Reflections of a former muso

It’s almost 30 years since I retired from commercial piano playing, and thinking about that today made me feel positively creaky. Strangely, even after all that time, I still see myself as a muso.

Cutting my teeth in the music business: with the Massey Jazz band, playing at a university woolshed hop in 1964. This was one of the more decorous gigs we played. There were some grubby occasions. (Click to enlarge)

Pre-Aardvark – my first residency in Wellington. The John MacGibbon Quartet at the Skyline Cabaret ca 1970.

I first retired from playing back in 1975, when I broke up my last band, Aardvark. We’d enjoyed a fair bit of success on the Wellington scene, being the first resident group at the swanky brand-new ‘international’ James Cook hotel. That lasted for about three years, then we moved to residencies in the Abel Tasman and Waterloo hotels. Those were days when people went out for what was known as ‘dine and dance’. We also did outside gigs and recording work.

Bursting into print again

My new book comes off the printing press this week. Compared to my other books it’s minimal, at 11,000 words and 40 pages. But a lot of work went into it, and not just the recent writing and layout. It’s a of decades of learning and doing.

This is a handbook about researching, writing, producing and publishing family history books, and it developed out of talks I’ve done at the National Library this year. Well, to be precise, one of the talks hasn’t happened yet – it’s next month.

A solution to the W(h)anganui woes

Why  change Wanganui’s spelling to Whanganui? Surely not because whanganui means ‘large harbour’? Where’s the large harbour?

Looks like a wide upside-down river to me.

Let’s steer clear of both warring factions and, in the interests of accuracy, go for a new name altogether: Waipara North.

Wai= water.

Para=sediment, mud.

Spring has sprung

Click to enlarge

During spring our property in Martinborough is an exciting place to return to each weekend. Everything, including daffodils, is busting out all over. It’s quite a contrast to our place in Ngaio, Wellington, where most of the vegetation is New Zealand native and is mostly green all year round.

Java meets the great outdoors

Over the last two weekends, our new Burmese kitten, Java, has been introduced to the great outdoors. He’s coped very well and had a wonderful time. New sights, new scents, grass under his feet, meeting the neighbour’s cat, climbing trees, birds – close, though fortunately not yet personal.

Java takes cover under an artichoke plant. (Click the image to enlarge.)

Here are some little videos of the action.

Climbing a tree for the very first time:

Meeting the neighbour’s cat:

Meeting the neighbour’s cat  again:

Startled by birds – a flock of sparrows flew suddenly over his head. This video got the following comment on YouTube: “It very nice. Cat is good eating in my country but I dont do this.”

Chasing a bit of apple tree pruning:

Java reclining at the end of his big day out

“It very nice. Cat is good eating in my country but I dont do this.”