Arrowtown book buyer Miranda Spary continues her regular column about her recommendations for a good read and life as she sees it ...
One of the best things in Turkey is the sea.
It's not just warm and clean, it's so salty that you are nice and buoyant and best of all it's so mirror calm, especially in the mornings and evenings. But that can change in a heartbeat.
It's the longest day this week and sitting on the back of the boat for an evening drink and a chat is heaven. It's exactly what we were doing on Saturday night when the beautiful, still dusk turned crazy.
From out of nowhere came an enormous blast furnace firing 40degC-plus air at us and pushing Miranda off her mooring. Worse still, Sunday was Father's Day, and we had sent our skipper home for the night to spend time with his family.
In a situation like this, it is very handy to have a Kiwi dream team aboard.
Familiar to lots of us in the Wakatipu, Harry Davison, Steve Fisher and Kerry Mason (and their beautiful wives dressed like triplets in spotted matching outfits) had popped over for a sunset cocktail.
As the katabatic wind pushed us into the rocks, they leapt into action as the mooring ropes snapped, cushions flew overboard and plates and drinks blew along the table.
Within minutes they had us heading round the corner following their own gulet to seek shelter in a nearby bay.
As far as I can see, there's nothing New Zealand men like more than a serious problem that needs fixing and these men, plus my own darling and Roger Dickie were very happy. They were sensational and turned what could have been a big nightmare into an exciting adventure.
What was I doing during the state of emergency?
As ever, I lose my head and go below as I know absolutely nothing about boats and am terrified of doing the wrong thing.
I had company and our daughter's excellent photos of the chaps saving the day also have plenty of the girls sitting down below sinking drinks while the Miranda looked like sinking into the drink.
Katabatic winds happen when the land heats up too much and the hot air roars down the mountains at very high speed.
Mark Robins has jumped ship to head back to Queenstown for a filming job, leaving us without our favourite cook aboard.
Please come back, Mark, we miss you!And everyone in the Wakatipu is going to miss Alan and Clare Perry who are moving back to Fielding this week. Who's going to make that fantastic garden furniture for us all now?
I've been so excited about telling you about this week's book. It's a novel called Gold by Chris Cleave. He is one of my all-time favourite writers and his The Other Hand was so good that I was almost loath to read Gold in case it didn't meet my expectations.
He's going to be talking at the Press Christchurch Writers' Festival in August - with other greats like Joanne Harris (Chocolat), John Boyne (The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas) and Kate Grenville (The Idea of Perfection) plus our own Emily Perkins and Joe Bennett.
What a line-up.
There are loads more as well, so look it up online.
Anyway, back to Gold.
Chris Cleave looks at a trio of British Olympic cyclists to see what makes some people motivated more by getting a medal than getting a life.
He explores the sacrifices and choices they make to be the best at what is (like all sport, really) a pretty pointless exercise.
Zoe and Kate are best friends and competitors and share coach Tom.
Their lives along with a male competitor called Jack are hopelessly intertwined.
The research clever Mr Cleave has done is huge and proves totally worthwhile. There's never a minute that the story isn't believable and uncomfortable.
I cried and cried at the end where he thanks those who helped and explains how they helped him.
I had to download this book on my e-reader as it only came out last week and already it's been read once a day by different friends on board. Everyone loves it.
As soon as you've finished it, read some of his Guardian columns, especially "My Wife and Other Mammals" for a very funny cheer-up.
