Funny Old World

Not a lot has been happening this week. That's probably not true because, given the scope and complexity of the world I'll bet there's the same amount of stuff happens every week, it's just that I haven't noticed it.

Wellington's a strange place; this morning the wind and rain were, quite simply, horrendous. I hate the place when it's like that. Other days it can be glorious. However, strangeness presents itself in rather strange ways; take last night's sunset for example.

If you stood in the centre of the earth facing north the earth would appear to turn clockwise (that's 'centre' as in the supposedly molton iron core thingy) so, when you're on the surface the Sun 'appears' to rise in the East. I say 'appears' in two senses because it doesn't actually 'rise' it's just that the earth turns towards it. However, the result, as I've shown before, is magnificant sunrises and they're quite common; here's some I made earlier.

So far, so good. The clockwise revolution of the earth means the Sun 'sets' in the West and you get stunning sunsets, for instance, in Vancouver. I have an incredible shot of one taken across the fields at ADPH which I must scan one day. I have no idea where the original is but I have a blow-up about 24in x 16in which I'll frame when RR gets built.










There's a large hill behind this apartment block so I don't get to see the sunsets but last night I took these photos:

So what, I hear you say? They're not as spectacular as the other pictures. But, wait, there's more! These were taken facing EAST! ... and they were taken at around 6 pm. It's a sunSET. Weird.








... and this is the same view now!

High Tide Heels

Following on from my reference to one of The Blondes' FM boots the other day (note the apostrophe; that's the FM boots of one of The Blondes, not a single FM boot owned by The Blonde), I couldn't resist posting this to both this site and the goLD Go Long Distance site for the animal lane people in Kiwi-land.

Wouldn't they be useful? Wouldn't they be awesome at swim meets?

Vote for Christmas

Two things from Timed Finals and the BBC news website connected in my head this week. The first was about Sharon Davies - former Big Breakfast presenter in the UK. She 'won' a silver medal at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow behind Petra Sneider from the DDR who has since admitted doping so Sharon, legitimately, should have been the gold medalist. She then took a 9-year break and decided to get back into the swing of things. At the 1989 European Championships she swam faster than she did in 1980! That's a pretty impressive result, even though Dara Torres looks like re-writing the possibility equations.



















Sharon was a very high-maintenance (aka, difficult to deal with) swimmer. When we were going through the Trials for the Europeans we would have a staff meeting each evening to review the qualifiers from that day. The first thing on the agenda each evening was, 'Has 'she' qualified?' and 'Who is going to deal with her?' The night she qualified there was an aura of fear around the table. 'Give her to me,' I said, 'She's fine.' And she was; the most skilled and professional swimmer I had ever encountered; I count her as a friend and I know she's been though some pretty harrowing times. I think she does her 'image' no good at all with the pin-up photos but I guess she knows what she's doing as she's survived in the pretty hard world of media exposure.

So, the two things; first an item saying Sharon had signed up as a turkey! I think Bernard Matthews' company and product have come under some criticism from Gordon Ramsey on 'The F-Word' and Sharon has to make them look all fluffy, cosy and tasty again. Bootiful.










... and then another item saying a turkey had used bad language in Parliament. Well, that's what I thought it said and I connected the two stories and thought Sharon had transmogrified, donned her team mascot uniform and toddled off to Westminister to let rip with her opinion in words which offended the Right Honorable members.

Hilary eat your heart out.

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.