My last day in Auckland already. Time flies! Having a wonderful stay with the most amazing hosts. Brien and Lynn, whom I met in '98, have gone out of their way to give me a great time. Island trip, Parnell, Mission Bay, fancy supermarket (I am a foreign supermarket junkie), nice food all the time, just fantastic. Oh, and I should mention the wine. These people can drink! Great chance for me to try loads of beautiful kiwi wines.
Showing posts with label wine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wine. Show all posts
Friday, 6 January 2012
Monday, 2 January 2012
Victoria for the win!
A quick lazy post before I go to New Zealand tomorrow. Victoria has been good to me! I stayed with friends in Carlton North and West Melbourne, made a trip to the Yarra Valley with Em and spent two wonderful days on my mate's ranch in the Mornington Peninsula. I've been to heaps of wineries and drank some great coffees! Boxing Day test was fun, even more so when we won. And I bought two pairs of shoes today (oops...).
Can't upload pics directly from my iPad but there are a few more on Flickr.
Saturday, 26 June 2010
Happiness is...
...visiting friends in Barcelona
...watching Ned-Esp by yourself in a Spanish cafe
...watching Ned-Cam with a friend in a London pub
...summer in London
...hearing your name on way home from pub
...staying for that one too many pint
...being busy at work and building relationships
...the football craze
...facebook chats between four dear friends in three different countries
...rocket, mozzarella and blushed tomatoes
...wine and cheese
And when all these things come together in a week and a bit, life is just ever so good.
...watching Ned-Esp by yourself in a Spanish cafe
...watching Ned-Cam with a friend in a London pub
...summer in London
...hearing your name on way home from pub
...staying for that one too many pint
...being busy at work and building relationships
...the football craze
...facebook chats between four dear friends in three different countries
...rocket, mozzarella and blushed tomatoes
...wine and cheese
And when all these things come together in a week and a bit, life is just ever so good.
Saturday, 21 November 2009
Wine, anyone?
Three Eaglevlei Viognier 2009, of which only six barrels were produced.
Two Eaglevlei Cap Sauv 2007
Two Eaglevlei Muscat d'Alexandrie 2008
One Tokara Chardonnay
One Ken Forrester T 2007
One De Trafford Cabernet Franc 2008
No wonder I had five pieces of luggage coming home. But all the wine survived the travel. Very chuffed.
Now I need to pop down to the concierge where my 12 bottles of Hartenberg wine were delivered yesterday. Man, I sound like a dipso...
Two Eaglevlei Cap Sauv 2007
Two Eaglevlei Muscat d'Alexandrie 2008
One Tokara Chardonnay
One Ken Forrester T 2007
One De Trafford Cabernet Franc 2008
No wonder I had five pieces of luggage coming home. But all the wine survived the travel. Very chuffed.
Now I need to pop down to the concierge where my 12 bottles of Hartenberg wine were delivered yesterday. Man, I sound like a dipso...
Sunday, 15 November 2009
Boot full of wine...
...and this excludes the stuff that's being sent to our homes. An amazing day in Stellenbosch ended in the manager of Eaglevlei coming over to thank us for our purchases and walk us to our cars with the bottles. The mission for today is to buy extra luggage.
Sunday, 8 November 2009
Back in CT
Sitting in an internet cafe, feeling remarkably well. The former as there is no internet connection in my apartment (that is pretty crap altogether so trying to move to hotel asap), the latter as the weekend has been fairly alcoholic so far.
The week had been tough, really tough. Work wise that is. So Nick and I decided to visit the Whiskey Festival in the CTICC (their RAI). Tasting tasting tasting until we were both whiskeyed out.
Then yesterday Patricia and I decided to go to Stellenbosch for wine tasting. After one boutique winery (an amazing one that took us forever to get to via dodgy dirt roads), it was time for lunch. The Lonely Planet had recommended a resto called 96 Winery Road so off we went to...indeed....Winery Road. They had a six course lunch on offer with wines. Trish was the DD but I had the wines. Didn't drink all of them, but defo half. And the food portions were small (they better be with six courses). Anyhow....it was 3.45pm by the time we were done. Enough time to visit Vergelegen, the reason we went to Stellenbosch to begin with. But it started raining. Pouring. And it was nowhere near as close as the map suggested. So plans canned. New try next week.
Just when I was sobered up again it was time to meet some colleagues in a wine bar down town. Our new director is a local, and it was very sweet of him to abandon his family for a Saturday night and come out with us. G&T to kick off with, more wine, some tapas, a cheese platter, desert wine. And back to the Westin's cigar lounge for a whiskey. In bed by 1.15am and as I said, slightly surprised I feel so good.
Tomorrow my team will be complete for the first time so hopefully work will get a bit better. Hopefully the weather will get better too, this is a pretty poor effort by the Capetonian weather gods.
The week had been tough, really tough. Work wise that is. So Nick and I decided to visit the Whiskey Festival in the CTICC (their RAI). Tasting tasting tasting until we were both whiskeyed out.
