New Year's Eve Shenanigans!

Tuesday 31 December

New Year’s Eve 2024 wasn’t quite what we’d hoped for! We woke to a somewhat restricted view from our bedroom windows, and a rather cloudy day.

First of all we woke up parked in a shed due to the leak we’d discovered the previous evening. Then instead of taking ourselves off on a cycling tour of the vineyards, Louis & Jeremy had 3 trips to the local Bunnings to get all the paraphernalia to fix the leaks (and get Maccas for breakfast!) before spending a few hours putting silicon round various places to prevent further water ingress - fingers crossed they found all the gaps. Harley found it all rather boring!

Mid-afternoon we set off on the bikes to visit some wineries - but it turned out we were a bit late as they either were fully booked or closed within the next couple of hours!

Still we got to Huia and Nautilus Wineries before cycling home to make dinner.

Huia is a fairly small local vineyard set back off Rapaura Road - I had loved their logo of two huia birds in silhouette as we'd driven past the sign for the vineyard a few times. Fortunately it was not too busy and we got a table for 4 and were greeted by AJ who was very bright & bubbly; he was diverted onto another table and we were then tended to by the new owner who was extremely nervous about doing all the tasting patter as he talked about their Blanc de Blanc bubbly! Fortunately we got AJ back for the chardonnay, sauv blanc, pinot and viognier and he gave us heaps of information about the science behind the various wines. Meanwhile the vineyard chooks kept us entertained, particularly the very vain cockerel with his Feathers McGraw headgear!

Louis was chatting online with cousin Nick for recommendations for the next winery to visit, but unfortunately many of those he liked were further out, so we headed to Framingham which looked lovely, but turned out to be closed.

Fortunately, Nautilus, right opposite was still open, just! So we parked the bikes and nabbed ourselves an outside table. Rebecca was our very knowledgeable and lovely wine guide and she walked us through the various options - this tasting was a little more flexible with a choice of 5 wines out of 8 bottles to taste, rather than a proscribed selection as at Huia. The cellar door was a lot more glamorous too, and you could see through a big glass window to the barrels and vats and machinery for winemaking out the back. I was particularly taken with the dried vine stalks Christmas tree which was very elegant with its bows and stars and fairylights.

Heading home we lost the sunshine and the clouds began to roll across the valley. We took the decision to decamp into the dodgy shed kitchen rather than shelter under the Moho's awning which proved to be a good call! We strung the room with fairy lights (like Ross's London wedding on Friends) and lit our citronella candles so it looked quite adorable. Dinner was a leg of lamb cooked on the BBQ and Abby & made a bunch of salads to go with it. Our very popular roast veggies salad made a welcome return after its Christmas debut and Abby created a particularly tasty & festive broccoli & cranberry salad too.

Around 9ish we popped out to witness a stunning, fiery sunset then came back in for a late dinner.

By now a couple of bottles of red had been emptied including Louis' NYE treat a rather lovely St Emillion Grand Cru, and even I had hit the Pimms - so we had to pause for a while to make room for dessert so did the washing up (in the right place for that) prior to getting the cards out and reteaching Abby & Jez how to play Sh!thead - which rapidly got appropriately rechristened "Sh!tfaced!"

Just made it to midnight without losing anyone (looking at you Jeremy!) and celebrated - slightly ahead of the radio announcer as I think there was a lag, and anyway our Apple devices all concurred on our selected time - with bubbly and sparklers! Happy New Year to everyone far & wide!