Labour Day

This past weekend was Labour Day weekend, so Cory had Monday off. We decided to make it a long weekend, and so we both took Tuesday off as well. I don’t really know what Labour Day is a celebration of in New Zealand, but it was a nice 4 days! (I guess I can’t really provide details of Labor Day in the US, either – frightening, eh?)

For the long weekend, we accepted an invitation from some friends and headed down to Gisborne (rhymes with Lisbon, for you Iowans). Gizzy is on the east coast and is home to several wineries. This weekend was the Gisborne Food and Wine fest. It was a well-established festival, with organized transportation between three wineries and a “showgrounds” featuring several other wineries as well.

I’d expected an older crowd, holding their wine glasses by the stem, swirling and inspecting, while making comments like “it has an oak-y finish and very nice legs”. Luckily, the crowd was young, dressed in costume, carrying their wine glasses on a shoelace holder around their necks, and definitely not worried about the legs on their wine. I’m sure there were some true wine aficionados there, but they were outnumbered by the costume-wearing crowd.

But better than even a festival that involves lots of great wine and crazy people dancing were our gracious hosts, our friends’ parents. They kindly put us up, cooked great meals, doled out more great wine, and, in general, let us invade their family.

Their home was beautiful – probably a half dozen fireplaces; warm, sunny rooms; books to browse through everywhere; and, outdoors, citrus and avocado trees. I’m really not doing their home justice, but bear with me when I say it was a wonderful place to spend a weekend.

Cory and I also got a little bit of “faux-family time” – there were several little ones there and we got to roughhouse, read books, and hold babies. I wasn’t kidding when I said we really did invade their family; it was great.

On Monday, we headed back towards the Mount via the East Cape drive. Winding along the coast, the East Cape route showcases beautiful bays, long wharves, and warm beaches. It is sparsely populated with small towns along the way. It was a great, slow drive back to our work-week reality!