Calendar Comments!

Well as some of you know, us silly old girls make a calendar girls style calendar. I'm sure this one will evoke some comments - just use the comments button below. Our theme this year is Pearls of Wisdom and we had to include a book and a string of pearls. I chose a tramping theme for mine and have to decide on which photo to submit. The idea was to look naked without actually showing anything.

What do you think?????? Tramper 1 or tramper 2 or tramper 3

Thanks, Simon.

We really enjoyed our visit from Simon, starting with a Thai meal out on Sunday night. On Monday morning I had to do netting as it is harvest time at last for the machine harvested chardonnay blocks. Simon went to lunch with Sarah, and then we went to pick up Robin - Duncan's sister. She had been over in NZ for a school reunion, and thought she would surprise Duncan on his birthday. Duncan was playing in a golf pro-am. So we crept up on him at the 14th! We were worried that it might put him off, but no, his golf improved from then until the end! Duncan had to make a speech as president of the golf club, but the rest of us went home and all put together an enjoyable meal for Duncan's Birthday.

As Duncan said "From the start of the day when I spoke to my grandchildren on SKYPE, until the last drop of wine that night- this has been the best birthday ever!!

Next morning we put Robin on the plane and as I had to go and teach, I had to put Simon onto the tractor to continue taking off the netting. Thanks Simon.

Turkish Delight

Well here we are with all those bins filled with gewurz. It was an arduous day. The first gang of pickers turned up at 7am and there was 8 of them. We knew they were coming because they turned up a day early to pick. Then the next gang turned up and there were 4 of them!!!! I was expecting 12. However we made a promising start and by 9.30 another 8 had turned up and we had the required 20. We were only allowed to sent 6 tonne to Sileni by the quota system that is in place this year and it soon was evident that we had more. Frantic calls to Sileni, and we then got permission to send more. After lunch it was a frantic ring round to find these big bins. None available. So Plan B was to send the small picking bins. Rush off to get wrapping plastic and clips, but by the time I got back the heavens opened and it poured down so we had to call a halt to picking as no way would the winery accept wet fruit. However the fruit trundled off and the wine maker was very pleased with it. Hints of apple and spice and turkish delight - very true to variety.

In Harvest Mode

Crates, picking bins, snips, PMS, liners, labels, truck, forklift, netting off - yes, now we are ready for the pickers. We took the Pinot Gris off first, and we had the United Nations come to do it. Pamma (Indian) runs the gang, so we had a couple of indians, four chinese guys two of them with the surname Lee and three guys from South America - unfortunately one spoke Portugese and the other two Spanish, so I heard them talking in French! (I must get my French up to scratch before we leave.)

Unfortunately I had asked Pamma for 15 pickers but he only sent 9, so we spent quite a bit of time picking, and as a consequence we missed the early truck and the grapes didn't arrive at Sileni until 11.30pm, so they were all a bit cross down there. It was fortunate that we were doing a hand pick as a result of the last lot of rain the previous weekend, sour rot had set in and we lost about 1 tonne of fruit. Mainly it just fell off, but you could tell which bunches were affected as they were quite warm. We all ended up very sticky.

Next week it will be the gewurz by hand and maybe a machine pick of clone 15 chardonnay. Tiring days for an old codger like me!

Duncan's Big Kumara

Harvest time should well and truly be here, but today it was the turn of the kumara and the figs. One lot of grapes may come off on Wednesday. Unfortunately many of the kumara have worms so we can't really give them away. We have four cartons of them. The figs were badly affected by the rain, but I am cooking up the best of them in anise, ginger and cardamom. They need to simmer for three hours so the house is very fragrant.

I've wasted many hours this weekend looking at wedding venues on the internet. Couldn't find anyone to play golf with this week. One lady's husband has had a stroke, and other's daughter has a malignant melanoma. Life sure throws a few curve balls.

Paris in the Spring?

Well this is what we wore in Paris in July when we were last there so I am starting to reassess what clothes I will need while there. Maybe I will need to buy more...??? The grapes are on "hold" at present while we get through lots of scrappy weather. We are very concerned that we will end up with a really horrific week where we have to get almost everything off. However we have scheduled the first of the handpicks for next Wednesday. Its the taking off of the nets which slows us down.
So in the meantime I am spending my time filling in the gaps in our itinerary to France due to kick off on April 14th. It is all working out horrendously expensive with the ghastly exchange rate, but we are ignoring that.
School has been a bit of a breeze with only two classes - 8hours of teaching time +meetings etc.
I had one of my students from last year say to me "We're missing you this year Mrs Bush" which was sweet. I may have to take on more classes next year to pay the credit card off for this trip!!