BUSY TIMES BUT STILL WINNING

It’s sure been a while since I’ve written a blog, truth is I’ve had a busy couple of months.  There’s quite a lot to do and arrange and choose and decide when building a house.  Who knew about the myriad of little perplexities that arise, even quite early on in the piece that require consideration?  I decided before the beginning of the project that I would approach it with interest, enthusiasm, trust and faith in my builder, and that I would embrace the difficulties and the triumphs and enjoy the process.  And so far that is working out mighty fine.  The excavation, foundations and retaining are a wee bit complex and taking a long time, but the floor and the deck are built and ready to be covered, and the frames are ordered, so soon enough there will be walls.  My son is great to work with and we make a good team. 

Sober life in general is going pretty well.  I had an old friend, Kevin, staying for quite a while, about 7 weeks all up with a break in the middle.  He has moved back to New Zealand after 25 years in Australia, so it was good to be able to help him get on his feet.  He drinks and smokes, so that was a bit of a challenge having it around me on a daily basis, but it also gave me a good current example of a person who can enjoy a few drinks and then stop.  He loves going out and listening to live music and so do I, so it also gave me a chance to get out a lot more than usual for dinners and music and social interaction.  I have been rather quiet socially since I gave up the booze, so it was good for me to realise how much I still do enjoy watching and listening to a good live performance, in fact I think I enjoy it more than I ever did.  There’s none of that obsessing about the next drink, or going out for a cigarette, there’s just my focus on the music, the instruments, the sounds from each one, and the raw talent of the musicians.  I’ve always loved live music when partying, but I love it even more now.  It’s a bit more rare to get me up on the dancefloor these days, but hey, it has happened!

Oh I turned 60 last month and had a great night out at The rough Diamond Café in Diamond Harbour where there just happened to be some excellent live music that night.  Brenda arrived down from Motueka for a surprise visit for my birthday, the darling, so she and the kids and a couple of others came out with me, and it was such a good night and very cool to see so many old friends from the years I lived over there.  Wonderful to see Brenda, and the next night we went to the Wunderbah to see Carmel and her band do a Tom Waits Commemoration.  Absolutely excellent, cabaret style, very entertaining, world class musicianship, the crowd went wild!

So now here I am Sober at Sixty and looking down the barrel of a fabulous future, where eventually I will move to my new home in Takamatua and see what life brings my way after that.  One thing I know it will bring me is beautiful sunrises and sunsets and the tranquillity and balance I feel when I live near the sea.  I have missed that for a very long time now, having been in this home since March 2005.  I have had a very busy 11 years and they have served their purpose nicely in all ways.  I don’t mind when I move to the new house, just when it is ready will be fine, I am just winging it all in every way really, I have no fixed idea of how or when it will be.  It will be such an enormously huge change for me, it is almost scary, but it feels natural and right to be going back to my roots, and to spend the next part of my life surrounded in the beauty of the hills and the sea, on the land I grew up on, and to be closer to some of my family who are there often.  Yep!  Bring it on is what I say!