Co-in-ki-dinks

How about this?

Yesterday I met a couple of colleagues from work and took them down to Rancho Relaxo. (PLEASE help me with another name for it!). They were suitably impressed but differed from my assessment of 'million dollar views' as they amended it to 'multi-million dollar views.'

After that we 'repaired' (what is it with upper-class, mid-20th Century English idioms?) to Fernside to feed the lambs as one of the work-colleagues (The Blonde described in the ... and food! blog much earlier) had her 9-year old (very calm and 'collected') and two-and-a-half year old ('total train-wreck') with her.


So, happy photos on the 'Lothlorien' Lake and bridge in the Fernside grounds and all was good.


Then they drove back to Wellington and I joined Bill and Toni in visiting a couple of friends in Martinborough. He's a winemaker and she is a terrific cook; they have just finished a new house where they plan to have paying guests. I was interested in the building material they'd used, Hebel, which is an aerated, lightweight concrete, so lots of options and lots of insulation. Their interior design, style and 'taste' is spot-on so I invited Lois to be my interior decoration advisor. Fortunately she agreed and more fortunately she will do it for fun.

Stephen is looking at putting together a definitive collection of malt whiskies and asked me to do some research for him. We chatted over a stunning Chardonnay then he opened a bottle of Michel Couvreur malt which is 'produced in Burgundy! WHAT is that about? Scotch Malt whisky produced in France?

It's a fascinating story but there's a twist; the first bottle we opened (yes, the first!) was labeled 'Meldrum House, Old Meldrum'. All the web reviews I've looked at say Couvreur does not reveal the origin of his whisky on his bottles, 'distillery not identified', but these bottles were very clear; Old Meldrum. Now there's only one distillery in the village so it's a no-brainer. Old Meldrum (although Google prefers Oldmeldrum) is the small village (pop. ~ 2,000) about 15 miles NW of Aberdeen, Scotland where your great, great, grandfather on my side of the family was the 'Cooper', ie, he constructed the barrels to hold the maturing whisky, at the Glen Garioch distillery. So that's co-in-ki-dink number one.

Second one
At Fernside Bill and Toni's place, I have two bottles of Glen Garioch (pronounced Glen Geerey). Top of my head, I can't remember the age but they are 'special stuff', aged and numbered bottles and are reserved for Tom and Elliot as 'family heirlooms - didn't think Hannah would be a whisky connoisseur. They are stored in a cabinet owned by the originator of Dry River Wines, Neil McCallum, (remember DR from last week's post?), so far, so good. But here's the next co-in-ki-dink; Neil used to employ an apprentice winemaker called Andrew Smith. Andrew is Hammy's youngest son and your Mum used to baby-sit him! He then moved to California and is doing pretty OK for himself - at the recent dinner hosted by George 'Dubyah' for The Queen (not the real one, Helen Mirren, but the one who lives in Buck House) they drank DuMol Chardonnay 2004 Isobel named for Kirsty Isobel Smith; that's a pretty 'out there' CV.

Third one
Next, we returned to Fernside and ate the usual glorious meal, produced by Toni and accompanied by the usual adequate amounts of wine. During the meal Bill had a call from a friend who used to be the Mayor of Wellington and has a weekend cottage in Martinborough (a few miles from Fernside and Rancho Relaxo); remember the Rolling Stones concert last year (the best concert I've EVER attended)? Well, the road into the stadium is named after her, 'Fran Wilde Way'; that's not a bad CV either. She was in Wellington and had left something in the Martinborough house which she needed. So we broke into the house (with precise instructions from Fran) and liberated the said item which I then drove to Wellington this morning. As I was getting near to town I phoned Fran to get directions. When she gave me them I drove straight to her place, knocked on the door and, pointing to the nearest high-rise block, said, 'See the penthouse up there? that's my place!' I couldn't believe I could literally drop something on their pad from my pad!

Small world; New Zealand is a village.