More visitors

This week I had several visitors. I had Nana, who saw our house for the first time, though she seems more familiar with my local area than Michael and I. I also had G.

Its been bit of a big few weeks really. Nana came to visit and has been staying with friends in Ipswich. I met her friends on her second day and they came for dinner at the hotel. I took Nan home that afternoon and we spent the afternoon watching the cows. She was overwhelmed to be in such a peaceful place, and I dont think she's ever come so close to a cow in her life.

We surmised whether the 'tank on legs' was pregnant or just fat. It seems a long time since all the other cows had calves.

When I brought it up with Peter, the Farmer the other day, I said "Our cows are terribly noisy at the moment." "Really?" (in typical Peter monotone). " Yes," I said, "I think there are a few pregnant ones"
"I should hope so, " he said "I hope there are about 400 pregnant ones."
"Oh," I said, (ignoring the fact that the 'tank on legs' is really obviously really pregnant). "How long are they pregnant for?"
"10 months" he said.

Hmm, if this is true then these poor 'housemates' of ours have one on the boob and another on the way. Poor single mothers. Our whole paddock must be a big single cow mothers support group.


The second visitor I had was G. We had had, as I said, a pretty hard week.

I decided it was time for a wine night at home. Our house is bit of an adventure for our friends. At first, we established the precedent by having the padlock on the gate, which meant that every visitor had to be let in and then locked out again. After the rains in Feb March and our padlocks (both of them - we are double locked due to the energy company who needs to read our meter) the padlocks both rusted. After that we no longer bothered, but friends still did not come. We stopped having events after G rolled the work 4WD car on our road after a BBQ dinner at our house in November.

Any way, G decided to come out and I had prepared dinner for us both. She was going to drive her car out, which was a major event as the $60000 car 'does not go off road'.

I was standing in the kitchen making spag bol while I wondered how she would get up the driveway in the dark as she had mentioned she would park at the gate and walk in. I kept thinking of the huge herd of cows that had been sitting in front of the house when I got home (like little dark islands with shiny eyes) and the poop that they has been created in the 3-4 weeks since we've had them back. I thought about G's nice shoes and the darkness and the poop. I did the right thing and picked her up from the gate in the car.

Its something I've never had to consider before - usually I just wash up or vaccum the couch or make sure there are no undies on the bathroom floor. I've never had to do 'gate transfers' before - as if we live on a grande estate with large luxurious gates.

Dinner went well by the way. I have not cooked for anyone else in such a long time that I had stage fright about spaghetti. It was topped off by a great bottle of Coriole Shiraz that our group GM insisted we try again because he did not like it very much and thought it mifght have something wrong with it. Ahh, the things we do for work.

A visitor

Tonight I was about to leave work and one of the waitstaff came and and said "you have to come and see this snake." Its about 10 degrees right now and its been fairly chilly most of the day, mostly overcast, not at all appealing weather for snakes. So I went out not believing there would actually be a snake, and we come across this whopper in the middle of the driveway, just having a cruisy lay about in the dark. The only reason he was found is because the waitstaff almost ran over him in their golf buggy. One of our conference guests actually decided to pick it up so he could show his friends. It was the guy standing behind's birthday and he is from Ireland or somewhere and he had never come across one of these before. I certainly had never seen one this big in the wild. Just after this picture was taken they decided to take it into the lounge so they could show everyone else. I left before the hysteria started.

When knowledge becomes habit

Late Spring skies over the Yarra Valley in 2007 during my semester research project in NMIT vineyards.

I've started revising this week, all the things I learnt in my course in Canada. Most of the stuff in my assessment will be things I covered 5 years ago in those courses I did, the big sacrifice of my 'work holiday' fun time. I remember how much I studied.
I had every night at work, standing at the front desk after check in was done, and I would type up my notes. Then I studied evey morning when I woke up and of course I dated a guy who was in my course and we were obsessed by wine and would spend hours in wine stores in Banff looking at the labels. I had things stuck on the walls all over my room and would write down the 7 Grand Cru of Chablis in my bored moments, in case I had somehow forgotten them.

I am getting a little scared. I have about 2.5 months to refresh everything I learnt over 18 weeks and then all the stuff in my 3 years of degree studies (yes they do ask viti and vini questions).

When I was studying earlier this week, I noticed how much stuff has become integrated in my general knowledge, that is, it has become part of things I take for granted.

An example, one of the the things on my flash cards said "site selection - flat compared to hills". The answer I gave now (in my head) was - it just isn't as good because..., I know that, everyone knows that. I just knew that there are places and sites that just wont work. I used to drive around, on the way to uni and look at the paddocks on either side and decide where I would plant a vineyard if I owned that land. 5 years ago my answer would have been very precise and rote: chance of bad drainage, higher fertility soil, basically great for vegies, not for wine vines. These days I just know that stuff and if pressed for an answer I would struggle, even though I know that stuff. It has just become way more instinctive.

In a way this is much harder, because there is no tutor, there is no weekly tasting, there is no support network or living a life filled with people on the same wavelength. My knowledge has gone underground - it is there, but to put it into words is much harder because it is part of the way I think now, but on the other hand I am reassured that the knowledge is in there and it is no longer just theory on page or concepts that I can spell let alone see.

The funny thing is that I learnt all the French terms for wine making, years ago, just like I learnt to climb in French Canadian. Now, to think in English about these things is still quite foreign.

