Back and Forth

Welly to Blenheim
My trip on the ferry back ‘home’ was great again, although cold. When I finally arrived back in Blenheim after my ‘holiday’ in Wellington, luckily I had some nice ‘events’ to look forward to.

Blenheim
The same evening I played indoor soccer with the classmates (most of them half my age), but fortunately I scored a goal, yes, grandma is still a little bit in shape. But I did not play a lot during the game, because I thought it would be better to leave most of the time to the youngsters.

I had a nice meeting with a journalist from The Netherlands and his girlfriend who are having a trip of half a year around New Zealand while they try to work a bit at the same time as well. They met me in the school winery and from there we went into town and out to a winery to do some wine tasting. After some pictures they headed back to their hostel at the end of the afternoon. It was a very pleasant – nearly day long - meeting and I will let you know about the details of the publication as soon as I know this myself.

The next Sunday I decided to go to the gym in the early morning. So, at 8 am I was not even the first one in, but later we were with 10 enthusiasts – all of us women – is that a coincidence, or does this mean something? Whoever knows, please tell me.

On Monday it was back into the classroom again and it was easy to get back into the ‘routine’. We will have a few busy weeks ahead of us with a lot of assignments – an exam week and after that some time out in the field to do pruning. This seems to be one of the most physically hard jobs in the vineyard and not at the least because the work needs to be done in the middle of winter. We have to be prepared and started to do exercises (we are supposed to do the exercises).

Bio-dynamic vineyard

I also went to Seresin again, this time to spray one of the Bio Dynamic preparations on the vineyard. First of all the BD Preparation 500 (this preparation – horn manure – is made from cow manure (fermented in a cow horn that is buried in the soil for six months through autumn and winter) and is used as a soil spray to stimulate root growth and humus formation) needed to be dynamised, which mainly means stirring. After that I went with Wendy, the bio-dynamic ‘guru’ on the vineyard, on the ‘mule’ to spray the diluted BD 500 on a few hectares of the vineyard. So, I got the opportunity to see the different vines, pruning systems and layout of the vineyard. All in all again very educational and the knowledge I gain here I could not gain during the course. The course only focuses on the conservative way of grape growing, being the use of chemical fertilizers and herbicides etc.

Wellington
Since the Hurricanes (the Wellington region Rugby team) had an important game to play in the competition I treated myself on a surprise trip to Wellington again to cheer them to a victory!! Marco and I did that together with John & Mickey (the journalists) with great result. Go the Canes!! They won with 21 – 10 and are still in the race for the final, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTLYdIknFGQ., time for a few beers in the pub to celebrate this victory together with Marco’s flatmates. The next Hurricanes’ game is in Auckland – very tempting, but since I am a poor student, I have to stay in Blenheim this time.

Apart from the great rugby match, I could help ‘warm’ a friends’ house where we had another few beers and wines. With regards to the alcohol consumption I start to get integrated very well(?).

Blenheim
The wind and rain in Wellington was a great experience as well! So good to be back in sunny Blenheim! On the Monday it was a day of assignment writing again and I finished three of these. Now we are really gearing up for the last ‘full on’ weeks before we are going to play outside in the vineyard.

Cheers,
Anita