Wine Wine Wine

3 weeks ago I enrolled on a wine course with the view of career progression and a better knowledge of the wine world. 3 days later I receive a book in the post and a letter welcoming me onto the course.

Being in the wine trade I thought this would all be pretty familiar stuff…….. I was quite wrong it turns out!!! The first 74 pages I had never read a single thing about and the rest, very in depth about the things I thought I knew. So I start reading away trying to understand the anatomy of a vine and how to clone them, the various ways of wine making and Terroir and the countries that produce wine. Now, bear in mind I haven’t really done any level of academic work since I left college to go to New Zealand so trying to remember all this was proving quite hard and I started to worry that I wouldn’t have sufficient knowledge to pass the exam at the end of the month thus resulting in embarrassment and shame. I call the course leader and get a reassuring response to my worries and how he’s had people who turn up on the course having never read the book in the first place. So I carry on reading and had a little break with some good friends up the Norfolk coast with a pub lunch.

Monday morning I turn up with a large coffee in me ready to learn!

I’m the first to arrive so this gave me the opportunity to have a chat and ask a few questions. It turns out that I’m not the only one to jump straight onto the level 3 (oh yeah, he said I could skip the level 2 due to my previous experience), a Chinese chap called Dong Wang, but we call him Andrew, hadn’t had any previous wine knowledge at all. He just came on the course for something to do during his Easter break, as you do. So this did make me feel a little better. The other two members had done the level 2, one a hospitality manager and the other a wine steward at a Cambridge college.
So we get to it covering tasting technique,  wine production and Bordeaux on the first day, then Burgundy, Alsace, southwest France, Loire, Rhone & southern France. It’s run very well with a slide show style presentation and open discussion on most points and tasting of a wine from the area so we can hone our palate and technique. I’m finding this way much easier to fill those gaps than reading on and on. Plus the lunch served is spot on.

Looking forward to next week, but until then it’s more note making and reading my book like a bible

Excuse the absence

Ok, so it seems my attempts to start blogging didn’t get off to a brilliant start.

Truth be told I’ve been away in Portugal which was just wonderful. We had a week in Faro as a little holiday before Elizabeth sets into her revision for her finals in a couple of months.

View from the top of the Cathedral 

Faro turned out smaller than we expected which worked out to be a good thing as we could walk around most of it with ease and with the hotel right in the centre, it was certainly convenient. As a very religious country there were lots of churches and a cathedral to look around to get your fill of culture. Although there is a chapel of bones which was quite strange!!!

The Chapel of Bones

But the best thing about the holiday was the food. Fish was the main choice most night when we dined out and we were not disappointed. A small restaurant that we had recommend called Antonio's turned out to be the best and after 2 visits we would recommend it to anyone. The sea bass was particularly good

Sea Bass rolled with Pancetta



As usual we were greeted back to Blighty with Rain….

Port, Hounds & Horses

One of the joys I have with my job is my interaction with the rural world I love.

The other day it was the return of the Local Hunt meet at which I supply the drinks of Ruby Port and Whisky. I always enjoy turning up and seeing the hounds in the back of the lorry poking their noses to get a whiff of the local scents on the air. Then when let out they get straight to business with nose to floor and looking about but the whipper in keep them in order. It was also great to see the turn out with over 60 following on horseback and several in cars.

The port went down well as ever and all hipflasks were filled for the day ahead.

 

 

Tally Ho!!

That dreaded thing

A lot of people ask how I manage I distance between us. Well truth be told I have good days and bad ones as you would expect. It’s never been an issue of “what is she up to” or “who is she with. No, it’s the missing her that I struggle with.

Now I may sound like a soppy old fool but when you plan on getting married to someone you naturally want to be with them a lot of the time. I'm in a long distance engagement and a long distance relationship is hard enough. I miss seeing her in the morning, I miss sitting on the sofa watching TV, I miss just being able to look in her eyes and tell her that I love her. However it’s not that I don’t speak to her as we chat on the phone pretty much every evening which is great. We talk about what we’ve been up to, what our friends have been up to, little ideas about our wedding and sometimes just random stuff. We have managed to keep this going for a good 14 months with me going to her or her coming home.

But recently this has been getting rather tedious and it’s have effect on our relationship. It’s a 3.5 commute on a boring long road which is only made better by Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter on audio book and the knowledge that we have a weekend together. Our time is so precious when we do see each other and something else has to be done on that time, we get a little grouchy with each other. We have a moan, then make up and then realise I have to go in an hour. But most of the time we make it count and go on a day trip or away for a weekend.

The good news is that this is soon coming to an end and she’ll be home and we get to start planning not only our wedding, but our future. So as I sit in my office writing this with a scone and tea I do have comfort in that this was only a short term thing and for the first time in 14 months I can see the end with the next chapter beginning to unfold.

The words of advice I give others seem so simple, but it does really make a difference.

• Talk daily even if it’s only for ten minutes and always have stuff to say. But don’t count the time spent on the phone as an indication of how good the relationship is, that’s done when you’re together.
• Don’t argue on the phone. It never ends well
• Plan your time so you don’t waste time trying to figure out what to do.
• Send a little surprise gift every now and again as it can really have a positive effect.
• But the most important thing is to be an open book. Tell them everything as the one thing that will keep you together and looking forward to the trip to the theatre is trust. If you don’t trust them, then you’re headed for disaster.

I’ll finish this with something my uncle told me

“All things really worth having in life never come easy”

Planning, Planning, Planning

So our wedding is booked for summer next year which leaves us about a good 18 months to plan our day. This may seem like a good amount of time but Elizabeth has her finals coming up in May-June, so she most certainly needs to concentrate on those.

However we have done a little planning, the big things mainly. To start with the ceremony venue was always very important to her. We had talked about it in the past leading up to our engagement so I knew it was always going to be Ely Cathedral. (What a place to get married!!!!) Fearing that places might be limited we gave them a call and after a quick chat about certain requirements that needed to be met we got a date pencilled in. Then came the various forms to fill in and we had to get a special wedding licence from London but it’s all been quite easy so far.

Then came the reception venue. This is where things started to cause problems due to budget, size and numbers. Currently we have about 259 people on our guest list which is fine as we both know all these people and she wants a big wedding with all the family & friends there, but not the cost that goes with running such an event. The logistics of this is huge and when I think about solutions to it, I normally get a no from Elizabeth. The reception will be at her parents’ house, a beautiful converted farm house with out buildings and about 12 acres. So the obvious choice would be a marquee of some sort so we can house all these people for the hog roast we have in mind. A nice summer garden party style, informal and relaxed as we want people to have a nice time.

So far I’ve had a good amount of involvement but it hasn’t been easy. As you might expect there are differences in opinions and we both want different things in the smaller details. But as a whole we are on the same page on the main aspects of the day.

I just hope it continues that way when we really start planning….

And so it begins

Right, so the first post is here and begins my blogging experience. I feel I’ve hashed together my profile page as I’ve not really had much experience with this kind of thing so it may chop and change as time goes by. I tried to add an about me page to give a little background about myself but I just can’t seem to figure it out and get it how I would like it. I may have to recruit a friend to help me out.

But this is a start for me log my thoughts about life, love and the things that make me happy.

We shall see how it goes…..