How can I walk with this ball and chain? How can I land in this hurricane? Or is this part of man's evolution to be torn between truth and illusion? (The Band)

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

School stuff has been front and centre of Wozza's World these last two weeks (yes - it's Wozza's World - you just live in it).

"Why is that exactly?", I hear you ask politely.

Well the Education Review Office (ERO) has come a-calling to my two campuses during these last two weeks.

Being inspected can be a testing time for staff (students don't really give a monkeys).

During a visit, part of me wants to show off the great places where I work, highlight the excellent staff I have the privilege to work alongside, celebrate everything that makes our campuses great ones, but part of me is also a tad hesitant in case they don't quite get us, or else a tad worried they'll think we're big 'eads.

The use of different reviewers has meant that the ERO checklist of compliance issues wasn't directly used at Gisborne, but certainly has been at Hastings.

In both cases I have wondered whether I haven't said enough or else have said too much.

I'm great at second guessing myself as I pootle homeward in the Purdmobile; I shouldn't have said 'x', or, I wish I had said 'y'. I hear myself rewording things in a much better way - I know I'm not alone in experiencing this semi-tortured state.

The reviewers are probably not giving anything I've said a second thought. But then again, maybe they are.

Ah well. What are you gonna do? It's done and dusted. It's in the books.

As I said to someone today: don't sweat the small stuff. And it's all small stuff.

Love and peace - Wozza

P.S. To answer Robbie Robertson's final question in the heading (from Forbidden Fruit on The Band's great Northern Lights-Southern Cross album)...yes.

This is the easiest task I've ever had to do. Reason had harnessed the tame, holding the sky in their arms, gravity pulls me down (REM)

Photo by Mayank Dhanawade on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

As your ace cub reporter indicated a few posts ago - a recent trip to the docs and subsequent horror at my weighing in at 84.7 kg resulted in me launching a weight loss regime to reach 80kg (no inbetween snacks, no fizzy or alcohol).

Three weeks later, and happily I can now report on job done as my weight is fluctuating between 79.95kg and 80.2kg.

And, even more happily my knees have been amazingly fine since I started losing the weight. It's brilliant - just 5 kg less and gravity is my friend suddenly!

The x-rays, btw, didn't reveal any knee issues that need further interventions.

So, I just need to stay away from the snacks et al and enjoy the benefit of pain free knee joints. Worth it as I can now climb ladders and stairs without winching!

Love and peace out - Wozza

I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it (Donald Trump)

Wie geht's?

Wow - that was a dramatic week that's just passed.

It began with Samantha celebrating her wedding anniversay and ended with Adam and Ashleigh celebrating theirs. Along the way Jade glammed up and went off to a medical ball, I battled a tummy bug while away in Gisborne and the American's took an age to declare a President-elect in the U.S. election.

It dawned on me what a different system the British parliamentary one is. Here and Australia and the UK, the party, ministers and the Prime Minister are elected at the same time. Makes sense, right.

In America the President is a stand alone election, and then, apart from a running mate, he or she creates the team around themselves after they win. Weird when you think about it. Blind faith is the order of the day.

Anyway, we (the world) survived four years of Trump and his swamp creatures (Rudy Guiliani is just the unhinged tip of the stinking iceberg). 

Now that he and his family have been fired, he can go and play golf, tweet to his hearts content, and badmouth everyone who doesn't toady to his every word. Oh wait - he does all of that now.

So, erm, maybe now he'll have to face up to all of the lawsuits from the women who have claimed improper conduct, front up to the banks over all those loans, pay taxes, and spend some time with Melania.

What's that sound? Apart from the chickens coming home to roost, that's the planet's giant sigh of relief.

Love and peace - WNP

Carry on till tomorrow there's no reason to look back (Badfinger)

Recent 2020 passport photo

Wie geht's?

Recently, very recently - last Sunday during our weekly family zoom in fact, Keegan wondered whether I was on a nostalgia trip. I believe he said (I'm paraphrasing obviously) something along the lines of - I don't care about 2007, I wanna know what you are doing now.

First up - no I'm not on a nostalgia trip per se. More that I don't have much going on really aside from the work/sleep/work/sleep treadmill, with a fleeting side interest in football, music, American politics, books. I'm pretty boring. Shock horror probe!

