Day Off

Took the day off yesterday as Alisha wanted to treat me to a day in the Hunter Valley. Having lived here all my life, I can't believe I've never been. We even watched Sideways the night before to prep ourselves. So, we got up nice and early but still managed to miss the bus. And the train info guy was an arsehole. So we hopped in my car like Thelma and Louise and drove up.

The drive is so easy and we didn't even need the radio - we chatted about whether oral sex was more intimate than sex sex, laughed at Australia's silly place names and signs (Kurri Kurri; F Sale) and overtook the Captain Good Vibes express to Byron Bay. Once there, we started with the Pepper Tree winery, and since it was such a hot day we stuck mostly to whites, of which I'm not a fan, but the heat...Some lovely wines, and as it was lunch we went next door to Robert's restaurant and had a truly superb meal.

Pepper Tree winery

We shared our glasses of wine, entrees and mains - entrees were figs filled with gorgonzola and wrapped in prosciutto with a gorgonzola sauce, and fried lamb's kidneys in a mushroom with crispy leeks. Mains were grain fed beef with wild mushrooms, white asparagus and leeks, and milk fed veal with spinach, mushrooms and roasted baby roma tomatos, with a complimentary side dish of pommes boulangere (and amazing bread). With our espresso was a marzipan-filled date. The meal was perfection - if it was in Sydney it would easily have two hats - and I was blown away with the produce. The rocket had such crispiness and colour, the mushrooms wild (which you never see anymore), and the veal melted in the mouth.

Robert's Restaurant

Entrees of figs and lamb's kidneys.


Peruche sugar and marzipan-filled dates.

Next was Brokenwood - it's Cricket Pitch red is a favourite everyday wine for me but we were pretty ho-hum about the wines on offer. We went to Bella's Chocolate and Fudge Shop and stocked up on beautiful creamy fudges (vanilla bean for me, so good). It's funny how fudge sounds so similar to fug - in our post-boozy lunch haze this cracked us up to no end.

Wines were sampled. We even did the wine snob thing.

Fudge. It's just like Fug!

Lastly, we went to the Calais estate. I sampled a Calais white years and years ago and loved it, so it was very special to find this boutique winery. We both loved the Verdelho the most from the whole day's tastings, and bought a bottle each to drink simultaneously one day when Alisha heads home. We were both struck by one of the conversations in Sideways, how Miles saves his special bottle of wine for a special occassion, while Maya tells him it's a special occassion whenever he opens the bottle. This small but fundamental difference in personality speaks volumes, and I was really impressed by it. So our bottle of Verdelho is going to be opened to celebrate friendship whenever we feel like it.

Slapper!

So beautiful.

Drove home, it only took 1.5 hours, and we changed for drinks with Alisha's friend Steve and old flatmate Simon, who I flirted with and kissed as Alisha was leaving last time. It was nice to catch up over bottles of sparkling, and we had so much energy we hit Scruffy's for old time's sake after the boys left, were stunned by the freaks, and went over to dance at 3 Wise Monkeys. I was very taken by one of the security guards, and we flirted and exchanged numbers and my lips passed ice onto his tongue, and it was very sexy, before I stuck my hand into his pants and found there was only a hard handful, and I really am a cock snob, because I dropped him like a hot potato. He was tall, good-looking, Turkish, I expected more. Alisha and I discussed blow jobs and if we really are as good as we think - what if we're not? We agreed we should do something about it, like watch some pros in action. Once they closed, we darted out of sight of Chevy (who kept calling all night, bloody hell) and cabbed it to the Cross, but everything was closing so we came home and crashed.

Now I am tired and hungover and drinking tea with milk and sugar.