I have only one burning desire, let me stand next to your fire (Jimi Hendrix)

You know that post I did a couple back about autumn's non arrival and the burn pile? Well guess what, it did the trick.

It's been raining. It's colder. The skies are grey. It's darker earlier. Daylight saving has ended. The fire restrictions have been lifted! 

As you can see - we celebrated!

Satisfyingly, even though the pile was a bit damp after some recent rain, it went up quickly.

Given that we are now enjoying a late autumn I thought it apposite to include some other autumn flavours in the spirit of Keats.

Here are five things I love about autumn:

1 The picture on the left has me and Bazil enjoying the milder autumn weather while also enjoying the fire. 

Bazie is old now, pretty much deaf, not the best at following me into the Red Phoenix Farm paddocks any more, can't jump into cars any longer, a little night blind, has to take some daily medications, doesn't like the high heat of a Nu Zild summer or the numbing cold of our winter. 

So autumn is perfect for him.

2 Keeping with an animal theme -this Bruegel picture - The Return Of The Herd (Autumn) - captures a wonderful essence: the gathering dark clouds, the still brown hills gaining some green, the change of clothing and the trees shedding their leaves. Love this!

3 Best short read on the essence and lessons of autumn? Try this http://peterborten.com/all/the-essence-and-lessons-of-autumn/

4 Bob Dylan composed this terrific song about a relationship. Like summer, it's ended and the winds are starting to howl. Johnny Cash's voice is a perfect complement and the whole thing is made even more wistful by the wonderful visual of a brooding sunset. Genius. 

Watch the clouds go by. Go on - you won't regret it!

5 Ed Sheeran is touring Nu Zild at the moment - this charming young man - so here's an Ed moment to finish us off.


Love and peace - Wozza

Through autumn's golden gown we used to kick our way (Justin Hayward)

Possess, as I possessed a season, 
The countries I resign, 
Where over elmy plains the highway 
Would mount the hills and shine, 
And full of shade the pillared forest 
Would murmur and be mine - A.E. Housman (1922)

The lengthening shadows are a dead giveaway - autumn is coming.

The cooler nights and shorter days are another - autumn is coming.

With three weeks to go (autumn takes over in the southern hemisphere on March 21), everything is starting to feel sharper as the temperature starts dropping, thankfully there's no humidity, with a changing sun pattern there are some distinctive earlier shadows in the day, and the first signs of leaves turning. 

I love autumn. It's my favourite.

Love and peace - WNP

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

Maple leaf, falling down, showing front, showing back (Ryokan, Soto Zen monk)

Wie geht's?

Autumn in Maple Grove is pretty cool. As regular readers know, I love autumn - dark, misty days, beautiful colours et al. Why wouldn't you love autumn?

Maple Grove is well named - we have quite a few maple trees on our 3 acres! As regular readers know, I love maple trees and maple leaves.

So here's a selection starring Gracie (playing the horse), and Jerry (as the dog):

Shade sails are stored away until summer

And it's goodbye from Jerry...

...and goodbye from Grace.

Love and peace - Wozza (as himself)

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

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness (John Keats)

The spring collection.

Annoyingly, I wanted to write this post a while ago when the first pleasant signs of autumn started creeping over the land but since then we've had a second summer. 

Bah humbug!

It's April and yesterday we had 30 degrees on the deck's temperature gauge. We still have doors and windows open throughout the night to keep cool!

Last April we had fires going each day to keep warm. Right now I'd still need a council permit to fire up all the branches I collected and dumped into the huge burn pile in the paddock during the summer holidays (as exhibited in the photo above).

As you know, I love autumn, I really do. So I'm hoping this post will spur nature into action and I can dig out some singlets, prepare the thermals, attack the burn pile, and marvel at the maple tree putting on it's autumnal coat. 

Until then, sigh, I'll luxuriate in John Keat's Ode To Autumn and wait.



Love and peace - Wozza

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

"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

Start by discarding (Marie Kondo)

Desert Road in autumn, NZ

Iiiiiiiiiit's holiday time! 

The Light Of My Life and I have just returned from Hawke's Bay (delivering horses and horse float to LOML's step mum - Grace and Beetlebaum are wintering in Waipukurau). Plus, I squeezed in a trip to Havelock North for a coffee with my buddy, Toni. 

From there we travelled south along the yellow brick road to Palmerston North (A.K.A. Palmy) to help Jade and William with some house renos (A.K.A. renovations).

Some random notes for y'all: 

Great wedding anniversary day on the 21st - dinner (Italian fare at Pompeii) and a show with the kids (Black Panther)...excellent coffee with Toni at Bay Espresso (complete with Woodford parents!), even though the Espresso crew had changed...Havelock North resplendent in autumn colours...Thor Ragnarok on Jade/William's fancy TV was awesome...lunch in Taihape...put up guttering for Jade/William - first time ever, attached boards and door handles, trimmed the hedge as well...enjoyed watching William play football, even though the team lost 4-1...Jerry travelled so well - long drive with horses - about 10 hours via Napier Taupo highway and then a 9 hour trip home via Hunterville/Taihape. As soon as we arrived home he immediately wanted to play ball - which we did for 20 minutes!...beautiful farmers wives' gardens around Hunterville, spreading trees over driveways in elaborate designs...helicopters whisking owners to flash homes around Cambridge...great brooding autumn scenes along the Desert Road with Ruapehu and Mordor, erm, Ngarahoehoe as a backdrop...finished a book - One More Day (Mitch Albom) and discarded it on Jade/William's bookshelf, and started on Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying...I could go on but I best get to it - starting with my clothes!

