'Bout vines, an' wines, an' drucken Bacchus

I do so love a good sport and an extrovert. This is Maureen who helped us at a tasting at Doonkuna wines. She saw me take a photo of the beanie on a bottle of champagne we'd just tasted, and immediately whipped the hat off the bottle shoved it onto her head and posed for a photo.

A group of us hired a mini-van and did the Murrumbateman Moving Feast a couple of weeks ago. I lost count of the number of wineries (5?), plus the wine show tasting. It was a damp day, and cool without being cold - lovely for trundling around the countryside sipping wine and eating. Doonkuna was our first stop at about 10.15 - and this the first and last beanie completed. Another was begun and knitted on, but food and wine took precedence.

We ended up having a revolting cassoulet at Dionysus Wines for lunch but made up for it with a couple of desserts - dark chocolate cheesecake and lemon tart. Pick of the day was the lemon tart at the friendliest winery - Mackellar Ridge. They also had free brewed coffee for the designated drivers (like the Old Flame).

And this is pretty much my idea of heaven -I'm knitting in the wine cellar at the Helm Winery, and my Old Flame's nearby (he took the picture). The only thing missing is the fur children.

And gallant Sir Robert, deep-read in old wines

Ah, a weekend when our only responsibilities were the fur children - frankly much easier to tend than our human dependents and we can lock them outside when they get really annoying.

It was pretty cruisy. No knitting, but we did manage a trip to the Lifeline Bookfair (the Old Flame, although a keen reader and bargain hunter, was a Bookfair virgin), where I bought very, very little - four vintage patterns for the collection and three knitting books.


James Norbury's Traditional Knitting Patterns: from Scandinavia, the British Isles, France, Italy and Other European Countries - fantastic stitch dictionary. Too good to leave behind at $4.
I tried to resist This Woolcraft one but it was $3 and I was powerless against the siren call of the Alice Starmore's "Marina". There's other interesting patterns too - a Kaffe Fasset tapestry design and some Debbie Bliss deliciousness among others. See - gorgeous - had to have that chubby little baby!

I love the vibe at the Bookfair craft book tables. It's never cut-throat as I'm informed the Sci-Fi/Fantasy tables are. Like craft communities everywhere, there is generosity, good humour and helpfulness. This time there was a quilter, an embroiderer, a crocheter and a couple of knitters - we happily passed each other books - making recommendations, laughing at the eighties knits and generally having as good a time as you can without needles.

There was also a little cleaning out up at Mum's. A year of the Seven Things Challenge is good preparation for the sad task of clearing out Dad's stuff. It's still not easy, but I'm having no way near the hideous time my brother is. He'd like to keep our childhood home as a museum. With everyone's permission, we tackled a small portion of Under The House.

Dad had dug out Under The House, concreted it and put in electric light and power outlets. It became his workshop and family storage space. It is the size of half a decent sized three bedroom home and it's absolutely chokka. Dad rarely disposed of anything but at least he was pretty neat. OF and I dealt with the wine (my brother doesn't drink) and some of the toys, games, luggage and obvious "outs" such as the plastic meat trays, ice cream and yoghurt containers kept for seed propagation. I also reclaimed my drill bit set that Dad confiscated because they "were too good for a woman".

Here's the wine that (a) won't fit in my wine cupboard and (b) is probably a bit previous now and we'll be lucky to get 1 in 4 bottles worth drinking. Cheers, Dad.


I'm researching how to make red wine vinegar - does anyone have a gallon jug with a spigot and/or some vinegar mother?