HELLLOOO ! Is anybody listening?  Every couple of weeks I sober up so my hands are steady enough to type my heart out updating my blog but I've not gotten any comments back in months.  The accolades better start pouring in pronto or all you readers (if  any) I say are literary free loaders casually enabling my moral, psychological and hepatic decay.  I know (hope) none of you could live with yourselves if that happened and there'd be  all mannor of gnashing of teeth with boat-loads of people jumping off cliffs and stepping  in front of speeding trains and dogs and cats sleeping  together and general mass pandemonium and we wouldn't want that now would we?  So look down.  You see all those buttons down there with letters on them.  You push them to make words.  Good.   That's right.  Now try a vowel.  Very good.  Try:  "The quick lazy red fox jumped over the huge brown cows."  Excellent!  Now; " Compared to Dr. Jay's blog, Shakespeare bites.'"   By George I think you've got it.  Now you know what to do.

That reminds me: After a recent night of immodest farewell revelry for Steve; my last best mate in New Zealand and all round partner in crime, I woke up wondering which is better;  Having a night to remember or having a night you can't remember?  So now both Steve and Fergal are back in the UK and there is no one left to lead me astray and I like being astray but it's a place that is hard to find alone.  My life here is not totally lacking in social contact,  I am the token American on a local pub quiz team.  The team name is; "Let's Get Quizzical" and we are doing pretty well.  Most of the questions are about the obscure minutia of New Zeland geography, pop culture or sports (which All Black player broke his leg in the 1983 1/4 finals match between NZ and South Africa or what did the captain of the 2011 women's Christchurch net ball team get on her 3rd grade spelling test) but about 1 in 10 questions has something to do with the US (name the  13 original colonies, How many Apollo missions landed on the moon (6)  State capitals, which NFL team has lost the most superbowls (Buffalo Bills) and to which  NBA team was Kevin Durant recently traided (the Nets - "Go Joe-3") ) and stuff that any red blooded American should know.  Our team has 5 Kiwis and me but a mix of men and women young and old (me) so we have most of the bases covered and we won the last two fortnightly quizes and @ $180.00 / victory divided by 6 x 2 =  $60.00 to me. Not exactly bank but not bad for just knowing a lot of worthless stuff.

The weather down here has been atrocious. It's rained every day for 6 weeks! And between the constant gloom, everybody's  British-like Kiwi accent and the coal that lots of peaple still burn down here to heat their houses I feel like a grimy character in a Dicken's novel.  The abysmal weather has also put the kibosh on all my out door activities so while yes I now have more time to write I have  less to write about.

Down the road a bit come September I will be spending a few days in Austrailia looking around but  mostly just to say I've been there and put another pin in the map.  Then from Ausie on to the US if the Trumpmeister will let me back in.  The very first thing I'm gonna do when I get back is order my Tesla extended range, dual motor, charcoal grey, tasteful chrome wheels, all decked out for full autonomous driving model 3 and then spend some VERY quality time with my women ........hmmmm....... on the other hand I can drive any old time but astray is a hard place to find so maybe the Tesla will not be  absolutely the  first thing I do when I get back.

God Bless Us Every One