Lucy and friends came and spent the afternoon at the cellar door. They went away with a lot of Rosé.

Tom Alexander is the son of Malcolm. As I said, Malcolm and I studied agriculture together at Wye college in Kent back in 1966. Since then we have met up in Uganda, when I would spend weekends with him when I lived over the border in Tanzania, and later in Richmond when we were living in Twickenham. It all happened because out of the blue Malcolm rang me from the Hunter Valley which he wasvisiting with Tom. So I enticed them across to Orange and Tom asked if he could come back to pick grapes.

He asked if he could bring his “flat mate”. So coy. So English. Rachel is a lovely girl working as a vet with race horses at Randwick. The land of million dollar mistakes. But she doesn’t make mistakes!

We picked the Shiraz on 21 April. The baumé was 12.5% and we picked 800kg. The rain had reduced the crop, but we were lucky, so many growers round here did not pick anything.

Kim and Po Cho came up form Milsons Point, they were my neighbours a long time ago in St Ives. Malaysian, they have lived in Australia for years, and also spent time in Shanghai and Singapore.

Tom and Rachel also came, from Maroubra. Rachel is a horse vet at Randwick race course and Tom works for Ernst and Young. He is Malcolm’s son and Malcolm and I studied agriculture together at Wye College a long time ago!

My local mates Baz, Gerg and Nick also helped.

Moody’s Food Week event was held on the weekend of 14 15 April and the weather was really kind. Over 50 visitors came to taste our Mediterranean plate, amongst them Cosimo and Josie who are in coffee in the southern highlands, Chinner and his family/mates who spent the afternoon enjoying the wine and playing Scrabble, and a great group of Finns who are setting up a branch of Sandvik in Orange to exploit the mining industry.

I was helped by Julie, a Kenyan girl who is staying with me while she looks for a house, and Rachel and Hayley from down the road.

We harvested the Sauvignon Blanc on 24 March. A lot of the crop had been hit by a hailstorm two weeks beforehand. Sad, the rain and mildew had done no damage, just a freak 20 minutes of localised hail. Anyway, we picked carefully and Chris is going to make a good wine from it.

I was helped by two delightful and hard-working Belgian back packers, Pauline and Coralie from the beer country of southern Belgium.

The visitors were entertained by Mia Pallier, solo guitar and great voice. Just like the “Waifs”. She lives in Queensland but grew up in Manildra.

The great Alf Cantrill provided a barbecue, donating the sales to the community chest.

Simmo is an old friend and he is a safari expert. His horizons stretch to wherever you want to go around Orange or in NSW – or further. Just give him a ring on 0415 641 343 and discuss your wild fantasies!

What a combination!

Fine food at some of the best beaches in NSW! Merry Street is behind Merry Beach, which itself is between Pretty Beach and Bawley Point on NSW south coast between Ulladulla and Batemans Bay, where the bush comes down to the beach and the kangaroos wander undisturbed.

The menu at Merry Street is always changing, and there are some fine creations of meat and seafood to choose from. Clayton Till will look after you and help you choose your wine. He may even recommend Moody’s Shiraz….

My old friend, Graham Liney, runs this wonderful guest house in the NSW Southern Highlands at Laggan. Willow Vale Mill is the original grain mill building of Laggan, which Graham has converted to a comfortable guest house for relaxing weekends away.

Every Saturday Graham serves a large and copious roast dinner with several meats and home cooked local vegetables, and his speciality varieties of potatoes. His sweets are also to die for. But it is all enhanced by the relaxed atmosphere, Graham’s warm welcome, and the roaring fire in the fireplace.

Willow Vale serves Moody’s Wines, as well as other good NSW wines. Those olive trees also produce excellent olives, and Graham’s vegetable beds provide artichokes, spinach, broccoli and a variety of herbs.

Before dinner, the kitchen is worth a visit, to watch the maestro at work, and share a slurp with him!

I was sitting in my home office this morning at quarter to seven and a white cloud seemed to flash past the window. I dashed out to the balcony and saw the Dawn Patrol of 612 Marauder Squadron of Cockatoos busily stripping my tree of immature apples. There were at least 15 of them and in 15 minutes had stripped the fruit to halfway down the tree. Thank goodness it was only the “Delicious” tree, and that my two Pink Lady TM trees have already been netted!

Given the slow progress of the grapes, it will be another month before I have to net them – not cockatoos, but starlings and currawongs, wearing bullet proof vests, as I know from experience.