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

Soon everything we've known will just get swept away (Bruce Springsteen)

Autumn at Rochdene is all about long shadows and leaves changing colour before dropping.

Unusually, it has also meant dry hot days for the last month!

Finally, this weekend it was colder, damper, mistier, cloudier.

The following views are of said Rochdene and from a walk SWMBO and I took across the road to the lake.

Love and autumn 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

Life ain't nothing but a funny funny riddle (John Denver)

I read in Mojo (world's greatest music magazine) recently that a band called the Guillemots are putting out four CDs this year - themed on the seasons.

SWMBO remarked yesterday that I should take some photos of the cherry blossom

This morning the ipod shuffle threw up Vivaldi's Spring.

Woooo - scarey.

Although some will say it's merely some freakish coincidence, clearly I was being sent a message - do a blog post about leaving the NZ spring behind for a Chinese autumn.

Okay!

You had the lamb pictures last time so it's time for a look at some pretty blossoms, daffies, and the effects of spring's low setting sun on the A.R.T. room.

The blossom was alive with spring buzzy bees - sadly the blog does not come with a soundtrack so you'll need to hum a little hummy buzz (Pooh like) while you marvel at these shots taken in the back garden (one of said bees seen doing his thing in the second shot if you look carefully).

This is the last posting from Hawke's Bay for a while as we head to Auckland on Saturday and then, in the near future, I head towards a Chinese autumn. Should make for an interesting contrast.

Love and peace - Wozza

Yeah, tomorrow may rain, so I'll follow the sun (The Beatles)

We're in the late summer/ early autumn vibe on Red Phoenix Farm.

I love this time of the year. Autumn is like a boss!

That means the grass is about to need mowing again, the shadows are lengthening, the winter wood supply needs addressing, and the trees are looking lush with the recent rain but getting ready for the change of seasons.

This time of the year also signals that school's back in session.

My summer routine - 8 am lazy start/outside physical work/late nights, has been replaced by school mode - 5 am alarm/brain work/cream crackered by 9pm.

Like the start of a new football season, the start of the year is exciting every time. Students are super keen to embrace a different circumstance, and it's the same with teachers. We're keen to embrace the new signings - bring them into the team culture; get out onto the practice field and get ready for game day.

Speaking of football: pity about the Superbowl result. I felt sorry for Pete Carroll and the Seahawks but I felt worse for the smug New England Patriots. Nothing like a success to prefigure a giant fall.

The Seahawks will be better for the loss (they are already the bookies favourites to win it all next year), the Patriots will always be smug.

As for my other teams: Arsenal are in their usual January situation - poised ready to break into the top four (I'm trying hard to ignore the loss on the weekend to the old enemy),the F.A. Cup is still a target, and they are about to get knocked out of the Champions League play offs; Rochdale are doing superbly - just out of the play off teams which is perfect. I wouldn't want to see them in the Championship - they would change - and not for the better; and Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors are doing well in the NBA.


Love and peace - Wozza

You can't always get what you want but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need.

The Easter holidays are nearing an end and ANZAC day is looming. This last week has been tough on Samantha - she came up from University last week to get her wisdom teeth removed and recuperate at home. All went well but it's still one of those things most of us have to go through. She looked like a chipmunk for four days but the swelling has passed and she can almost talk properly again.

Jacky had an appointment for her shoulder in Hamilton over the last few days and so we took the opportunity to take Samantha up to visit dad and we also saw Keegan/Adam,Jenna and Ross and the family. Pictures include Ross/Hayden/Scott/Fanfa and train landscape that the boys are working on.

Nature watch hasn't been around lately - it's solid autumn weather - on our drive north we came across many beautiful scenes of leaves turning colour and in Cambridge the roads are already chocka with leaves. We've been doing autumn jobs - collecting and stacking firewood, trimming the barbary hedges and the house hedges/trees so that we get a good winter view of the mountain, moving animals around to make the best use of the remaining grass (horses are about to get their daily hay) and (if your Jacky) fussing about the falling leaves from the fig tree outside our lounge windows.

I will add a new post to my Shakespeare blog after the official birthday celebrations (23rd April in case you forgot), the principal blog also has a new post on Barack Obama and pregnant teenagers, and my music blog has a new post for Christine on ten recommended British pop albums (more to come soon!). Oh and new inspiration picture was commissioned by Jade.

Love and peace - W

I waited for you on the running boards, near the cypress trees, while the springtime turned slowly to autumn

I mentioned in a recent post that we'd delivered some stuff to Samantha's Wellington flat. Here's a picture that shows said flat - right hand door leads up to her room which is the one with the windows (blinds closed - means it's Samantha's!). Groovy huh!
We have a blast of cold air from the Antarctic currently making us feel very much autumnal. Jacky and I spent the weekend mowing lawns, trimming trees, repairing leaks. The aim being to get ready for winter when we can't do much. It was a holiday on Monday - Taranaki Anniversary, so we did that work and also lazed around a lot.

Some more snips from Adam and Jenna in Japan arrived.