just the latest.

To the ten per cent out there. You have the power to change all of our lives for the better in so many ways. 

Please. Get the jab.

Love and peace - Wozza

Yes my name it is written in the sand and it cannot escape your sweeping hand (Jack Bruce/ Pete Brown)

Wie geht's?

Venerable master Hsing Yun divides life into four different levels: material (basic requirements like work, food, shelter); spiritual (love, exercise, improvements to our knowledge and wisdom); cultural (such as literature, music, art); religious (based on having a belief).

A couple of those levels are the focus of my other weblogs. Which means...it's time for a cultural catch-up on Wozza's Place. 

Viewing wise we are chewing through a couple of series on Netflix - Blindspot and Chicago Med. Both are okay but if you are the type who struggles with suspension of disbelief then I suggest you pass. Plus, I spend minutes each episode of Chicago Med looking at the ceiling during the realistic medical procedures. Nurse Jacky enjoys it though. Blindspot is ridiculous in a B grade kind of way, so we are hanging in there. Adam and Jill from work has recommended Vigil and we'll try that one too.

Music is always around me. I now have a two week term break from school so plenty of time to indulge. Currently I'm undergoing a catch up on bands like The Kinks and Genesis who I've dipped into over the years but in a cherry picking way. It's great discovering a band's back catalogue without needing to be a completist in the case of those two bands.

Also in music news: Greg, Kevin and I have started our version of an album club (each week we take it in turns to select an album to listen to and comment on - harmless innocent fun during these lockdown times - you should try it!)

In terms of art, I am waiting for The Beatles' Get Back to come out on Roctober 15, it's a tie in to the 50th anniversary editions of Let It Be, and I have a couple of graphic novels to catch up on including Mike McCartney's Family Album and Max Ernst's surrealistic novel in collage Une semaine de bonté.

Books that are on the go at present are Ian McEwan's Solar (again - it's okay and captured me in sections - a case of I was too far in to give it up) and Mike Barnes' A New Day Yesterday (subtitled UK progressive rock and the 1970s - wooah - am I the demographic for that one or what!)

And in other news: 

Have I mentioned before what lousy luck we have with cats? I feel like I have.

This week we said farewell to Rolly and Stevie. Sadly, during the fortnight that we had them, we discovered they had a variety of diseases that we couldn't live with, so, after some hard decisions were made, Jacky delivered them back to the SPCA.

Generally, we just don't have great luck with cats. They are either run over on the road, disappear during the night, escape in transit, or develop sickness.

It doesn't seem to matter if it's a cat from the SPCA (although we've had bad experiences with that source twice now) or a pet shop. It's the same result.

It's tough because we immediately invest our love and care and bond with animals quickly. Then it becomes a wrench when something happens to them. With cats, it seems that inevitably happens.

The upshot being a wariness and a reluctance to get involved with cats. Sorry team.

Love and peace - Wozza