The pen that writes your life story must be held in your own hand (Irene C. Kassorla)

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

Part 3 - What do I like? What do I hate?

I kind of balked at this question in Ryan Holiday's book. I dislike a few things, but I don't hate anything. 

[That Star Wars thing. Yoda points out that "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering."]

I've written about my likes before here. If you can't be bothered reading that post here is the Readers' Digest version:

• They fit into various categories like sport: Arsenal F.C.; Rochdale; Pitsburgh Steelers; the All Blacks.
• Music: The Beatles is the obvious one but I am a completist for a large number of artists and labels.
• Films: again Star Wars is obvious but there are many others like Once,
• Books: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is calling me for a fifth read through.
• Ephemera: The 'I love...' list at the back of my 2005 journal written while living in England summarises things I'd written about during the year:
• The weather
• The Houses
• 28 Victoria Road, Leigh-on-sea
• Scottish borders
• The trains
• The underground
• People (staff) at school - King John
• The Guardian newspaper
• The Times
• Weather forecasts
• Snow
• Walking - Southend/Hadleigh Castle/ Hockley Woods
• Leigh-on-sea shops at night
• London sun
• Fopp
• Picking one at random - here's an excerpt from 2 January about the Scottish borders:
• The border area remains a real favourite of mine. We stopped at the English/Scottish border - huge winter winds/ a rain shower and gathering gloom from impending night and the mists made this a real highlight! I can't help it. I much prefer autumn and winter to the heat of summer. Gloomy days and early darkness have a lot of appeal. Particularly when allied to the warmth of English houses and pubs.

Much like everyone, I'm multi-faceted and full of contradictions. But I know what I like.

Love and peace - Wozza

You caught me in the black light (The Pineapple Thief)

Photo by Toan Nguyen on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

Autumn rain and the end of daylight saving in Nu Zild means winter is coming.

Preparations are on-going: thanks to Chris we now have two clean chimneys ready for Jacky to do her firestarter thing; the outside stereo system will soon be disconnected; the outside chairs and table need to be moved under cover; and the sails over the zen garden will need to be cleaned and stored ready for their return in November.

For the last two weekends I've been cutting up the logs that have been aging under the macrocarpas, stacking them in the woodshed, next to the pinecones we've been collecting. We still need another delivery of wood but so far so good.

The wood basket has been moved inside and the box of pinecones/ kindling will soon appear at the back door along with the large blue barrel that holds a couple of days supply of firewood.

Long range forecast for Takapau

Lately, we've had a taster with some colder temperatures, moody grey skies and rain. That also means the near future's outside walks will be weather permitting as my walking shoes won't hold up for long in the rain.

So, I've spent time today cleaning up the cross trainer that's been sitting in the workshop and I've moved it into my outside music room.

Welcome to April at Maple Grove.

Love and peace - Wozza

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub (Hamlet)

Photo by Greg Pappas on Unsplash

Wie geht's? Sleeping okay? 

Lately I've been having some lurid dreams. The kind I need to write down in my diary when I wake because they are so vivid.

Sleep is on my mind because the nighttime temperatures have been wildly inconsistent at the start of autumn. We are struggling to manage the duvet situation - we're either too cold, or too hot! It's a dilly of a pickle.

There's a short story in Haruki Murakam's The Elephant Vanishes collection called Sleep, where Haruki makes some intriguing observations.

His protagonist is a young woman who stops sleeping altogether and instead lives her life fully awake*.

Murakami in the story says that, 'Sleep both calms and provides a discharge for thought circuits...Sleeping is an act that has been programmed, with karmic inevitability, into the human system, and no one can diverge from it, the person's very "ground of being" would be threatened'. 

He likens sleep to a motor and a lack of sleep is therefore like a motor that is running constantly. If you keep a motor running constantly it will eventually break down.

Arr yes. To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub.

Love and peace - Wozza

* BTW Murakami doesn't resolve anything in his story - the young woman is still leading a sleepless existence, although the implication is that she'll be killed by the men attacking her in her car at 3am.

