The Life and Times of Peter Green
Archive: 11 April - 24 April 2016
Art day #1 @ Ailsa Craig- "Miss Kitty's Big Day @ the Chapel of the 5 Fish"
April 11thFinally allowed to burn off in the National Park and it buckets down with rain. The best laid plans and all that. So we work in the office instead.The endless photo scanning continues, Nick Seymour has a great memory around such things, I do hope he's not sick of me asking about the shots I am uncertain of. I guess we only have one chance of this so now is the time. I did find a really great Crowded House image of the three by the lake in Switzerland. May 1987, does my head in that it's 3 decades old for that photo next year. THREE DECADES, holy hell, time does go by fast when you are having fun. The final season of Banshee the TV show is on cable soon. Every time the promo is on and they say the word "Banshee" she pops her cat head up.... "why is that TV set calling my name" thinks our favourite fur ball. April 12thI'm up very early, like VERY early. In the office and we announce 2 more Neil Finn shows - Boulder CO in June. The emails start straight away, by 9.00 it's up to 700, lots of people travelling for these 2 shows. It sends me slightly crazy. I need to run away for an hour as my computer screen is starting to be one big Neil Finn email blur. Good timing , a friend calls and tells me i can get the latest Star Wars movie on bluray a day or so before release so there it is an excuse to drive away. I have a small list of mini chores to do, so I clear that while out and about, just boring stuff like Officeworks etc. I do a good deed and grab a cd that a friend wanted, she's messed her foot up so this will make her feel better. Home and grab Marky and we go to BRUNCH for lunch! (Such rhyming skills eh?). It's really busy but as always we are so spoiled, Louise creates my "not on the menu" food. I'm famished today, not certain why, and it's just the best. An hour later and back in the office. Our accountants call and our tax is done, our BAS is done, so our accountants will gobble up some $. They are great value so I can't complain. I just want my taxes paid on time and done and dusted.I upload Skyhooks "Women In Uniform" live at Festival Hall 1983 onto You Tube and the Official Skyhooks Facebook page. A killer version and look at all of us Skyhook fans in the front row going off. The stage covered in streamers like it's 1975 all over again. That was sure a fantastic reunion tour. We miss you Shirl! Catching up with quite a few friends this week- Claire, Allie , and some mates heading down from Sydney. Destinys Point for coffee is turning out to be a fun adventure. Watch Star Wars -The Force Awakens, Bluray tonight and it's excellent, a true return to form thanks to JJ Abrams. Stoked he used FILM, and subtle use of bluescreen. No long winded boring pod car chases ... I'm a Star Wars fan all over again. Glad it did well, it deserved to do so. April 13thSleep well last night, a real deep sleep. As does Miss Banshee who stays in bed this morning, she's gone off her food today, Cats, who knows why. Still she will happily eat the organic roast beef, she has expensive tastes. I did have coffee at the General Store while waiting for the mail to be done. No bills today so that's a good thing.End up with just over 1000 emails around Neils 2x Boulder Theater shows. A few of the other NO shows spring up so that causes even more emails, keep telling people this is it folks no others. After seeing the location in the Star Wars movie at Skellig Islands (off the coast of Ireland) I add them to my MUST VISIT list, so the list is growing again. It looks fantastic especially the Monastery located on the north eastern summit. It's dated around the 6th century...and was abandoned in the late 12th century. It looks incredibly cool. April 14thFinally a sunny day and we can burn. The 4 massive piles will finally be gone. We've made an effort to compost loads, shred it etc but some are blackberries and the last thing you want to do is put them back into the earth. After a few false starts and a little bit of petrol we finally have our fire roaring. Mark finds it very funny that I throw a match and run away with my ears covered. Ok the explosion scares the shits out of me...I admit it. It's a day off for us and I love working alongside my best mate. It would be so sad not having that in your life so i count our blessings. We do work well together.During my break my mate Leanne from Perth calls and it's great to hear from her. Straight after that our manager Bill phones - and that's always good. he's really one of the best managers I have ever worked with -finally a huge thumbs up for a manager- it's been awhile. I'm really worn out by 9.30 and that NEVER happens, what am I some old person? Possibly I've just fried myself and my sugar levels have dropped , I tell Mark he's in charge of Banshee tonight, i decide to pop 1/2 a stillnox and have a beauty of a sleep. natural- probably part but even that's ok. