When I paint my masterpiece

I had a really good think about what I was going to do with myself every day when I finished work. I came to the decision that I was going to have to set myself a list of chores to be done & make certain that I accomplish something tangible each day. So far, its not really working out all that terribly well. You see, there is an awful lot of paperwork & interfacing with officialdom in order to sort out our new life. I don't do paperwork or interfacing all that terribly well. I have always left that part of our partnership up to Herself. Over the years, she has had to do some really crappy jobs on my behalf either because I haven't been there, or because I have felt mentally inadequate to cope with things.

It's a hell of a step up, therefore, for me to actually sit down & talk to people that directly affect our future. I am doing it, but its not easy. What is happening at the moment is that the morning is spent interfacing, & the afternoon is spent inter resting. I guess its probably a backlash from the past few months of trying to hold a job down & trying to keep things together at home. I'm not too worried by it. I figure that I must need the rest, so I take it. Once everything is sorted & once I have done the next two weeks for work, then I will have time.

Time to spend with Herself. Time to do the gardening that she is no longer capable of doing. Time to build all the garden edging & mowing strips & fences that she has been promised for the last 5 years or so. Time to sit down & practice with my guitar for half an hour a day. Time to live the life that we dreamed of in retirement. One thing is for sure. Neither of us are going to spend our time grieving for what might have been. We are going to celebrate what is.

As Dylan said, "It ain't no use to sit and wonder why babe."

A rough guide

A very thoughtful young lady who helps out part time at a public library recently scored for me a copy of a book entitled, "A Rough Guide to Bob Dylan." that had been withdrawn from circulation. Now that I have a LITTLE more leisure time on my hands, I have started reading it. Now its not as if I don't already have Dylan biography's. I have several. I can even boast to having a copy of a book called "Tarantula" which is a somewhat disjointed collection of what can only be best described as ramblings & potential album notes by the man himself. It's not an easy book to come by.

By far the best & most prized book in my Dylan collection would now have to be this rough guide, & I'm only about a third of the way through it. The author has managed to assemble most of what is known of the myth & the man & put it all in to one place. It's brilliant. thanks H, you have made an old Dylan fan very happy. That was a very thoughtful thing to do..

Woohoo... Flatties Famous....

I have a stats page that tells me who reads my blog & how they get here. Tonight someone from Hong Kong checked in using a link that looked interesting. here it is... Scroll down till you get to the personal blogs & check the entryon the bottom of the list..... YES !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Old Friends, Book Ends

So sang Simon & Garfunkel in a fairly famous song. My day has been a bit like that. It started with a fairly early visit from one of those, " I wonder what ever happened to........" kind of friends. haven't seen or heard from her since her little sisters 60th birthday, when we parted with the usual exhortations of ,"We must keep in touch," etc. And you never do. But she turned up this morning & invited Herself to a morning out, going to a show called "Operantics" herself thoroughly enjoyed it, even though she had to cut it a little short so that we could make a 1.00 pm appointment.

One of the ladies in the office we went to is the little sister of a guy that used to play lead guitar in a band I was in many years ago. She happened to mention that her big brother was in Thames Hospital at the moment, so when we had finished our appointment, I dropped herself off at home & scooted off up to the hospital & spent a very pleasant couple of hours reminiscing & talking music & instruments. When I got home, Herself reminded me that I had forgotten to collect some lovely field mushrooms that our IWWEHT friend had promised us. It was about then that the three Reiki Ladies turned up to give Herself her weekly treatment. These ladies are wonderful. They turn up every week for Herself asking no payment other than the experience for the two girls that are learning. Its nice to know that there are still kind spirited people about like that. We seem, for some reason, to be encountering more than our share of them lately.

I'm not complaining though. Its very comforting to know that we are surrounded by such folk.

Absolutely stunning.

I dont normally inflict stuff on you guys that I have had forwarded, but this is stunning. All these girls are profoundly deaf & rely on hand signals from the 4 corners of the stage. Goes to show what determination can do for you

Lest we forget.

I dont do dawn parades any more. I haven't done them for a lot of years. It's not like I don't care or remember in my own way though. I think my family has given enough to wars over the years. In the First, I lost 2 uncles & my paternal Grandmother lost her sanity on hearing that she lost 2 sons within 3 months of each other.