Rubus Cuneifolius

Photo by Alisa Kenley on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

The latest round in the blackberry wars has ended and...myah ha har! Wozza won in a technical knock-out!

The battle raged on for three days. It began at dawn. Actually. After breakfast. So around 7.00 for 7.30. At times, Wozza was down. The heat, the thorns, the ripped arms (as in cuts, not, ha ha - muscles).

In the end the box thorn needed confronting to root out the nefarious big daddy blackberry roots but rooted out they were.

Now the burn pile is all blackberry, waiting for autumn. 

It's extremely pesky stuff though. Somewhere it's quietly bidding its time out there in Maple Grove. Surveying its options. Watching...and waiting...

Love and peace - Wozza

Training from morning to night (Musashi)

Wie geht's?

While in Auckland last week I walked to Mt Eden shops and found a cool bookshop. They had a copy of Ryan Holiday's Discipline is Destiny.

I've already bookmarked a large number of pages that resonate with my life.

His chapter heading 'Practice...Then Practice More' is an example (Americans sensibly use practice with a c for both noun and verb). The plain message is clear from the heading, but the writing of Musashi (a samurai warrior) spells out things well: A thousand days of training to develop, ten thousand days to polish.

That's basically 30 years of practice. But really - I think he's indicating that the practising/improvement never stops.

I spent a lot of my childhood practising my football skills. My brother wasn't a sporty guy, so I didn't have his help, but, in autumn/ winter/ spring I had our empty family swimming pool to practise in. I spent hours kicking a ball around the pool - hitting angles, running, passing, trapping the ball, give and goes. Hours and hours.

I started playing football for Eden A.F.C. when I was 4 years old. By my mid-thirties I had completed my 30 years of practice, but I never considered myself the finished product.

Practice...Then Practice More. Absolutely right.

Love and peace - Wozza

There but for fortune (Joan Baez)

Wie geht's? 

Another update post:

• Still quiet at Maple Grove, rodent wise.  
• Bleak House - up to page 110.
• Autumn - four weeks in and still having 20 plus degree days and around 10 degree nights, so the mild changes continue. Getting darker in the mornings though, and this weekend's forecast has Jacky engaged in crazy talk about needing our first fire of the season.
• Walks continue around the Mitre 10 Sports park during my working week.
• The records* I ordered last Tuesday from Real Groovy arrived after I contacted them. Human error apparently. To be fair they quickly got a wriggle on and I got them yesterday. 
• The Gentlemen - we're up to episode 4 (of 8), but Jacky suddenly isn't fussed - too weird she says. So, I've been catching up on the 2023 Formula One season (Drive To Survive).
• WTWMC True Colours playlist on Spotify has finished investigating songs with brown in the title. Greg is up with the next colour - he's teasing us again and making us wait until Friday! 
• Arsenal F.C. not playing because of the international break.  

Consider yourself up to date on Planet Wozza.

Love and peace - WNP

* I'll add this down here because Noel Forth is probably one of the few people in the universe who will get this: the records in question included an album by Stairsteps (Second Resurrection) on Dark Horse Records. It's a new copy as I've failed to ever find a second hand one. Also in the package was Andy Pratt's Resolution album on Nemperor Records.

Along with Apple Records, Dark Horse Records, Ring 'O' Records, I also collect albums put out on Nemperor Records because of the Beatle connection.

The Beatle connection? Nemperor was set up by Brian Epstein and his American associates Nat Weiss and Shaun Weiss in 1966. It was active as a record label from 1974 to 1986. There were some cool people on the label - Stanley Clarke, Jerry Goodman, Lenny White, Jan Hammer, and others (including Andy Pratt).

It's a pretty big world God, and I'm awful small (Eels)

Maple Grove - east side, about 10 minutes ago.

Wie geht's?