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. April 15thWow serious sleep, feel recharged. We hit the office early and get lots done. Scan, scan, scan endless Crowdies images group some of the slides scans together. It's serious time consuming effort but good to have this done. I do get sidetracked sometimes by a few shots, either flashbacks or simply just laughing, usually at the expressions of one Paul Newell Hester.Late afternoon grocery run and of all things Red Rooster for dinner , someone doesn't want to cook. Yeah me. I'm hanging out for my pay to arrive, any day now. I've most certainly earned it these last few months. April 16thSaturday coffee at Destiny's Point. Great to see Jodes, Jason, Sara and little way too cute Leo (woof). Karen & Dean show up, Kaz takes a couple of snaps and we mess with them sfx wise... local boy John see's us and comes on over for a chat. It's cool as it's raining leaves today, all gold and red. Not as busy as last week , less tourists but a nice gathering of people. The owner comes out to say thanks for the mentions etc on Sheepbook. Free coffee for us all, well maybe not but it sounds good. Caroline Hester working away in the kitchen, I hope I don't remind her of Paul in a sad way , i think not but I do wonder. I take my leather work book with me and get a few pages of scribbles, scrawlings and "stuff" done, when the crowds diminish. I'm enjoining Destiny so guessing it's my Winter haunt this year.Mark starts on project #4, more reclaiming from nature and it's a BIG project. He's so gung-ho and runs into the thicket arms flying and hatchets at ready ... he's more of a banshee then Banshee today. I start on my project 2 the endless removal of jasmine. Mostly around the emergency security door. I test the alarm and camera systems as well and all good. The fog rolls in at 2.10 so we call it a day. I head inside and juice 5kgs or organic carrots . A bargain at Woolworths, just had to buy them , goddess there is a LOT! We almost made it to Andy White's show but kept to our original promise of some times with a few guests at home. Another late night (Phew) but incredible fun. April 17thHappy Birthday Mr Crombie. I give him a call and have an idea that I don't mention his birthday during the call , not till the final 5 seconds, but I fail and have to wish him well, we love the Cromb. He still amazes me with his creative side, and makes me chuckle. Somehow we talk about the low low low budget for the Split Enz "THINGS video clip. I joke that it was all spent on making Neil and Tim's eyes sparkle at the very end. Which makes him laugh- Noooooo that SFX was actually Noel being handed a small segment of film and perforating the eyes on the film with a small needle. Wonderful as low tech as you can get , I've had to go watch it all over again just to check it out. I love things like that (no pun intended).I call Nige in the late afternoon but he's not near the phone, I bet he's been doing what we have this weekend and in the yard. I wanted to ask him an Enzish question... I'm certain Nige will know the answer. Meanwhile Sis and the mighty MIM call , my niece is awesome she is talking a lot now, and she's fantastic. Can't wait to see them both again. I'm down in the deep dark basement searching a box for some video tapes from Split Enz in Adelaide 2006. I remember they did this amazing soundcheck and I filmed most of it, the Enz boys playing some rarities or bits of rarities like Nice to know, Crosswords, So Up, Animal Lover, Straight Talk , Bullet Brain & Cactus Head. If i get some good segments I'll probably put them on Official Split Enz sheepbook page. April 18thFour hours of wading through even more Crowded House stuff- find a few more slides and other pieces so the scanner gets another work out. Send them off to the powers that be. I feel a bit over it.. the long weekend soon so I'll keep away from CH for those days.Upload Skyhooks mini documentary -Once More Without Vocals , the internet is so so so so so SLOW today, 90 minutes later. Seriously I hate Tony Abbott and his piece of shit fraudband that Australia has been stuck with. But really why am i surprised that a dopey half brained dumb arse like Abbott happily says "it will do". One of the worst decisions this country has ever been lumbered with, and so sad as the NBN could of been so fantastic. It's incredibly frustrating around work for us. New Zealand has an excellent NBN, once more showing Australia just how it should be done and Australia too dumb to work it out. Marks out of the office today, Project #4 work, and the fires at Ailsa Craig are burning. He's loading on a lot of bamboo so it's exploding like July 4th. Massive effort today , the projects are endless, anyone would think we had 200 acres not just a mere two. We seem to have a really good balance in our relationship , but I'm lucky he's my best friend too, that makes a huge difference. People always talk about soul mates and being together forever but you can almost look at couples these day and go No, No, No, Yes, No - time will tell if it's meant to be, talk is cheap, action and results if you want my respect. Sounds a bit brutal but really aren't you all just sick of the "I'm going to do this..." and it never gets done, or people don't stick with something. So tedious. It's the one joy of getting older, you see life as being really precious, and especially time - it ticks by so fast. So try to make the best use of those valuable minutes. April 19thBreakfast at Montage today- and we sneak one little jaffa cake to have between us - yum. Sweet tooth