Plus I had fun taking a photo folder at random for the recent posts and seeing what it had to share.

But anyway - for Keegan and anyone else who cares - here's what I'm currently doing:

Losing weight (a week ago during a visit to the doc about my painful knees and she says to me, she says - have they hurt more since you put on weight? She says. Erm, as I squirmed - maaaybe, says I. I rushed home and weighed myself - 84.7kg. The heaviest I've ever been. So I determined to lose the excess 4.7kg. The plan: no to cakes, biscuits, snacks between and after meals, fizzy drinks and yes to fruit, water, three simple meals a day. The result? The loss of 2.5kg in a week. Nice. 2.2 to go before I celebrate with a donut from the Little Frimley Kitchen). Ha ha!

Reading (Mojo's October issue, My Life in Red and White - Arsène Wenger's autobiography, and James Sallis' Drive) - two of the three are up-to-date, of the moment texts - I'm counting Wenger's as such because it was just released.

Listening to music (high rotation awards go to The Beths latest album released this year, and Bruce Springsteen's latest)

Watching - we've just finished watching season 1 of The Queen's Gambit and we continue to enjoy Modern Family - both on Netflix.

Working wise - ERO are due a visit so that stokes up the paperwork.

Travelling - two trips to my Gisborne campus in the next two weeks - one is my regular visit (where I'm typing this right now!! at the Portside Motel), the other is for ERO. A week after that they visit my Hastings campus.

Miscellaneous - Walking, mowing lawns, some gardening, some Jade and Asher visits...that all makes up my now.

And you're up-to-date!

Love and peace - Abu Keegan

We are family, get up everybody and sing (Sister Sledge)

Star of the show: Irene Purdy

Wie geht's?

Nine years ago, in August 2011, Jacky and I took a trip from Al Ain to the UK for Irene Purdy's 90th birthday celebrations.

Yes, you're right - that means Irene's 100th is just around the corner! Covid permitting, we aim to be back to Bury for that one as well.

While there, we loved catching up with my northern hemisphere relatives and, afterwards, going on a road trip to the Lake District, and back to London via Yorkshire and Castle Howard. More to come of the road trip in the next few posts. 

In the bosom of the family

Jacky and Christine's Samantha

The Kirkham Three

 

Next post: that beautiful spot by Lake Grasmere where William Wordsworth lived with his sister, Dorothy.

Love and peace - WNP

Riding on a long blue paper plane (Status Quo)

Wie geht's? 

This one's about one's hobbies!

Bruce Springsteen was asked recently about what he did outside of music, what were his hobbies?

He said something along the lines of, I'm not really a hobbies guy.

No surprise there! 

My brother though, certainly is. He loves flying remote control planes (pictured on the right above). Has done since he was a youngster - starting with those model kits we both used to do as kids.

Except as his model building got more elaborate and bigger and bigger in scale, mine stopped.

As a hobby it suits his fastidious, pain-staking, inquisitive personality. He's amazing at it!

That he's still doing it 50 plus years later is, like the Springsteen answer, no surprise.

I'm the same! As I type this, I'm listening to a record album I first heard and bought in 1972 - Emerson Lake and Palmer's Trilogy.

The buzz of excitement I get listening to it is the same (From The Beginning instantly transports me back to 1972)

So raise your glass to hobbies!

Jacky has her horses (still going strong), my brother-in-law has his vintage truck, my father-in-law has his videos and Little Theatre, Ross has his planes, our mother loved flowers - floral arranging and gardening, our dad loved electronics, and I collect and listen to music (including the new Sprinsteen album).

You don't know what you're missing Bruce!

Love and peace - Wozza

I want to get back to my city by the bay Ooh, Ooh (Journey)

Samantha always knows where the camera is!

Wie geht's?

This post is our final stop in the return to 2007 and our first trip to San Francisco.

In the wash up after the wedding dances we went to the zoo, the Hard Rock Cafe, a diner with everyone to watch the Golden State Warriors, and then it was back to New Zealand, leaving our hearts in San Francisco!

The sisters cutting a rug

Watching the Golden State Warriors

Jade was there! True fact!

Love and peace - Wozza