Then yesterday Patricia and I decided to go to Stellenbosch for wine tasting. After one boutique winery (an amazing one that took us forever to get to via dodgy dirt roads), it was time for lunch. The Lonely Planet had recommended a resto called 96 Winery Road so off we went to...indeed....Winery Road. They had a six course lunch on offer with wines. Trish was the DD but I had the wines. Didn't drink all of them, but defo half. And the food portions were small (they better be with six courses). Anyhow....it was 3.45pm by the time we were done. Enough time to visit Vergelegen, the reason we went to Stellenbosch to begin with. But it started raining. Pouring. And it was nowhere near as close as the map suggested. So plans canned. New try next week.
Just when I was sobered up again it was time to meet some colleagues in a wine bar down town. Our new director is a local, and it was very sweet of him to abandon his family for a Saturday night and come out with us. G&T to kick off with, more wine, some tapas, a cheese platter, desert wine. And back to the Westin's cigar lounge for a whiskey. In bed by 1.15am and as I said, slightly surprised I feel so good.
Tomorrow my team will be complete for the first time so hopefully work will get a bit better. Hopefully the weather will get better too, this is a pretty poor effort by the Capetonian weather gods.
Sunday, 18 October 2009
Food heaven
A three course lunch menu at one of the 50 best resto's in the world, for 20 quid. Or so I thought. But there must have been some sort of small print that I missed. Had I read it, it would have informed me of the fact that the deal is Mon-Thu only. Luckily, my company consisted of four foodies and an easy going guy happy to discover the finer things in life with us.
So off the normal menu we ate. And we ate well. We ate ridiculously well. We ate the best food any of us had had in a long time. Half my starter was rabbit with some chicken liver and other stuff, wrapped in black something ham (forgive me my lack of details, we also had some wine). The other half was scallop wrapped in said ham. The joys of sharing (gosh I wonder why we fall ill one after another). As a main I had lamb with some tomato chickpea courgette type ratatouille and a beautiful potatoey dish. The food porn is on the other girls' cameras so I can't show any dishes, but trust me... they looked to die for and so they were. Choosing deserts turned out to be almost impossible so we ordered the whole menu (four of them) to share. Lemoncake, chocolate ganache, an eton mess type dish and cashew creme. All with little bits and bobs that kept us very quiet for quite a while.
Needless to say the expense allowance the client gave us doesn't cover these type of lunches so it'll probably be the Cape Town equivalent of beans on toast the rest of the week. But it was so worth it.
The photo at the top left I took on the way to the wine shop on the estate. Bought a bottle or port that I am dying to open in London. The last time I had saffa port was in 1997. I won't easily forget Madelon and I, sitting by the fire a friendly Zimbabwean made for us, dining on raw carrots and beautiful port. Not many drinks bring up fonder memories.
So off the normal menu we ate. And we ate well. We ate ridiculously well. We ate the best food any of us had had in a long time. Half my starter was rabbit with some chicken liver and other stuff, wrapped in black something ham (forgive me my lack of details, we also had some wine). The other half was scallop wrapped in said ham. The joys of sharing (gosh I wonder why we fall ill one after another). As a main I had lamb with some tomato chickpea courgette type ratatouille and a beautiful potatoey dish. The food porn is on the other girls' cameras so I can't show any dishes, but trust me... they looked to die for and so they were. Choosing deserts turned out to be almost impossible so we ordered the whole menu (four of them) to share. Lemoncake, chocolate ganache, an eton mess type dish and cashew creme. All with little bits and bobs that kept us very quiet for quite a while.
Needless to say the expense allowance the client gave us doesn't cover these type of lunches so it'll probably be the Cape Town equivalent of beans on toast the rest of the week. But it was so worth it.
The photo at the top left I took on the way to the wine shop on the estate. Bought a bottle or port that I am dying to open in London. The last time I had saffa port was in 1997. I won't easily forget Madelon and I, sitting by the fire a friendly Zimbabwean made for us, dining on raw carrots and beautiful port. Not many drinks bring up fonder memories.
Saturday, 9 May 2009
CLM*
Last week had been a bit of an ego boost. A workfriend mentioned how she often hears the phrase 'we need a Saskia' when people are staffing projects and I received - out of the blue - an email from the commercial director of my previous employer stating I was "the one and only finance mgr @UD that knew what she was doing". I am not sure what to make of this man, but a compliment is a compliment. So I had a glass of wine. And another. And I got overconfident. And had another glass. With colleagues, at the wine bar down the road. On a brekkie of fruit and a bagel and a soup for lunch, this is asking for trouble. And despite knowing better, I said 'yes' when my director asked if I wanted to go for dinner with him and a Scottish director I worked with on a previous project. Friday morning at 4am I woke up. Wondering a) what I'd had for dinner, b) if I left when the other two did, c) if I owed anyone any money for the dinner and d) if I'd said or done anything embarassing, which is quite likely considering the state I was in. On four or five glasses of wine, would you believe it. My timing was immaculate - Friday morning the final moderation meeting took place... Ah well, I am not up for promotion and salaries have been frozen anyway. The funniest thing? This morning I had a text from a male colleague. Asking if I could tell him if he'd done anything embarassing. He had no recollection of the night, other than ending up 50 miles from where he lives (which is two hours south of London). At least I got home on the tube without any further probs!
*career limiting movement
*career limiting movement
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