Dear Ross

Thank you for buying us the Marlborough Food and Wine Festival tickets for our wedding gift; a classy and sophisticated outing in the heart of New Zealand's premier wine growing region where we got to taste some rather nice wines washed down with some local delicacies. A very classy affair… well as classy as New Zealanders can get… which basically means that they all put on their best clothes before they go out and get completely trashed. It certainly makes a pleasant change from normal festivals when there are ten or twenty of the best vineyards in New Zealand trying to impress you with their Pinot Grises, Sauvignon Blancs, Pinot Noirs and Rieslings rather than drinking overpriced watered-down Tuborg in paper cups.

The festival was set in Blenheim, or so we thought. The know-it-all old American couple at the last hostel we stayed at told us that the festival was actually nearer to Renwick and we should stay in Renwick because it is a lot nicer than Blenheim. It is annoying when know-it-all American couples are right and it was true that the holiday camp we were booked into looked more like a carpark and the town was a little on the industrial side and, yes it has made it into the top ten list of worst places we have stayed in… but, hey, we were only there for the festival and that was set in a beautiful vineyard near Renwick so it didn't matter.

The only problem with a New Zealand wine festival is that it finishes early… like at five o'clock in the afternoon… just when a normal festival is getting going. This means that it is quite important to hit the ground running, as it were. New Zealand has a term for it: Preloading. This means getting as drunk as possible before the event to avoid having to play catch up while you are there. Given the festival started at ten in the morning, Donna was a bit dubious when I tried to feed her a beer as soon as she woke up, but as this meant we were drunk enough to dance to all the cool bands in the afternoon, she later admitted I was right.

We met some very nice people at the festival, particularly an American mother and her 19 year old daughter. Although, you always tend to have a better opinion of people when they repeatedly tell you how young you look, how amazing you are to go on a seven-month honeymoon and what wonderful people you are.

After the event, we did manage to find a street party in the centre of town with more bands playing so we managed to carry on into the night… or at least until Donna got turned away from a bar for being too drunk. It wasn't that she was actually too drunk, it was more that we had been standing right next to the bouncer for ten minutes discussing whether we should go for one more beer or whether we were too drunk and should go home before we decided on one more. It is always fun when Donna gets turned away from a bar because she always takes it in such good spirits but always asks if it is just her that is too drunk or whether I wouldn't get in either.

We were very grateful that we hadn't been able to drink anymore the next morning when leaving Blenheim, to encounter a Police roadblock, where they were breathalysing everyone. Panicing somewhat, trying to quickly eat some chewing gum, wishing I had eaten my McDonalds breakfast before we left town rather than waiting until the open road and desperately trying to calculate how long it had been since I had that last beer and how long alcohol takes to get out of your system, things didn't look good when I failed the initial test 'Sir, please can you pull over to the side of the road'. Luckily, that was only to test for signs of alcohol and I managed to pass the proper test with flying colours. Well, when I say with flying colours, I mean I didn't get arrested. Phew.

A slightly scary end to a very enjoyable time.

Lots of love

Jim and Donna

INTERESTING KIWI FACT OF THE DAY

The crazy golf course in Picton has so far been voted the best crazy golf course in New Zealand. Combining all of the qualities; named holes, a good level of difficulty, interesting obstacles, a beautiful setting and no one else on the course with the fact that Donna beat me for the second time puts it head and shoulders above every other course we have played so far.