Update post: 

• The rats have taken the bait and all is quiet - nothing is stirring, not even a mouse (Laney sees to that)
• Bleak House - Only on page 71 - the working week means little time for recreational reading
• Autumn - three weeks in and still having 20 plus degree days and around 10 degree nights, so mild changes so far.
• Walks continue around the Frimley streets at lunchtime when I can, and up to the Four Square in Takapau and back, the bridge across the Tuki Tuki is still not reinstalled after a year on from the cyclone.
• The records I ordered last Tuesday from Real Groovy have yet to arrive. Not cool, maan.
• The Gentlemen - we're up to episode 4 (of 8).
• WTWMC True Colours playlist on Spotify is currently investigating songs with brown in the title.
• Family zoom on Sunday continues. Last week - 2 (of 4) - those being Jade and Keegan, could make it. This week the whole crew was on!
• Arsenal F.C. not playing because of the international break. I watched a toothless England lose to Brazil 1 nil.

You're up to date on Planet Wozza.

Love and peace - WNP

Hot meat, hot rats, hot cats, hot rits (Frank Zappa/ Captain Beefheart)

Photo by Alexas_Fotos on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

Rats.

I don't like rats.

I love autumn. 

I love living in the country, without close neighbours. 

I love Maple Grove (our 3 acre lifestyle property with a 5 bedroom villa that is over 120 years old).

But I don't like rats.

Autumn, it turns out, does have a downside, even though I hate to admit it.

It's like the calendar ticks over to March 1st and the local rat family gets the signal to pack their bags and take shelter in our ceiling.

The first hint came a week ago with some scratching above us, so I reset all the bait stations (two under the house, one in the tack shed/garage, and one in the ceiling).

I'll need to check and refill them all this weekend, as the noises above and in the wall behind our bed have yet to abate.

The noises have woken us up each night (once, in our sleep state, we thought it was an earthquake). This is a pain, and needs to stop, and it does take time to get rid of the pesky visitors.

But, to be clear, I still love autumn.

Love and peace - Wozza

The sky cracked its palms in naked wonder (Bob Dylan)

Gracie enjoying autumn at Maple Grove

Wie geht's?

Autumn has officially arrived and my spirits have revived considerably as a consequence.

We have wood ready for April's first fires at Maple Grove, the grass hardly needs a cut (cooler, darker days), leaves are starting to turn, shadows are starting to lengthen, and the garden furniture as well as the shade sails have been stowed until November.

It's all deeply satisfying!

Go here for more of my annual celebrations of autumn.

Love and peace - Wozza

Do you know what's going on? Take me by the hand singing, "Yes, I do" (L.A.B)

Wie geht's?

Have I done my annual celebration of autumn post yet? 

It's a long held tradition so I thought I'd link to a few of my past efforts celebrating my favourite season.

Here you go:

One from 2015, one from 2018, one from 2020, and one from 2021.

Love and peace - Wozza

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Photo by Alexandre Jaquetoni on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

Another weekend: another wood delivery to stack, another dead tree to chain saw up and put on the burn pile, and as an added bonus - a horse float full of hay to collect and store.

In our preparation for winter, we're not that different to animals in the wild like bears and squirrels.

This will all pay off, I'm sure, when we're sitting inside on a wet, cold, winter's day sipping a hot brew and gazing at the embers wistfully, thinking back to those weekends in autumn when we'd take a break from cutting down broken branches in the aftermath of the cyclone, sitting on the deck with the sun streaming down on our aching, sawdust caked feet, sipping our teas and nibbling on crackers and cheese while Jerry, Rey and Laney mooch around, waiting for us to get back to work.  

Love and peace - Wozza

Ah, you gotta make the best of life while you're young. Right now, weekend (Wet Willie)

Wie geht's?

We tend to pack a great deal into our weekends.

Saturday: 

• Trimmed the smoke tree so that the birds stop spreading guano over my car bonnet 
• Erected some scaffolding that we got from Jade last weekend
• Used the scaffolding to repair some guttering that has been pesky since we arrived at Maple Grove three years ago
• Moved some garden furniture and planter boxes into my music room Zen garden
• Repaired a trough that had a faulty ballcock last weekend but at that point I had to cobble together a repair. During the week I bought another joiner and put that on. So far so good.
• Wrote some posts for Goo Goo G'Joob blog - Grateful Dead albums and a Paul Kantner album (somehow that blog has gone viral with thousands of people reading my posts)
• Went for a 6k walk along the Tuki Tuki river walkway - this time a big loop that we hadn't done before. That added 7,000 steps to my step counter (18,000 for the day is a 2022 record). 
• After the walk we enjoyed sharing a three pepper chicken Subway, two cookies and an ice tea.
• After returning home and put all the winter wood boxes away until next autumn.
• Adjusted the watering systems to the three garden areas around the house.