The second was a little more complicated for us. You see, my Dad met my Mum after he had volunteered to serve his country. They wed before Dad left as a matter of necessity. Not that he didn't try to get out of it. He chopped his trigger finger off with an axe in an endeavour to stay with Mum. It didn't work, he went anyway. The other thing he did was bring Rubella, known in those days as German Measles, home from Trentham Military camp & give it to Mum. In those days, nothing was generally known of the effects of this disease on pregnant women. They found out soon enough.

Having a physically & mentally handicapped daughter affected my mum that badly that it took a further 10 years before she could be persuaded to have another child, me. His experiences in Egypt culminated in him being invalided home in 1943 with amoebic dysentery & chronic dermatitis. Eventually, this proved a good thing for him as many of his comrades were killed or captured in the debacle that was to ensue in Greece & Crete. Dad kept hating Italians & Germans right till his last rational day. Mum never talked at all about her experiences while Dad was away. I can only imagine what it must have been like for her. Scared, pregnant with her new husband away at the war, ostracised I suspect, from her family, as she went to live with one of her brothers.

So I dont go to Dawn services. I just play these two songs a couple of times & shed a few tears in private.

So , let us remember them today, each in our own way.

A New Era

Following a heart to heart chat with my Boss a couple of weeks ago & another one on Monday, I , or rather we, as in Herself & I , have made a huge decision regarding our life style. Basically, I don't work full time any more. We have a couple of irons in the fire with regards to financial independence, but nothing is finalised at this point. Those of you who know me well enough will understand that this is a huge leap of faith for me. As a card carrying Virgo, I like to have things fairly cut & dried. I don't think that this has worked too well for me over the years, because every time I get my self all comfortable & think I know where my life is going, somebody kicks my little warm dung heap helter skelter. Maybe this is lifes way of saying don't sweat the big stuff, because you ain't got a lot of control over it anyway.

I haven't, & in retrospect I am the first to admit it, been giving as much as I could to my job in the last few months. I have resented late nights on the road, which sadly are part & parcel of being a trucky. They take me away from Herself too much. I compensated by dragging her along with me. I'm starting to realise that although she willingly comes, too often is too much for her as she tires a lot easier than she used to. So I'm just on call now, for when it suits to do just the odd run here & there. Its a little bit scary, as I am used to working all my life, but I'm starting to adjust. At the moment, there is a lot of paper work to sort out for our new life. I don't do paperwork well, but I'm starting to learn.

I'm also finding that I have much more energy available for doing the things that are important to Herself. Interfacing with other people, particularly on the phone is a biggy now. Yesterday, I raised our bed by 8 inches. A major undertaking involving 7 new castors, 7 bolts, 84 screws, half a pot of PVA glue, various & sundry bits of wood & half the day.New attitude meant that I kept going till it was finished, rather than doing half a job & setting it aside because I was too tired & just plain couldn't be bothered like I have been doing. Today, so far I have lifted the path through the garden in the back lawn, put two layers of polythene down & relaid it. When I originally laid it, I put it down on el cheapo weed mat from the Ware House. Trust me, its not a great deal of use. We have had all sorts grow through it, including Docks. Hopefully, it will be alright now. Its giving me a lot of satisfaction seeing projects completed. The path is the first step in finishing the concreting in the back yard. Once our finances are settled, I will start buying stuff like builders mix & concrete & finally get the back yard how I want it.

I think my life from now on will be very busy, but at least I will be spending it with my Darling. That above all else is the most important thing to us both now.

The Phantom of the Opera

OK, so I sat through a Dame Malvina Major concert tonight. Yes, & if you twist my arm up a really long way behind my back, I will probably be forced to admit I enjoyed it. dammit all, how could you NOT enjoy listening to someone who is so enthusiastic & passionate about her music. Not only did she sing, she told us the story behind each song & the meaning it has for her personally. Its very difficult not to like someone like that.

She didn't just sing opera either. Her version of "Danny Boy" brought unashamed tears to my cheeks, something that nobody other than Johnny Cash has been able to do with that song. She's a mix & mingler too. She was quite happy to come out after the show & sign autographs, with personal messages & nice things to say to everybody. Herself , of course, spent most of the evening blubbing. Her way of showing that she was really enjoying herself. Wimmen can be such strange critters sometimes... Even if I didn't enjoy the music, it would have been worth sitting through it just for this picture alone.
Thank you Dame Malvina, You truly are a lady. We enjoyed ourselves immensely.

