AOTNZ tour Waimate

Oamaru as cold and dreary as I recall from two years ago. Whiskey shop closed on

a Friday - of course. Had great mutton & plum pie from a Dutch bakery next door.

Arrived in Waimate and checked into 'yet another concrete block motel' - another

song idea I remember discussing with T & Nils in this exact part of the country

two years ago.

Very well looked after pre-gig by Linda and Rob at the beautiful Awatea Retreat

and B & B. We were royally treated here two years ago and nothing has changed.

Interesting chat with a city girl turned farmer's wife who introduced us to the

country saying 'three buttered and two iced' - an instruction relating to

shearing gang catering. Might be a song there. Responsive crowd at the Criterion

Hotel and an early night.

Off to Fairlie after being hastened out of our Waimate digs. Bought the possum

socks, thus contributing to the local economy in a modest way. Both Waimate and

Fairlie motels advertising wireless internet but both useless for any practical

purposes. Continuing amusing text dialogue with Billers concerning his claims

that Hitchens has converted to Christianity in the face of a cancer diagnosis

(very unlikely but he refuses to stump up with any journalistic evidence) and

that Dylan is a lousy harp player and a fraud (as Joni Mitchell claims). He's

certainly right about the first but I'm sure that history will disprove him

about the second.

Andrew