Sunday:

• Repotted a plant that was looking a bit wilty, moved a few things into pots that weren't growing where they were - a lemon tree and a jasmine.
• Cleaned and water blasted the back door area where the wood boxes had lived
• Caught up on the morning's Premier League action - exciting Leeds last gasp victory against the scousers at Anfield! (Arsenal in action at 3am Monday morning - so that was an early start - 5 nil to the gunners!!)
• Also caught up with the NBA world series - Houston Astros vs the Philadelphia Phillies - game two. One all now.
• Family zoom as usual on a Sunday - Adam and Jade joined us, Samantha was at a Halloween party and Keegan was unavailable.
• Walked the dogs in Waipukurau and did another 10,000 step day. Phew.

I'm an early riser and while Jacky and I don't muck about, that list is ridiculous!

Love and peace - Wozza

I keep seeing these reflections deep in the currents back to me (Israel Nash)

Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

Here are ten things I thought worth sharing:

1) Reading Celestial Navigation (Anne Tyler) was an interesting experience. I've mentioned her books a lot in my blogs. She has an amazing ability to get inside her character's heads. Jeremy is a piece of work!

2) A quote from 365 Days with the Saints is a great way to start my day. Each day features a different saint and a quote. Today's was Blessed Anne of Saint Bartholmew: Silence is precious; by keeping silence and knowing how to listen to God, the soul grows in wisdom and God teaches it what it cannot learn from men.

3) Concurrently with whatever novel I'm reading, I also dip into Lennon on Lennon - a compilation of interviews. John on performing live on stage: You put yourself in front of the public, and it's like the Roman theatre...it's a very sort of masochistic scene to stand up there day after day, offering yourself as a target for their love or their hate, depending on how good you are or how they feel that night.

4) Rest in peace. The last Mojo magazine I read (Feb 2022) had obituaries for Graeme Edge (The Moody Blues' drummer); Maureen Cleave (journalist who wrote excellent pieces on The Beatles in the sixties. her 1966 interview with John contained the 'We're bigger than Jesus' idea that created headaches for the fabs); David Longdon (Big Big Train singer who died accidentally); and Billy Hinsche (honorary Beach Boy) amongst others. 

 
5) Gorky's Zygotic Mynci's How I Long To Feel That Summer In My Heart plus Israel Nash albums Lifted and (especially) Topaz (on vinyl) have been my soundtrack this week. Blissed out summery sounds have helped with the cold snap as we officially started winter.

6) I dug out the DVD player on the weekend to watch a couple of films that I bought years ago but forgot about. Allied was good value. A Robert Zemeckis film starring Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard. Billed as a romantic thriller - it was enjoyable! 

 

7) The Richard Linklater trilogy - Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight, has also been sitting on the shelf for a few years. I bought it while living in the UK a few years ago after loving Boyhood. The late autumn, early winter cold/overcast/rainy afternoons have been perfect for catching up with these three romantic dramas.

8) Ian McEwan's Sweet Tooth is my latest book. I've read some great books by him, but I've also stopped reading a few of them a couple of chapters in. Sweet Tooth, with a female protangonist, is of the former variety thank goodness.

9) Waves was a NZ band from the seventies. Their eponymous album (a second one, added to the first on that Spotify link, was recorded but not issued until years later as a bonus disc) is a bone fide NZ classic. It's the-three-amigos' album of the week!

10) Cheekily, here's a link to another six via my Jewels For The Thirsty weblog.

Love and peace - Wozza

I take my chances every chance I get (Mary Chapin Carpenter)

Wie geht's?

Maple Grove is well named. This might just be my favourite tree on the property. Especially dressed in its autumn cloak.