And I never inhaled

I watched my first 3d movie ever last night. Journey to the center of the Earth. The plot was pretty thin, just an excuse really to hang all the cool 3d effects on. I was glad that we didn't have any visitors because we both looked like a pair of dorks sitting there with our cute little pairs of red & green glasses on. Damn but those things screw with your brain. Took me about half an hour for my eyes to settle & refocus.

After that, we watched a movie that Herself chose called "The Bucket List" For those of you that cant be bothered looking it up, it stars Jack Nicholson & Morgan Freeman as a pair of elderly, irascible old men, both terminally ill who meet in Hospital & between them compile what they call the bucket list. Things to do before you kick the bucket. As Nicholson's character is incredibly wealthy, they can go & do these things. Its is, however, a very deep & profound movie especially for a couple in our current situation. It all ended, as I thought it would, with Herself in tears & me not knowing what to say. We have a lot of moments like that lately it would seem. I have developed a policy at such times of simply putting my arms around her & holding her till she stops. Platitudes like, "Don't be scared" "It'll be alright" "There's nothing to cry about" really don't have any value to either of us. It's far more important , I think, at this stage in our lives & relationship, to be honest & open about such matters. Did you know that on the 18th of next month, we will have been married for 18 years, & together for about 5 more than that. Its had its ups & downs, but I wouldn't swap one single day of it for anything.

Tonight, courtesy of Herself's big brother, We are going to see Dame Malvina Majors in concert & hopefully get to meet her afterwards. You see, Herself's big bro manages her & she is doing a whistlestop tour of the smaller centers in NZ. I'm sure that Herself will thoroughly enjoy the evening. Me ? Well, I'm going anyway.

It's Been a Hard Day's night.

But I haven't been working like a dog. In fact I haven't been working at all this week apart from Monday. You see, an old shoulder injury was aggravated by some clown in Whitianga letting go of a fridge that we were unloading supposedly together, leaving me with all the weight. But it worked out OK though, Herself's exhusband's Aunty passed away & Herself wanted to go to the funeral. So we went. The old dear died at the ripe old age age of 96 having led a carefree & self centered life, never marrying or having children, just travelling the world. It was a small funeral with no religious overtones & only a small number of people there. There were actually more people at my sister's funeral, which I suppose says something. The other significant thing that happened was that I met the other significant person in Herself & her family's past. Her ex's second wife. Far from being the dragon the family made her to be, I found her easier to talk to than his current one. Its a strange world at best isn't it ?

Rather than try to fight our way home through the Easter traffic,remember Easter? we elected to stay over at Herself's daughters place. This was a good idea, because both her sons came round for the evening, so it was a nice family gathering for her. While we were there we were introduced to the latest family member, Kobi. He is a 9 week old Shitzu puppy & cute as a button. He is very hard to get a picture of though because he looks like an animated ink blot. Here is the best that I could manage.

You will, I think, have to take my word for it that he really is a cute little tacker, just so damn black that its hard to get a good pic of him. I'm a little worried for him when he finally gets down here though. Misty will be OK with him, but the Ginger Ninjas will probably treat him as an entree.

In the meantime, I have a couple of very important life changing decisions to make. Does anyone have a cup or two of wisdom & hindsight they could spare ? No doubt I will keep you posted on the results.

What is it about dead bathtubs that fascinates a net surfer? My post on the subject is still drawing more hits than any other post that I have written. You're a strange lot really

Will the circle be unbroken

We had a good weekend. We went & stayed with Herself's natural brother & sister in Papakura. Quite aside from getting trashed on Jameson's Whisky on Saturday night, the weekend was all about the end of a long quest. You see, even though we had found her family, we have never had the opportunity for Herself to pay her respects at the grave side.

It was a very moving moment all round. It gave Herself a lot of closure & was a very healing weekend for both of us.

On a lighter note, this is the old Numptydog, Misty, keeping an eye open for CIA agents.

Bloody sad ass huh ?

A long day

1st of the month, extra trucks, double running, yadda yadda yadda. Get the picture ? Herself came for the ride as is her wont on a Wednesday. (Its the one day of the week that she doesn't normally walk) She was tired when we got home (After midnight, & no, we didn't let it all hang out, although parts of me were close to it) The day was worth it though to see the look on Herselfs face while sitting behind the wheel of a brand spanking new Western Star tractor unit on a B train. I got a sit as well. Damn it was nice. Lots of chrome on the exterior, lots of buttoned leather & Walnut veneer, dials & gauges on the interior.