Good Morning Early Birds!

[waterboatman]

Tuesday. A clear sky and all is tranquil outside. I hope it remains so, I've got some out and about to do. Hopefully a peaceful afternoon to get some domesticity done. Unless something more interesting occurs!
Have a happy day everyone.

[Buenchico]

Good morning, Boaty.

I expect that I'll spend much of the day sleeping again but, as I've only just poured out the last glass of Shiraz from the bottle, I'll still be up for a short while yet ;-)

[waterboatman]

Morning Chris. sounds like a plan to me! :o}
I had a nice bottle of Merlot last night. Most enjoyable.

[Buenchico]

I enjoy a nice glass of Merlot too - but then I enjoy most things with alcohol in them anyway!

I can highly recommend Morrison's Shiraz though if you like your wine to have 'a bit of clout to it'. It's packed with flavour but, unlike many other cheap full-bodied wines, it's not at all 'rough'. (Indeed, it's lovely and smooth):
https://groceries.morrisons.com/products/morrisons-shiraz-421267011

[waterboatman]

I shall try that next time I'm near a Morrisons, there isn't one locally.

[waterboatman]

I like most wines, but prefer red. The New Zealand wines have a lot going for them.

[emmie]

morning Boaty, Chris

[waterboatman]

Morning emmie xxx How are you this morning?

[emmie]

i like the fullness of a good Australian red, i have bottles of Wolf Blass

[Buenchico]

It's easy to pick up a fairly decent red wine cheaply but you need to be prepared to spend a bit of money to get a good white wine. There are some excellent English whites, for example, but you generally don't get much change from twenty quid when you buy a bottle. The finest German whites are utterly superb too but they only export a small quantity and keep the rest for themselves!

For cheap reds I usually look to South America but most countries that get a bit of sunshine seem to be able to produce drinkable reds anyway ;-)

[emmie]

ok, now that i am awake, more weird dreams, still i might get some shut eye later on

[waterboatman]

I agree with all that mate. When I was in the Far East I had the chance to visit NZ, I fell in love with it and could happily live there.

[Buenchico]

Good morning, Emmie.

The best place to find Australian reds is in the vineyards in the Barossa Valley. The only real perk I ever got out of teaching was to be funded as the British Young Teacher delegate to the International Conference on Mathematics Education at the University of Adelaide in 1986. I don't remember much about the conference but I do remember countless Ozzie bars and vineyards ;-)

[waterboatman]

I rarely remember dreams. They must be boring! :o}

[waterboatman]

Sounds about right chris! Some lovely vineyards and some lovely people.

[emmie]

i often remember dreams, the bad ones especially

[emmie]

i bet you had a whale of a time Chris....

[waterboatman]

When I was stationed in Germany, we used to take a dozen lads that had done well during the year, canoeing along the Mosel from Trier to it's junction with the Rhine, a bottle of plonk was two two DM, I used to pay a bit more and get something worth drinking! We took a bottle or two with us in the canoes to quaff on the way. Great fun.

[emmie]

happy days boaty

[waterboatman]

Indeed they were emmie. The lads had earned it!

[Buenchico]

Yes, Emmie, I did!

I included a stopover in Singapore (with a day trip into Malaysia) on the way out but the best bit was probably the few days I spent in Perth, when I first arrived in Oz, before going onto Adelaide. It's a beautiful (and very affluent) city, where the 'real' Australia (with kangaroos bounding across the roads and fantastic wildlife everywhere about) lives on.

I particularly remember a day trip I booked in a luxury mini-coach out to the Nambung National Park (150 miles north of Perth). I found out that I was the only person on the trip who wasn't part of a group of middle-aged (and very boisterous) girl guiders. They were determined that I wasn't going to be left out though; I must have sung 'Waltzing Matilda' nearly a hundred times that day!

Here's what we were going to see:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ef/a1/1d/efa11d0650b3aef8f030258d3a1ff50d.jpg
(That's a fantastic place for a picnic!)