Deep End-Thrown in.

Not much time for an update, we have work, again, tomorrow. Our long break from employment has officially ended. Did it ever!  Nic & Geoff from Wrights Vineyard where we last WOOFed are having us back as actual workers, not woofers. We spent four days last week putting nets on grapevines to keep the birds out. Tomorrow we pick grapes. We’ve gone from restless to worn out, working nearly 10 hour days in the summer sun. Oh yeah it quit raining just in time for this work to begin. Soon we begin work at GisVin, a large winery of sorts, this will keep us more than busy for the next few months. And we moved into our very own little flat. That is all for now as we have no time to linger on the computer. We have work tomorrow.

Good Weather for Ducks

The title is from an episode of the Curious George cartoon on PBS when George was particularly disgruntled  by wet weather. I use it now because here in Gizzy it is good weather for ducks with rain, rain and more rain. I won’t go on and on in a sorrowful, self-pitying rant wondering if perhaps Steve and I truly are cursed with regard to weather. If you recall much of our time in the van was spent dodging the wettest summer the American West had experienced in decades, decades I tell you. So instead of crying about all that, this post is about books.

Sometime I ago my mom asked me what I was reading.  I believe she was fishing around for some great New Zealand fiction that hadn’t made it to the States. I don’t read a great deal of fiction. Something about being a therapist doesn’t leave me in need of any additional drama.

So anyway I answered mom’s question, “A book about wine and oh this other book about wine (giggle) and ummm some cookbooks.”

And that really sums it up. In coming to New Zealand, I quickly realized my knowledge of wine, while great for living in Bud Light Land, was not anywhere near where I wanted it to be for living in a true Wine Country.  So with that in mind I dove into the following:

Wine Class – All You Need to Know About Wine in New Zealand
Jo Burzynska

The Perfect Glass of Wine: How One Man Searched the World for the Heaven in a Bottle
Ben Canaider

Thirsty Work- Love Wine Drink Better
Matt Skinner

It took sometime to discover these books as so many wine books are barely concealed “spend money here”  guides to specific wine or wineries. Wine Class and Thirsty Work are straightforward, informative and fun to read. The Perfect Glass of Wine is a rambling narrative of a wine writer about how there is no perfect glass of wine. He manages to tell some good stories in route to this conclusion.

Now to the foodie side of things, I read a book about the history of New Zealand through their food habits. The title of that one escapes me now. Nothing too memorable there but it was a nice way to learn some NZ history. I’ve sought out cookbooks written by Kiwis. A couple good ones are A World in My Kitchen by Peter Gordon and Beach Bach Boat Barbecue by Penny Oliver. From traditional grilling out to a Maori Hangi where food is cooked on hot rocks in an earthen pit, if it can be done outside then it is popular in New Zealand.

I’ve also picked up quite a few British food books. I never paid much attention to Jamie Oliver back home but with the local library having all his cookbooks we’re now best buddies. My new favorite food book is  How to Cook Without Recipes by Glynn Christian. Not really sure who this guy is. He’s British and grumpy. In a rather pragmatic, nagging way he affirms all I’ve ever suspected about food. Basically this is that if you know how food and flavors interact you are good to go and the whole follow a recipe culture is a load of rubbish.

Right now I’m fully absorbed in The Gastronomy of Marriage by Michelle Maisto. If it was set in the south, I would swear that is was really written by my very mindful friend Tiffany.  This book is all about how there is no stress involved in eating dinner alone, but once you are living with a significant other there is pressure to always put a real meal on the table that is pleasing for both and won’t take all night to create or clean up. Amen.

Now back to my regularly scheduled program of watching it rain. When the ocean turns muddy you really know that it is only good weather for ducks.

Opportunity Knocks

Somewhere left of the Mississippi I became a thrift store addict.  More often than not I wasn’t able to feed my addiction.  You see, selling your house and living in a van does not allow you to pick up pre-loved furniture to take to varnish rehab.  And don’t even get me started on clothing sizes.  I would so have some cool logo Ts if only I could fill a medium.  Alas I would leave most indoor garage sales for charity empty handed; save the Bellingham, WA Goodwill.  A long sleeve bike jersey and a pair of Lucky jeans are tough to pass up. Nine dollars total.  Of course both were a little too big.

Jill on the other hand can find the goods.  That is not to say she is a large gal, I just think there is a better supply of women’s clothing out there in thrift-dom.  Maybe because men tend to wear things out till they end up in the rag bin rather than the donation box.  Jill’s ability to walk away with cute second hand clothes never ceases to amaze me.  Outside of a pair of jeans or pants in long, she can find about anything.  Heaps of clothes in Bellingham, no problem.  A Cannondale bike jersey in Ft Collins, check.  Coach purse in Bishop, two dollars.  Not to mention all the flash clothes that would come home for the Brannon Crossing Goodwill when we lived in Lexington.  She was an addict before I had my first taste.