By the way, I normally like the maple leaves to drop naturally, as you know, but Jacky got a leaf blower recently and I couldn't resist a play yesterday.

This is the view from where I eat breakfast every morning (habit). I can't see outside Monday to Friday, but when the weekend comes...

Love and peace - Wozza

Woods (George Winston - from his 'Autumn' album)

Wie geht's?

Autumn! As you all know - my favourite season. Not even close.

Autumn in New Zealand is from March to May and has gotten off to a good start: warm days (last Friday's athletics sports was in full sun and a hot 25 degrees); shorter daylight hours (so travelling in darkness to school is now a thing); and crisp mornings are starting to be more frequent.

Time to dig out the George Winston album and prepare for the winter.

This has meant emptying the swimming pool (had to bail out the last 6 inches and boy oh boy did it stretch my hamstrings); stacking the three cord of wood that was delivered (some of which is pictured above); and collecting pinecones as fire starters (much less under the pine trees this year for some reason).

All is ready. Winter is coming.

Love and peace - Wozza

A gentle rain falls softly on my weary eyes as if to hide a lonely tear. My life will be forever autumn, 'cause you're not here (Justin Hayward)

Wie geht's?

More autumn thoughts for you:

We've had some great autumn days at Maple Grove lately - grey skies, rain, leaves falling, trees turning beautiful colours - you know the drill.

Yesterday, I had to drive to Gisborne for work and by mid afternoon I was stuck behind a cattle truck coming into Wairoa. Never great right?

Except this time it was!

The draft caused by the truck kicked up all the fallen leaves on the side of the road, and so I drove through a kind of snowstorm of autumn leaves for a couple of kilometres. It was so cool!

While doing this I thought about my deep seated and long established love of autumn.

Two things came immediately to mind: 

• That book I read as a child about an overgrown garden that Maple Grove's overgrown driveway continually reminds me of (I've written about this book a lot over the years in this blog - I wish I could find another copy)
• Driving home in Leigh-on-sea with Jade and Samantha from school in autumnal darkness. Cosy and safe, return to the womb style, I guess.

Both memories have really super impressed themselves in some fundamental part of my brain and they are triggered on weekends like we've just had - as I very contentedly gaze out of rain splattered windows at leaves on our huge maple trees changing colour under a dark broody sky, while a fire warms up the villa's kitchen.

Hard not to be in pensive and wistful mood on those occasions.

Love and peace - Wozza

If they make Tony Adams captain we could all go screaming in the park (Joe Strummer)

In one of my happy places

Wie geht's?

For the most part, I'm a happy sort of bloke. A colleague and I were discussing happiness recently and she offered to lend me some of Gretchen Rubin's books.

These are The Happiness Project and The Four Tendencies (which I'll write about in the Baggy Trewsers blog).

Why am I generally a happy bloke? 

According to current research cited in Gretchen's book - its mainly about your genetics, so I have my parents to thank for 50% of my predelection for happiness (age, gender, ethnity, marriage status, income, health, occupation, religious affiliation make up to 20% and the other 30% is a product of how I think and act).

So thanks to Dulcie and Graham, Jacky Purdy (she's beautiful inside and out), and me - I'm a happy bloke. 

It also helps that I'm a teacher on a good wage who lives on a few acres in the country with no neighbours to speak of.

I'm pretty sure my other 30% comes from my love of music (15%) and English (reading and writing - 15%).

Here are the things that are currently adding to my happiness:

• It's autumn (I LOVE autumn) and we had our first frost yesterday (so good!)
• Music and reading (on the day I wrote this post I finished a Desmond Bagley adventure story, started another Anne Tyler novel, dipped a toe into The Happiness Project while listening to Brand X albums in the warmth of our Garden Room while the dogs slept at my feet)
• Writing (I worked on some posts to four of my blogs)
• I enjoy menial tasks like hanging out washing, picking up horse poo, baiting rat traps (rats don't like winter so they start casting around for some warmer lodgings)
• Following Arsenal F.C. - we play Liverpool overnight so I'm forever hopeful (if they lose I'll be momentarily less happy)
• Looking at my record collection and posting photos on the Facebook vinyl group I belong to (the Brand X live album is great so I needed to share that today)
• Listening to MNAC albums and writing about them (Herman Dune was the latest band I never would have discovered without Alex, Lew and Tom's input) 
• Seinfeld (the show - it figures in my daily life in many ways - quotes come to mind and Pinterest groups have stills that instantly make me smile)
• The Beatles posters in my music room (as well as my other decorations in there - they bring me joy everytime)
• Watching Asher interact with his mum and us (Papa and Mema) is a real source of happiness!

