Football

The end of a long day

Well this is a bit late but…congratulations to the All Whites! The New Zealand football team qualified for the World Cup by beating Bahrain on a magical night in the Capital City (of course I wasn’t here to watch it, no I was watching it in a bar which didn’t serve red wine, and when going for a quick wee in the mens room you could still hold a conversation with someone in the beer garden as they hadn’t bothered with windows). Anyway, White is now officially the new Black in New Zealand and football is probably at the height of it’s popularity since New Zealand last qualified in 1982. My favourite moment of the game came after substitute Chris Wood came onto the pitch and an over excited New Zealand commentator roared “There is a gaping hole for Wood to enter” (immature again I know, sorry mum). So congratulations again to the All Whites and their supporters, although just a word of advice to the one supporter in the stadium who took the flag with him to the game with the words “White Power” written on it, you may want to leave that behind if you are thinking of travelling to South Africa to watch any of the games.

How many have we tasted?

The reason we weren’t in Wellington for the game was that we were over in the wairarapa region of NZ to attend the Toast wine festival in Martinborough. Basically what happens is that the town of Martinborough is closed off and 10,000 people descend on it to walk (or take the complimentary bus) around 12 of its vineyards. The vineyards all put on entertainment and food concessions and basically try and fleece you for as much money as they can, while you slowly get merry on their home brew. The festival has a reputation for always being on a hot day and before we went to the event people at work were telling me they couldn’t remember a Toast festival that wasn’t held on a glorious sunny day, ‘magic, that will do for me’. Needless to say this year it was overcast and winds picked up to over 90kmh……Magic. The winds did provide a highlight however. We had just arrived at the Burnt Spur vineyard and entered the first marquee to purchase a glass of the good stuff and a breakfast pie when a gust of wind blew through and took the marquee off the ground and landed it back down on the same spot snapping the legs which were holding it up. A lot of the public came to the rescue and held the marquee up until the fire brigade could turn up and take it down safely. Rick and I however had just purchased our breakfast pies, so there was no way we holding anything up until we had finished those beauties.

I don't get it...a rainbow and it's not raining......More Wine?

I had intended here to pass onto you names of the wines I had particularly enjoyed from all the tasting I was doing. However…………it appears that I may have tasted too many and I now cannot remember which were good and which were not. So you will just have to come out here and try them for yourselves. At the end of the day though Shona was trying to save you all a lot of money by organising some kind of UK distribution deal with one of the vineyards, not sure if she can remember that though.
In other news, I am trying to deal with the embarrassment of not being able to finish last nights 5km run. I blame it on the fact that I have been suffering with man flu for the past 2 weeks and I am still feeling jaded. I always like using the word jaded rather than tired or exhausted, because it sounds almost more poetic, like world-weary. In reality of course I still just have ‘a bit of a sniffle’.

Anyway, today sees Gary Mayes and his kids arrive in Wellington and they will be staying with us, so I am off to tidy the house. Tomorrow we are flying down to Christchurch for 5 days in the South Island, where we will be boarding the Tranz Alpine express to Greymouth. This is supposed to be one of the best train journeys in the world, so I am charging the video camera up as I write. I feel a musical video coming on don’t you? Just need to find a cheesy song to do with trains and then we will be all set.

This weekend sees New Zealands biggest game of football for 27 years. The ‘All Whites’ so called because they play in all white are taking on the football powerhouse that is Bahrain in the second leg, winner takes all World Cup qualifier in Wellington. The game is a sell out, I can’t go though! Shona has booked a cottage in the countryside. Magic.

I am consoled by the fact that the New Zealand World cup song for this game is probably the worst football song I have ever heard. Here it is………I am actually embarrassed to live here because of this song. Enjoy.