Luckily I didn’t kick the second hand habit when we came to New Zealand.  You see the Kiwi’s are resourceful bunch.  You have to be when you are an island nation of about 4 million people spread out over some tricky terrain.  Goods don’t move quite the same as they do in the 24/7 commerce driven society of the States.  I believe its economics, buying power and location but that business minor was a long time ago.  Sure there are plenty of new things available, more than plenty really as this isn’t a third world country.  But it didn’t used to be so easy, or cheap, to get the goods.  And maybe that is why opportunity shops, the New Zealand term for thrift stores, are so popular.  These stores are run by non-profits for about every charity imaginable.    The Red Cross, Salvation Army (Salvos), and the SPCA are the usual suspects.  There are a few for profit resale shops, but their prices are reasonable and they do have some treasures to uncover.

Sure opportunity shops mean an opportunity for that charity they support, but I like to think it means a great opportunity for the buyer too.  That line of thinking is my addiction talking.  An addiction that has allowed us to pick up some cheap clothes and goods that have been floating around the country since before importing from China became the norm.  Some of the clothes even fit me.

So Euro-trash, I love it.  A true op shop find, shoes that are in good shape and fit.

The wood might be a little dark and the handles a little to 70s, but it was made in New Zealand.  This cheese tray was quiet a find at $4.  I’m not sure the knives are original, but they fact that they were included was a nice touch.

My secret desire to be a barista has been revealed through the purchase of this $5 espresso machine.  The carafe was broken and it doesn’t steam too well, but it sure beats paying upwards of $4 for a latte.  Regular, American style, auto-drip coffee makers aren’t the norm here.  Around the house people use plungers, aka French press, for their morning cuppa.  Thanks to this discovery we are able to mix up our method of caffeine intake without dropping coin at the cafes.

An op shop in an old church in Opotiki gave me quite possibly my best thrift store find ever.  Ten dollar tele boots!  Nothing like owning some ski boots when you live on the coast.  Yes they have seen some use and are a wee bit too big, but considering a new pair would run you $800 – $1000 NZD I had to walk away in these.

Don’t Be Bitter

Friends, relatives, country men don’t hate us because we are in New Zealand. Many of you have expressed a touch of jealousy at our circumstances. Some, and you know who your are, have threatened to come visit if only to punch us in the face. Now I don’t know if this post will do much to soothe your green condition but here, now, let me present what I do not, repeat, do not like about life in NZ. I ask your pardon ahead of time if these grievances seem trite. Remember I only list them to provide you, dear friends, with some comfort.

New Zealand roads…almost all are of the two lane variety. They are curvy and hilly with few passing lanes. I grew up flattening the hills and straightening the curves but have seen nothing like this. Not in Italy, not in East KY, not in Colorado. Living in Lexington, Steve and I thought nothing of driving six hours from KY to ski in WV. I’ve done it in a blizzard with Steve passed out on Dramamine. The difference is that in the States you might drive an hour or so on bad roads to get from the interstate to your final destination. Now for NZ subtract the interstate part and replace it all with extremely narrow, curvy roads.

Coming here Steve and I were ready for some stability. We had no intentions of doing a Tiki Tour of New Zealand. We wanted to come to Gisborne and not move for a long while. With a few exceptions that is what we have done. Good thing cause we wouldn’t have had much choice. We quickly learned that here a six hour drive will leave you finished for the day. It might still be light outside but you are finished. Passenger or driver it doesn’t really make much difference. The wrong side of the road thing is troubling too but isn’t near an annoying as sheep or log trucks that drive in the middle of the road. Had we came on a typical vacation we would have rented a campervan and drove a loop from top of North Island to bottom of South Island and back, hint hint.

Big Box Stores…they have ‘em but yet one stop shopping doesn’t exist. I can’t buy contact solution or nail polish at the grocery or their version of Wal-Mart. I have to go to the pharmacy for those items. However I can get cold medicine or nail polish remover at the big boxes. Exasperating.

Prices…the US dollar is stronger than the NZ dollar however not so much as to offset the high prices here. We are on an island far away from everyone else. Breaking news: Australia is not that close-by. Shipping products here for only four million peeps does not leave room for many bargains. One bottle of contact solution runs around $13 NZD. Back home I buy generic two bottle packs for less than $4.50 USD. Thanks Mom for that massive shipment of solution. Outdoor gear too is insanely expensive with climbing ropes running up to $500 NZD. We didn’t bring a climbing rope as we planned to buy one here but after seeing those prices we ordered from an American company and mom-in-law shipped it to us. Sweet as.