The absolute scary part is remembering all the names of things I cannot afford to drink (most things). However I am expected to know by rote all the chateau of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Growths of Medoc, the other major Chateau of Bordeaux (fair enough), all of the Grand Cru of Burgundy, the regions of Italy (who on earth can comprehend Italy's wine regions?), the Grand Cru of Chablis (easy) the Cru of Beaujolais (easy), the major grapes of Spain, Portugal (tricky, as lots of common grapes but with names 10 miles long that often mean the same variety). Its hard. But now I am freaking out. I'm sure its like riding a bike The good news is the rep from Fine Wine Partners said I can open anything reasonably priced (ie under 100 bucks, given that they supply our Hill of Grace, I am lucky). for free, for practice, if I provide a tutored taste to our staff when I open it. Nice work.

What a long day

What a long day it has been. My sister had the hide to ask me how my long weekend has been. Long weekends just mean two sets of 'Sundays', its a little like Groundhog Day.

As we know it is the Queen's birthday. It irks me that the queen gets to 'celebrate' her birthday so close to mine every year, and I have to work because it is always a long weekend, and it is not even the actual real birthday of the queen. Everyone else seems to love to celebrate for her.

Anyway, enough whinging. What has happened on this very long day?

I woke at six to put bored kitties outside and get ready for work. For the second day this winter I had to get out the watering can to get rid of the ice on my windscreen. I covered front desk as our FOM is off sick (everyone seems to get sick on Fridays over a long weekend and get better on Tuesdays). I spent 4 hours catching up on yesterday's work that I didn't get done from covering sick people. I then did an impromptu wedding site (as always, QLD'ers have never heard of appointments, or day light saving....). I then spent a few hours helping F & B catch up, as they had been slammed with people revelling in the queen's birthday with traditional gifts of abuse, love for themselves and hope for no one on earth as long as they breathe. I then checked in a group of people who we had no names for or much sense out of, but who promptly found their rooms, plugged in foreign electronic devices and sent 9 rooms into total darkness (thanks). They then had an arguement with poor timid waitstaff about a campfire that they wanted to steal from another family (OMG.....!). I then had the kitchen boys bitch at me because we ended up with 12 less a la carte than they had prepared for (a huge sigh of relief for the waitstaff who had made 6 beds for me just before dinner service). I walked down to the staff carpark in darkness because I lent my torch to some guest during the blackout and they disappeared (into the darkness) with it.

I went home very happy to have the day over, and so was kitty as she got to come in out of the cold and sleep in this very comfy possie on the couch. I personally have always wanted to sleep there but I am too large.

For dinner I had excellent semi frozen Latina ravioli with some mini roma tomatoes, fetta, proscuitto and some left over BBQ chicken. Quickly followed up / accompanied by half a bottle of 2006 Shiraz from WA.

For anyone that does not know I am sitting for my certified sommelier exam in August and am therefore allowed to have as much practice as it takes. Especially on a very long day like today.

This week in the country

Last week on our day off we had breakfast at Forest Hill (thank you lady). My usual favourite dish of pancakes, bacon, maple syrup, cream and poached eggs. Yes, eggs. On the way back, we saw the view across the valley (for the 70 thousanth time) and yet again I tried to capture the big open space of the valley and the flat flat land. The sunflower paddock on this corner was almost wiped out by all the rain, but it was still a beautiful sight amongst the other crops. Everyone around grows different things and often its hard to identify whats in the paddock. Michael and I always like to surmise what it is growing and often dont find out till we see them harvesting it months later.

We went out to breakfast to fortify ourselves for the big move. I have been planning to sort out the study for weeks. The last time I tried, I went to move my scrapbooking table and it took a slow crash tumble to the floor, having a loosely locked leg. I left everything and walked out the door and did not go back for a week. I really wanted to change the space and we decided to go dramatic and move the whole room out and switch it with the spare bedroom. Kitty and Charlotte were very confused when they were finally allowed back inside.

It only took about half an hour to move everything. But it took 3 hours to clean it up into some type of order. The spare bed is now in the sunniest room of the house, perfect for winter visitors. If I had to leave Michael (ie if we had a fight and I had to move out) I would claim the spare room, it warms up all afternoon and is still pleasant at night.

One of the worst things about working long hours in winter is that I rarely see the sun. I see it going up or coming down, but mostly miss it altogether. Recently the angle of the sun setting has thrown the pink sunset light into my office and I rush outside to take photos. Here is one of my favourites recently. It is the sunset over the horse paddock with the 'Gone with the Wind' tree in the foreground.

It was my birthday this week. These are my very expensive new red birthday shoes. Martin keeps telling me 'theres no place like home, theres no place like home.' They are really very comfy shoes and I look forward to wearing them in Paris.

Michael made an executive decision to bring home one of the old side boards from work that they removed this week. He loaded it into the back of my car, and by the time he got home later that night I had changed the kitchen around and now we have a kitchen table and more prep space.

This is me and Michael on my birthday. I have a weird chin because he pulled on my hat as I took the picture. After my crap day, we enjoyed a great night at home in front of the fire, with Yahtzee, a cheese platter and Nasi Goreng. We also watched one of my new Jane Austen BBC DVD's that he bought me for my birthday, brave boy.

Kitty wars continue in our house. However on my birthday night, Kitty sat back and watched crazy Charlotte wrap herself up in our net laundry basket. It entertained her for an hour. I bet she was thinking 'yep, a few months ago, I was a young'n like you and I used to do that too. Silly habit really.'

Today I achieved notoriety at work, when I walked out of a wedding expo that we were supposed to exhibit at because we weren't given the booth that we had been sold. Well, they sold it to us but they didn't explain it the way we found it. Who ever heard of a stall that is smaller at the front than at the back? We had a 1 m frontage on the front porch of an old Queenslander. It was a joke really and I packed us up and moved us out just before it was due to open. The floor coordinator was even ashamed to be associated with it when I went to complain (and I was not the first). By the time lunch was over at work, word had got around that I had told the organiser to 'jam it up her ass'. Word travels fast in a small place, I only wish I'd had the courage to actually say that.