Love and peace - Wozza

"That's typical of you," she said. "Not a serious thought in your head, ever." (The Swell Season)

Wie geht's?

A few weeks ago I was browsing the shelves at the Little Red Book Shop in Hastings when a title leapt out at me: The Swell Season.

That's the title of a folk/rock band I like, made up of Irish musician Glen Hansard and Czech singer and pianist Markéta Irglová. You'll remember them from the wonderful movie Once.

Turns out they got their name from this novel by Czech writer Josef Skvorecky.

Cool.

I've been using some passages from the novel on The Purdzilla Show blog - it's quite lyrical in places.

The setting is 1940's occupied Czechoslovakia and the basic plot centres around teenager Danny's failed amorous attempts with the girls in his village. Just when he thinks he's making progress, unforeseen circumstances always intervene.

Here's another bit for you, as he tries to get together with Marie after she's broken up with her boyfriend:

It was wonderful talking like this with Marie. An autumn fog was rolling off the river and a leaf dropped from a chestnut tree and landed on her shoulder. She brushed it off.

"It's autumn already." she said. "That's sad"

"What's sad about autumn?" I asked.

"Everything," she said.

Oh dear! He's doomed!

Love and peace - Wozza

I turned the key, I broke it off and I crossed the Rubicon (Bob Dylan)

Photo by Yiqun Tang on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

Third and final installment (for a while) of my poetry from long ago and far away:

3. The moving sky

Autumn leaves bunch up against my window while
I spend some harmless time watching leaves falling;
falling into themselves - this way and that way, falling down.

The sun hides behind the tall wall, sending out
a sharp outline. Viewed by many down the years,
the painted wall is roughly textured, off-blue, aged.

Clouds are fairly skudding across the milky blue sky
but the breeze down here is mild,
so I sit in shirt sleeves on this May morning.

The red leaves stand in relief against the evergreen,
trying to be last hold outs of a summer eeking away.
There are many trees outside this window, beyond the wall: palm trees, pines, silver birches.

It's good to watch them shimmy gracefully
against the moving sky, accentuating the positive.

 

Love and peace - Wozza

你好吗 Part 1

Our view of Wuxi 

Wie geht's?

Nǐ hǎo ma?

In 2012 I came back from the Middle East contracts to Otane (Central Hawke's Bay) and a job market that offered me nothing - not even an English teaching job that I could apply for.

Out of the blue, Peter Joyce, a colleague from Nelson days, contacted me and said he'd been offered a job in China, Wuxi to be precise, leading an English language school for prospective Chinese pilots but couldn't do it and had recommended me instead.

So, after some quick professional development in flight training for pilots in a Christchurch recovering from some massive earthquakes, Jacky and I packed up and took the Purdy show on the road to Wuxi. 

Incidentally, there was no connection to Blogger available in Wuxi so I couldn't blog about our experiences in China at the time.

The PD bit in Christchurch courtesy of Airways

Although it was autumn turning to a bone chilling winter, Wuxi turned out to be a wonderful place to be for the next 6 months. Before my Chinese employer stopped paying the staff and we had to return to NZ, we were put up in a high rise apartment plus we had a driver and a translator (named Wood) helping us out with practicalities.

When not working at the Avion Training Centre of Wuxi, we bought bikes and cycled around Wuxi exploring the sights and shops. Fun times!

For this first batch though, the focus is on our 10th floor apartment and essential supplies!

We were about half way up on the left one

High school opposite us

Next post: out and about Wuxi.

Love and peace - Wozza