Language…theoretically we share the same language. I’m developing a whole new appreciation for vowels and syllables. Who knew bottom is pronounced with T’s?

There you have it…that’s the best I can do. Hope it helps. Suns out here. Time for another walk on the beach.

Birthday Done

Not that I think anyone is really that interested in how I spent my birthday, but after all the build up in a recent post, I decided it would only be fair to fess up to how the weekend turned out. In an ironic turn of weather, most of the weekend and my actual birthday on Monday was filled with rain, dark clouds and cool temps, little different from one of those rare but not unheard of mild January days in ole Kentuck.

With heavy clouds overhead we did make it to the beach on Monday for a little birthday surf. Cool temps and choppy waves did not keep us out of the water although it took me sometime to shed the layers.

Ewwww.

Cloud Conqueror

Next up was birthday dinner prepared by Steve. Between the two of us I’m the cook. He cleans up. This is how it is. Steve, brave soul that he is, decided to tempt fate. It turned out amazing.  He pulled out the grill for fish fillets with chermoula sauce and corn on the cob with cilantro butter. Yes that’s right fresh sweet corn on my January birthday. Love it.

Birthday BBQ

Champagne Chores

There are few times in modern life where one learns how much work goes into something that is not part of their day to day life. Parents know how much work goes into raising kids. Steve knows how much work goes into converting a cargo van into a campervan. But for the most part we live in a specialized world. We know the effort that goes into our particular pursuit or job but beyond that we are often disconnected from how other things come to be. Like how does Champagne get to the shelf, looking flash as can be, ready to be scooped up for a celebration, a brunch or really any ‘ole reason?

The WWOOF program continues to provide sneak peaks into hidden processes. The last stop put us in the middle of the long chain that gets bubbly to the wine store shelf. We were lucky to get in with Geoff & Nicola Wright. They along with their two year old and newborn make up Wrights Vineyard & Winery. Most of the Wrights wines are certified organic. They take great care to produce a very natural wine, choosing to not add heaps of sugar or do things that might make it more appealing off the shelf but in the long run not necessary for good wine.

The Wrights are currently the only folks making champagne in Gisborne with Gisborne grapes. Technically, in the mind’s of the French, Champagne can only come from the Champagne region of France.  Wine making regions all over the world respect this and call their equally yummy stuff bubbly or sparkling wine. Often these wines are made following the traditional methods used for Champagne and therefore the bottle is labeled Methode Champenoise.

Our stop along the champagne production chain was at degorgement (sounds dirty, I know) along with topping up and bottling. The degorgement involves freezing the neck of the upside down bottles, then opening the bottles, allowing the settled yeast to pop out, you loose a bit here so next you top up with more wine, then off to corking, bottle washing and sealing. There is heaps more in the process so I send the curious to the wine doctor.

One of my chores was to pull the bottles out of the chiller and score, or open, them. I opened the bottle by putting it in a little box that had a built in but regular bottle opener. Open, the spent yeast pops out and then as I move bottle to table for topping up fizz runs all over me. As the day warmed the wine became fizzier. Soon clothes, hands, arms, legs and shoes collected not a soaking but a thorough dampness of bubbly. While all this happened, I was also running into the shipping container cellar, retrieving more bottles to put in the chiller, keeping up a supply of bottles with the necks frozen.

Geoff topped up the bottles and corked them all while trying to keep his rookie help on track. Nic helped resupply the cooler all while keeping an eye on their toddler and with infant on board in a Baby Bjorn.

Steve manned a machine that puts the wire cage or Muselet on the bottle. All caged up he would then pop them in the bottle washer, giving the bottles a nice bath before they get dressed up with foil seal and head off to a separate facility for labeling.

Too many of my travel experiences go by in a blur of long days and anxious choices. Our day of Champagne Chores was long and a bit anxious but certainly not a blur. It owns a firm spot in my memory.  From the anxiety of carrying cold wine bottles, upside down one in each hand, to the vintage Italian winery machines, to sips of bubbly at morning tea, to the intensity of the yeast cork popping out, with a little boy’s sand pile situated nicely beside the whole operation, this was a day of chores that dreams are made of.

Racing into the New Year

Christmas, check. New Year’s, check. Plans for the New Year that are both fun and responsible, check. Nothing to blog about, check. Here I am content as can be and nothing to write about. For days I’ve told myself get it together, come on Jill,  wrestle the computer away from the ever photo editing husband and write about all the quirky experiences that just keep a comin’.

