Bring me my spear, o clouds unfold (William Blake)

I thought I'd be really different and do a post about the wedding of William and Katherine Windsor, after all - no one else will think to write about it surely.

We watched in our Al Ain apartment, transfixed by the spectacle, the glamour, the pomp and ceremony of a good old fashioned British royal wedding. I guess that scene was reproduced all over the commonwealth and beyond.

It did the heart glad to feel part of that tradition and be in Westminster Abbey again. I love the Abbey and I love symbols; a wedding is full of them.

I particularly liked the idea that the couple signed the marriage certificates in the presence of Edward the Confessor.

His tomb at Westminster Abbey is an extremely imposing ediface. You can't help but feel humble in its company. After all - Edward is the patron saint of kings, difficult marriages, and separated spouses! I don't mean to include that titbit to be cynical; I acknowledge the moment for its symbolic spirit of humility.

On such occasions as this I am proud to be a royalist and proud of New Zealand's place in the commonwealth. And isn't it great that the Arch Bishop of Canterbury resembles a Merlin/ Gandolf The Grey character. Fantastic!

So - join with Jacky and me and raise a glass to the newest recruits into the wedded bliss club.

Love and peace - Wozza

Men's shirts, short skirts, woah oh oh (Sh-wanna Ma-twar)

I try hard not to include in-jokes in the blog but I couldn't resist the one in the title (only the kids will get it).

This post should really go on the music blog but it relates to family experiences so, what the hell.

Every family has its quirky shared history and Shania Twain's Come On Over tape is certainly part of ours. Yes - I wrote that correctly - tape. Jacky has a limited musical interest. She knows what she likes and what she doesn't like (99.9% of my music for instance).

Somehow, from somewhere, someone in the family bought her the Shania Twain tape. I know it was a tape because it was on endless repeat in the car cassette player during 1997-1998 (it felt like decades).

Keegan, Adam, Samantha, Jade, SWMBO, and I know these songs backwards, forwards and sideways.

Why am I mentioning this?

I bought a Greatest Hits collection the other day and have been playing it ever since.

I told Jacky it was for her, and it was, but I also thought it would be fun to hear these songs again. And it is, because I am instantly back in the family car driving around Auckland (we were living in Mt Albert) and throughout the north island on family trips in our Mitsy Chariot.

I can't let this post go by without a clip to take us back to the nineties.



Sifr and salaam - Wozza

Go ask Alice, I think she'll know (Jefferson Airplane)

A slight problem with blogging, as opposed to Twittering or Facebooking, is that the immediacy is lost.

Events have happened, rather than are happening.

This post aims to be of the minute...well of the afternoon anyway.

The Principal and I held a staff meeting this afternoon and if you are reading this as soon as it's posted you will be locked in to my time and space.

By the way, if you have visited my Baggy Trousers blog recently, you will know that it is hibernating. I was losing interest in posting on it and so visitors to it were, understandably, drying up as well. Therefore this blog will have updates on what I am up to at work from time to time, inshallah.

Love and peace - Wozza

Time time ticking in my head (Anthrax)

So we were sitting having an after work coffee and cake (Starbucks have a great carrot and almond cake at the moment) in (shock horror probe)Starbucks at the Bawadi Mall (in Al Ain) when I said to she-who-must-be-obeyed, "Okay, I'll buy the watch if you buy the cross-trainer".
SWMBO has been on at me since Doha days to buy a new watch. The last one was bought while I was at Cambridge High School and that's now seven years ago. I haven't bought that many watches in my life and I have very strict guidelines for a watch. Off the top of my head I can only think of owning four watches in 53 years.

In no particular order: it must be classy (yes I know I owned a fluro swatch in the '80s - thanks for reminding me); definitely NOT digital (never owned one, never will); must have a leather strap - can't be doing with those metal jobbies; no other bells and whistles (no clutter from stop watches, no underwater contraptions and the like); it must be easy to tell the time (der - but 99% of watches I find very difficult to see the actual time in); I'm not crazy about Roman numerals in my analogue watch but if I must I must; I like a gold colour but not a white face on the watch.

I'm generally looking for a narrow range of a plain analogue watch with a leather strap. And most of them aren't classy (or if they are are hellishly expensive).

In short I love my old watch!! Mainly because all of the planets came into alignment!

I knew it was going to be a daunting task because there seem to be 5 billion watch outlets in the UAE and, as you now know, I am very picky. The 5 billion watch outlets (by the way - that's a very, very conservative estimate! Lord knows how they all make a living or maybe the 5 billion watch outlets are owned by three guys) come in a continuum that stretches from the '3 watches for 6o dirham' variety to the mega expensice Cartier gold and jem encrusted extravaganzas (and you should see the ladies watches!!).

So...the upshot is -  I went looking for an impossible to find watch via the 5 billion watch outlets to satisfy SWMBO's endless proddings. Along for the ride were my self imposed restrictions, my frugal watch buying history, my desire not to exceed around $200 (what my last watch cost), and my delicate little wrists (the local Emiratis love huge gaudy heavy things that suit me not).

I decided to restrict myself to one of the 5 billion watch outlets. The lucky place was the only watch place in Bawadi Mall that carried watch batteries ( I kid you not - the other 4 billion and change watch outlets sell you a watch but will not sell or replace a battery for you). I got a new battery for my old watch when I first got here and I promised the nice gentleman who helped me that I would, one day, buy a watch from him.

Yesterday was the fateful day! SWMBO says I am the customer from hell because I know what I like and I don't like much.

But, cue heavenly choirs and celestial lights shimmering and the world moving at slow motion - I found one!!!