moment.Crowded House again for most of the day and a little side trip to Bunnings and a few other places- for piping, new phone system and to mail off some cheques to the accountant. I drop mail into post office #2 and the mail system has changed again, so all the paperwork I had is useless and has to be redone. Such a stupid waste of time, but all done and dusted. I feel sorry for the post lady, just adds so much extra work to her day. I call in and get our new office phones and the shop next door has a super massive sale on ex-halloween costumes (NEW) and 2 bargains for a mere $5 each. My hysterically funny release for the day. Mark gets a Geek costume (hair, teeth and glasses) and yours truly a full body suit covering every inch. I can hardly breath, and it has an Xray of a skeleton on the front. Just bizarre and why would anyone want to wear this for even a minute!!!!!! Upload Split Enz video from Soundcheck in Adelaide 2006- the rarely played "Log Cabin Fever" from Time & Tide. It's going up on the Official Enz Facebook page. There could be a few other cool moments from that wild little soundcheck, so stay tuned. April 20thList some album sales for management. A few scans in the morning and I shoot them off. take some more mailers to the post office to send off overseas. Still hate how our postage seems to take forever these days.I sneak the fake wig to breakfast but chicken out on the photo...too many people. During my lunch break I work the wire around the new installed water tank and add some fresh soil for my three new passionfruit vines to (hopefully) grow. I found this old crushed wire fence so it's great to recycle it, bang out the wire again and stretch parts of it so the passionfruit can weave in and out. My vision is for the tank to be covered in passionfruit flowers, we'll see- hell I'll be happy if they grow and produce some fruit! Passionfruits and Basil my 2 failures up here. So of course that just brings out that stubborn streak that means I won't give up. A long day so no way am I cooking dinner. Indian tonight-YUM. I park in front of the Mount Dandenong organic shop and Courtney keeps it open for me a bit longer. Our brilliant neighbours are inside too so we chat and shop for organics. I love the Greenwoods bio dynamic Pear-Apple juice in their big chunky bottles, they also sell raw Love Chocolate -I buy the honey one but the package is always better then the non dairy chocolate. Good to support your local. April 21stWe see that "Tomorrow When The War Began" will be a 6 part mini series on ABC3. We loved the 2010 movie, probably my movie of the year but (sadly) think this miniseries will be a bit watered down. Still I hope it does well.Restless sleep tonight, the wind howling through the trees but thankfully none came crashing down at Ailsa Craig. April 22ndWake up to the sad news that Prince has died. I'd only seen him play a few times but have fond memories of that first Melbourne show in April 1992. Lots of chat about him ODing but I'm sure the autopsy will give up some secrets. No doubt there will be a rush on Prince music, why do people wait for someone to die before buying the music. ?Speak to my Mum, she has some youthful memory of liking Pomegranates , so I make a note to track some down for her, in time for Mothers Day! File under-"the things we do for our Mum's"! April 23rdI sleep in till 9.45 which is quite late, it's all foggy & misty outside. Head to Destiny's Point to see a few friends, they have woollen blankets outside so all snug and warm A cute family asks me for scenic directions. I send quite a few tourists to Rickett's Sanctuary , the words FREE tempt them.Anzac Day long weekend so i decide to create 3 pieces of art over the 3 days. I seem to churn out a couple of good ones from the Anzac weekends before. My BEX large painting came from Anzac day 2013. So I'm up in the art room till the wee hours. have a little bit of pot and some Bourbon and lots of music. I work on a '"found" piece. It was a discarded framed old wedding photo on hard rubbish day. I spotted it as I was driving around the hills. So with a bit of work it becomes "Miss Kitty's Big Day @ the Chapel of the 3 Fish". i find my can of Tung Oil but the lid wasn't sealed correctly so it has this thick placenta piece over what remains of the oil. I mix some Diggers Raw linseed oil into it so I have enough Tung to put on 6 coats. Of course the linseed means it takes years to dry. I'm a tad stoned as some art friends arrive, and they assure me they do LOVE Miss Kitty. I'm happy with it, and I rarely ever say that. Two more art nights to go, am thinking of a light installation as one of the three creations, we'll see how it goes. April 24thI wake up early and foggy outside as Miss Banshee heads out for her cat adventures. I drive to the bakery and call into Destiny's for a coffee on the way back. I have my USB chip and work on a few photos I snapped last night. A bit of glare outside so not much done. Good to see Rosemaree, Raven and Tex today. Anzac Day tomorrow and the Peace Shrine is opposite Destiny's so I might well avoid it. Too crazy.. plus another late night so the luxury of sleeping in.Time to be arty farty....while the spirit moves me to do so I will act upon it. Hell it's FUN and we all need more of that in our lives. xPG |