So Gisborne is my town, for now. It is my sweet, little beach meets vineyard, forgotten about by everyone else oasis.  Except it is the first city in the world to ring in the New Year. Cue the Jaw’s soundtrack because they come, not sharks, even worse, people, lots of people.  The First City deal is enough reason to launch several days of festival style music in several different venues.  We briefly considered volunteering at one of the festivals but quickly thought better of it.  Usually Gisborne has a population of around thirty-three thousand. Not bad. The New Years’ celebrations bring in another thirty thousand to an area that the rest of the year is considered to be the complete wop wops – that’s Kiwi for out in the sticks.  And remember this isn’t like New Year’s in the Northern Hemisphere, here it is summer break as well. For the past week Gisborne has felt more Panama City, Florida than small town New Zealand. Ocean front parks turned into crowded campgrounds. The grocery store aisles were jammed with carts full of beer and barely dressed young, tan sorts. The line of cars coming from the beach went on forever.

We made a plan and even with our town invaded, we found nice ways to spend the week. We had to drive all the way past the airport, an extra kilometer or so to find some relatively empty beach but we found it cause again this is Gisborne – even when the main beaches are busy you can still get away from it all. We walked to a lighthouse that is only accessible at low tide. We bought wetsuits. We ate fish and chips on the beach. We watched the First Night celebration fireworks on the first. And on New Year’s eve day we were off to the races.

Tolaga Bay, an hour north of Gisborne, had New Year’s Eve beach horse racing. I dressed up in my new summer dress. I had a suspicion a dress might be a bit much for the event but come on it’s horse racing. This was a down home, casual affair. They lined em up on one end of the beach and men, women, big and little, young and old, raced their horses of the same description down the beach. Fifteen or so horses galloped down the beach, some practically in the surf, nothing between them and the onlookers except the good sense to stay out of the way. Betting was a bit different. These were considered charity races. You paid a dollar for a card with a letter on it then right before each race they would assign a letter to each horse. Go horse D!  Riders could enter the races right up until race time for just a few dollars. There were six races, the internet said start time would be at 10 AM, we arrived at 11, the program said first race at 12:30. First race turned out to be at 11:15.  Who knows?  That’s how they roll down here.

Big Birthday Doin’s

Really it feels as though I’ve done the impossible. I moved my birthday. Might as well have gone and discovered the Fountain of Youth. Not possible you think. Perhaps it is not possible but it sure feels that way.

I was born January 18th, 1977. It was a snowy winter. My school teacher Momma’s only comment about my birth is to say, “I didn’t have to use any days (leave) because we were out so long for snow.”

So for 32 years it has continued this way. January, cold, a little snow if I’m lucky. No birthday pool parties for me. No barbecues or celebrations at the lake. Although between weather and the MLK holiday, I was often free of school or work. So not a terrible birth date. Perhaps something I never questioned too much, after all I did use the big 3-0 as an excuse to go skiing in Slovenia. I could have fled to the southern hemisphere then but it didn’t cross my mind.

When our plans to head south were finalized it hit me like a ray of this strong, southern sun. A summer birthday. Sunshine, long days, picnics on the beach…WOW.

As my birthday weekend approaches we are “house sitting” for our Gisborne friends as they are on holiday.  That is a nice start as an empty house is a rare treat these days. Remember it is high summer here so there is lots on in Gisborne this weekend…concerts, boat tours, vineyards with wide-open summer hours and even a taping of the NZ political show Back Benches at a local wine bar.

What to do? How to pick?

In a brilliant move I put Steve in charge of what is now being called Birthday Weekend Extravaganza. This is good for me cause I’m still on board with a plan to not control so many of life’s little details. And basically I just didn’t want the work of planning and picking between all our options. The thought of a romantic beach picnic would have quickly turned into an over planned, over fussed headache- for me.

Steve on the other hand seems thrilled to have a project. I’m good with that.

It is not impossible that this will be the nicest birthday yet!

Happy Boxing Day

Yes that should be Merry Christmas but it is already Boxing Day here. Didn’t get a Christmas day post up because I was out being a surfin’ bum- quite literally. Many thanks to Laura for the surf lesson.

Trying not to be knocked over- not a skill I've needed yet.

One day I will stand up!

In The Vines

Thought it time to do a follow up on our second WWOOFing experience. Resisting the urge to string together five or ten glowing adjectives. Splendid about covers our  10 days working in the vines at Brodie Estate, a small vineyard in Martinborough. Allowing myself one more adjective, charming. That is about the couple who own and operate this vineyard. As James and Ann neared retirement age they decided a vineyard would be interesting. I agree. They make award winning pinot noir. Splendid as.