Schwelmo's Welt

On the next day I went with my flatmates Yvonne and Dorbert (names are altered) and some friends to see other friends playing their last gig in a vineyard near Masterton. It was bloody hot. we enjoyed having beer in the vineyard (the wine wasn’t vegan and mostly white anyway…and a cold beer is always good on a hot day).

I considered doing some gardening and realizing it was too hot for that. So I went on a mission to buy some fly strip. This would have been the advantage not to spray poisonous stuff everyday. Once trapped it should stop them mating at your head and sucking on your food. It also would prevent us to stain the wall with the inner body content of insects. I tried hard but Palmerston North was out of fly strips. Not one. Sent fly strips (und Schwarzbrot und Altbier)!! Apparently people bought it in ten packs. At least Palmerston is very popular under flies. Probably because it is so windy here that they don’t need to fly by themselves.

As I am flatting with French and live in a Celtic dominated country it was kind of unavoidable to watch “ Joyeux Noël”. I heard it should be good and I enjoyed it. At Xmas eve during the 1^st World War the Scots played their pipes, the Germans, which happened to have a Opera singer in their battalion, brought some classical music and Christmas trees and after they agreed to a cease fire the French brought Coffee and Champagne. They even had a football match (which probably the Germans won in penalty shootout). It is pretty much the same in our flat. Except that I don’t like Champagne, have my own coffee, the music providers are more the French, Dorbert doesn’t play football and we don’t celebrate Christmas. But we don’t shoot at each other and quite often listen to Celtic tunes in the pub. We went off to the pub to do exactly this. First we were greet by a completely pissed Kiwi which thought my flatties were from Uruguay and I am a Kiwi. He was (a white ginger haired, Irish) Maori and wanted to say hello with a Hongi. I outed myself as not being Kiwi by giving him more a head kick. As he was drunk he didn’t mind that much. He was harmless but annoying so he was friendly asked by the usual patrons of the pub to leave get some sleep and to shut up. The way was interesting “ You shut up know and get the fuck out off here. You are pissed and annoying. Go get some sleep, leave us alone for today. I promise you if you come back tomorrow I’ll buy you a pint and we are the best mates. But know you fuck off. Come back tomorrow at 5 and I buy you a pint.” “Mmmh…Can I go to the loo before I leave then?” “Yes.” He left after (apparently visiting the women toilet) and I don’t know if he came to get his pint the next day. Inspired by his leave one patron picked up his guitar and started playing and singing. It turned out to become a long session. A wide range from traditional Irish and Scottish folk songs over Janis Joplin, Pogues, The Band, David Bowie and the unavoidable “Sweet home Alabama”. I was a bit disappointed with the performance of The Clash, but I will not complain. Dorbert did a good job in slowing the spontaneous session down by picking up the guitar not knowing what to play. He was asked for a French drinking song but couldn’t play or remember one. At this stage I was happy that I never learned an instrument and not be able to sing so nobody could expect a German drinking song from me.Suddenly P and S turned up having their fidel, flute and harmonica with them and joined in. Our “one pint” after the movie turned into six and we went home reasonably drunk. It just fitted great into the spirit of the movie we just seen before. I am terrible disappointed to be a total musical retard. I think the “Musikalische Frueherziehung” (early musical childhood education) did no good for my rock star dream. “Musikalische Frueherziehung” actually means “being forced to play Glockenspiel (carillon?) and Blockfloete (recorder flute?) with the annual highlight to perform terrible dressed in front for the whole family at Christmas”. As the repertoire you get teach is especially for the just mentioned occasion, you lose your interest after 2 Christmas and can convince your parents after 2 further Christmas. For the kids: keep playing or you will regret it later.

The next day was terrible hot. Fortunately the hang over wasn’t too bad. I could convince Yvonne to go to the beach. That was great. The water did its job. It was refreshing. It even didn’t matter that the beach was full of parked cars. Kiwi nature experience sometimes just exists out of taking the car to beach and sit in there hiding from the sun. As I got sunburned again I have a fair idea why they do it but I still do not like it.

# posted by Schwelmo @ Wednesday, January 25, 2006