Back to Basics

Last week I had a cold, and after taking a cold and flu tablet I suffered terribly with a crashing head ache and dry mouth for three days. The cure was far worse than the complaint. My blodd pressure sky rocketed and the doctor said it was the decongestants that effected me. So I am back to oldfashioned cures for colds from now on. Vicks on the chest, honey on my toast, and lots of tissues as I cant take anything that dries me up. This week I have another cold - after two good days in between. So I am suffering in sniffles - well I could hardly say silence. The blood pressure is still a bit elevated, but will review when I am well again.

You may have seen the picture of the Tamarillo tree with its fancy frost protector. You may also have heard of Mary Poppins. Anyway the long and the short of it is we've put rocks around the base and removed the umbrella and will have to resort to basic frost methods like wet newspapers.

Live and Learn!

Matariki

They say that Matariki co-incides with the winter solstice and this is when the Maori would harvest their Kumara. We didn't plant kumara this year, but the yams have been a great success! There are still things sprouting up in the garden - I have a huge picking of rhubarb to process - I use boysenberry jelly instead of sugar which gives it a lovely flavour.

We have had a few frosts lately and Duncan has kindly rigged up this umbrella over the Tamarillo Tree that was planted for Dawn's 60th birthday. Hopefully it will fruit next year.

There always seems to be something to do in the garden. I am planting some vireya rhododendrons. At least when you weed something it stays weed free for quite a while. This rose is called Faithful Friend and it blooms on until the bitter end. Normally when I prune it, it is still producing. However the garden will have to take a back seat as we are both helping with pruning this year.

Queens Birthday in the wineries.

Well I guess the fact of the matter is that we have been drinking more wine than we have been buying so off we set on a buying trip in the Hawkes Bay. Just a slight panic as we approached Havelock North as we had booked our accomodation on line and then taken no printout with us. Luckily we fronted up to the correct motel! Nice meal and wine on the first night and we awoke to a brilliantly fine day. Duncan went for a run while I enjoyed the Dominion in bed. Then we went clothes shopping for Duncan as the only decent men's wear shop in Gisborne has closed. I was pleasantly suprised that we came out with 2 pair trou, a black jacket and 3 shirts. Very smart!! After loosing weight with his marathon training he needed to update his clothes. A visit to the information centre for Wine Trail Maps which we studied over tea and a muffin. Then we set off to Brookfields, Unison, Trinity Hill, Crossroads, Abbey and Alpha Domus. What struck us was how welcoming and knowledgable the people were, and we seemed to come away with quite a few free gifts if we bought half a dozen.


What a contrast the next day was. Very cold and miserable, but we started off at the driving range as I have had a golf lesson and hope to get back to golf again after quite a break away. Our first stop was Askerne where we met the winemaker who was a very jovial host.

He had there a sweet red grape "sticky" which he insisted we try with dark chocolate buttons. Yum. so I've got some for next time I have the girls around for afternoon tea. Here are the botrytised grapes still on the vine in June! We then headed out for the coast and went to Te Awanga after having lunch at a cafe watching the waves crash on the beach. We had hope to have lunch at Clearview but there were a large crowd of Her Royal Highness lookalikes there obviously celebrating the birthday. We finished on a posh note with Te Mata, Black Barn, and Craggy Range who were tasting their flagship wines, so it was nice to taste the $120 bottle even though we didn't buy it.

By now the back seat of the car was full to the brim with wines and when we got home Duncan meticulously wrote them all up in the wine book. We are now on wine book 14, having started our cellar, and book 1 on 6th April 1974!