We all saw it coming but this lockdown been the hardest of all of them and to be brutally honest I’m over it. This is the first time Barry and I have been in a lockdown on our own. Last year we had family and team members with us, this year it is just us and the dogs, who are more than happy with the attention and taking rabbit patrol very very seriously.
Every morning Barry tucks himself into Cab Sav (Cottage not bottle of) to get on with his day job and I get on with the lists of jobs around the cottages. Spring is definitely in the air, with blossoms on the fruit trees and the glorious forest pansies bursting into the radiant, regal purple leaves. The Tui and Kereru are racing around the driveway loving the emptiness and apart from the odd truck going past, it’s a very quiet time at Vineyard Cottages
Over the last three weeks we have done our very best to jiggle and juggle accommodation and wedding dates around for our lovely brides and grooms. One couple were on their fifth attempt at getting married. It’s hard enough organising one wedding let alone wrangling people together for a fifth time.
I spent the first week of lockdown 5 chopping more wood. It’s thoroughly therapeutic and will keep us well stocked for next winter. We had the septic filter system replaced last month and the new tanks are ghastly garish concrete. In a stoke of genius ‘!’ I topped them off with slices of wood and after a huge overnight downpour by the following morning the wood oils had run over the concrete creating a stunning natural stain blending it all together.
Lemons are plentiful on all the trees, so I have been making lots and lots of cake. I have also eaten a fair amount of said cake, so it’s back to pulping, zesting and fermenting so we have stacks of citrus for the summer months. One of the easiest lemon cakes I know is here for you to have a play with. I added poppy seeds but they aren’t a necessity. This is lovely with a drizzle of lemon curd and some thick plain yoghurt.
The vineyard is beginning to crawl back into life with bud burst on the white varietals. Bud burst is an important time in the vineyard as it allows us to predict other critical events such as flowering and harvest. By tracking these occasions year on year we have more of an understanding of what will happen to the vines and when. Speaking of the vines, we had a try of our first attempt at the VC Rose – mmmmm, we won’t be entering it into the AirNZ wine awards anytime soon but it was’t totally unpalatable! We’ve decided to add strawberries and vodka and make frozé if it doesn’t improve!
Last week we were battered by the storm that hit the North West Region. After spending an hour on the Monday night digging trenches around the place to divert the water pouring from the skies, when I woke up on Tuesday morning at 4:30am the nose from the gulley was louder than waves crashing on Muriwai Beach. I jumped online to discover the catastrophe that was happening around the region was very very real. Our neighbour lost his flock of new lambs, people were wading around in waist high water trying to salvage what they could and three ponies had to be rescued from the second storey of a house.
Apart from the garage being flooded, we were incredibly lucky that the water ploughed its way noisily through the gully for the rest of the day. SH16 to Helensville was impassable, Kumeu and Huapai were impossible to get and out of and the only supermarket in our area had water inching towards the door. By Wednesday it had nearly all disappeared again. I remember the damage flood water does. We were flooded when I was a youngster in the uk and I’ll never forget the smell. It lingered for weeks. A huge thank you to all the emergency services who worked tirelessly through the night to save and help as many people as they could.
Over the next week we’ll get the vegetable garden planted for summer produce and the seeds for the summer hanging baskets are growing away in our spare room . While it feels miles away at the moment summer is just around the corner and we’re looking forward to opening the lodge up for our long lunches and high teas. Our honey is about to be harvested and jarred so we’ll have that for sale on our little online shop. The fabulous team at Earthbound Honey do a brilliant job running the hives up in the vineyard and the honey is delicious! We also have some delicious olive oil coming very shortly which I’m very tempted to call Lockdown 5!
Looking forward to seeing you all very very very soon!
