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