Now I love my new watch. It's similar to my old watch but it has enough difference to mean I wasn't buying just another version of my old watch. I also like its brand name 'Jovial'.

Oh...and yes - SWMBO got her cross-trainer as well.

Okay - dinner's nearly ready apparently, so it's time to go!

Love and peace - Wozza

I'm a dancing fool (Frank Zappa)

Some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you.

As you can tell - the bear was eating me in that last posting. But as Frank Sinatra says - that's life!

However - The unexamined life is not worth living according to Socrates (not the Brazilian footballer).

Okay - that's Sinatra and Socrates done and dusted in two paragraphs.

To lift the mood (don't wanna bring y'all down and to cheer myself up) I thought I'd try an experiment. Namely - whatever song was next on my ipod shuffle would be the title for the post and then I'd find a clip from Seinfeld to relate to it. So the song was Zappa's Dancing Fool and the clip just picked itself.

Enjoy!



Love and peace - Wozza

Every night in my dreams I see you, I feel you, that is how I know you go on (Celine Dion)

I have wanted to write this post for a while but haven't known where to start. I've also been dreading it - I don't want this blog to become an agony aunt exercise, and some things can be too personal for the blogosphere. Thing is, you see, I think about my parents a lot and I miss them a lot and I dream about them a lot.

April is quite a significant month in our family history. Without two significant events happening I wouldn't exist. April 23rd is my mother's birthday - she would have been 81 years old this year. Secondly - April 18th is the anniversary of Graham Purdy's marriage to Dulcie Adsett in 1953. Four years later I came along!

So - things are on my mind in April.  But I still didn't know how to confront this stuff in the blogosphere. Until...
Celine Dion, of all people, opened the door, and you're here in my heart and my heart will go on and on. The lyrics to a soppy song haunt me - make me cry! This is silly right? Can't help it. Just can't.

Love can touch us one time
And last for a lifetime
And never go till we're one

I caught myself the other day unable to place my dad's death in the right year. I felt sure it was a few months ago but that didn't make sense. It felt fresh and I've been in the desert since November last year so his passing in October didn't feel right.

This thought has been haunting me for days. I found myself going through the time lines in my head over and over again, and it didn't make sense. Had we gone to Doha in between? That didn't seem right. Had we returned from England and lived in NZ for three years before his death? I had to look through my blog posts to check and see that his passing was in fact, in 2009. Before Doha. I sat and stared at the screen for a few minutes - not believing my eyes.

You're here, there's nothing I fear,
And I know that my heart will go on
We'll stay forever this way
You are safe in my heart
And my heart will go on and on

This strange disassociated/disconnected time and space feeling  - caused by a traumatic event; is this normal? I relive the days of his passing sometimes in the middle of the night - everything is vivid. The light at 1pm reconnects me to the moment when my parents become one again. Sometimes it's a dream and the people who I have called my angels visit me in various forms. Sometimes I wake up before the alarm from a dream and I don't know where I am.

All around me are familiar faces
worn out places, worn out faces

Then I think about my mother's passing in 1983. That seems impossible! Have I really lived all these years without her? Yes and no.

There is a light that never goes out.

To end on a slightly more upbeat note: April is also the month of a couple of other anniversaries and birthdays that I need to celebrate.

Happy April birthdays to Jynette, Catherine, Sallie and Nita (Jacky has great company). I'm sorry I've lumped you all together in a rather melancholy post but I do hope you had great days.

And finally - happy wedding anniversaries to Ross and Lynda (on the 9th) and ME and JACKY!!! On April 21st 1984 we were married in New Plymouth.

Celebration days!

Love and peace - Wozza

The waves were coming in like Arabian stallions (Patti Smith)

You always take the weather with you.
I haven't done a weather watch for...ew...ages. I only mention it cos the weather here is usually entirely predictable. The weather chart person at the newspaper has the cushiest number ever.

But this week has been different. We had rain...of a kind... a few days ago. The sky had been greyish all day but rain is the last thing you think of in a desert. We were watching TV when the thunder and lightning started and then the rain followed.

Buildings, roads etc are NOT set up for rain in the Middle East. Our apartment was fine inside (others experienced rain coming through the windows!), but outside our front door the rain came steadily through the manhole cover leading to the roof.

The last few days have had a similar, though far less dramatic, pattern - a grey sky that keeps the temperature in the low 30s and then, at night, a few spots of rain - not enough to use your wipers if you were driving kind of spots.

And it's getting hotter - climbing into the high 30s during the day.

Thank yous.
Thank you to the whanau (whanau means extended family and mine is listed below in the left hand column) who have voted in the poll, which finishes today. I actually found the results surprising. Nearly 60% of you (so far) are keen for an email alert every time I do a post so... I will. I was worried that you may get fed up of the emails but clearly you don't. So...yeah...

The poll was a good idea (thanks blogger) and it got me thinking, again, about the people who read blogs. I looked at the stats for the readership of my wozza blog for the last 4 weeks. I was staggered to learn that readership peaked on April 9 (the post about the road trip to Dubai) when 78 people visited my blog. 78 visitors on one day!! Amazing.

Jacky's big day.
Thanks to all of you who sent cheery greetings to Jacky for her birthday. Jade made it with 4 minutes to spare! Amanda wins the best email card award, though, with her virtual birthday cake.

Seems we all love to get presents throughout our lives on our special days. Many of you asked what I got Jacky for her birthday so here it is.

Life size wise it's about a foot high and blimin heavy (it's made of bronze with a solid marble base and I emphasise the solid!).





Yes...the end!

Love and peace - Wozza