Miranda Spary continues her regular column about her recommendations for a good read and life as she sees it . . .
You know you have been to a royal wedding when you have still got blisters on your head from your tiara, as well as the usual old ones from dancing shoes.
What a fab do.
I hope William and Kate and their friends and family had as much fun as we did with Lady Prudence and Sir Alan for our book club get together.
Everyone except my English friend Rob was dressed to the nines - medals polished and tiaras glittering.
Rob did not know he was being dragged along to it and he had come on his four-week trip to the world's nether parts without a morning suit - how short-sighted of him.
He was meant to be at the party adding his English accent for an authentic touch to the celebrations, but it did not really work as he had dressed as a Libyan terrorist - the guest no-one wanted but everyone seemed to expect.
He was blown away when we had Wakatipu-style explosions - those beautiful antique cannons going off to mark the first Royal kiss (they looked as if they had done it before, if you ask me).
As well as the wedding, we also had the Arrowtown Autumn Festival - not quite the pomp and ceremony of the Royals but still good fun.
There was a great turnout at the Friday night opening of the art exhibition at the museum - it's always fascinating seeing how many very good artists there are hidden in our midst.
Do have a look at what Jane Burdon and Alan Waters have done.
And the parade is unmissable.
It's very hard to explain to a visitor what the point in the parade is, but I always love it.
Our handsomest vet (and TV star) Geoff Woodhouse looked just as bedraggled and tatty as a battery hen after he let his head get shaved to protest against battery chicken farming.
Tinkerbell Brinsley played the part of the bossy film director to perfection on the Dorothy Browns float, and while it was tricky to work out if the Wakatipu Home residents enjoyed being part of it all, good on them for joining in.
Much of my week has been taken up with getting modern.
My darling is learning to use a computer.
This learning business has a number of downsides.
The first way of teaching him to use a computer involved teaching him how to look up boats for sale on the internet.
He's not so keen on just looking and ended up going to Turkey and buying a boat he had found on the internet.
Now he is learning to play internet poker, which meant that he could not come for dinner with us as he was chip leader in a tournament.
The frosty glare he got from me meant that he rushed his betting and ended up at the very tail end of the prize pool.
But I am not giving up - I got him an iPad so he can learn to do some other things on the computer.
Noel Leeming have the most brilliant and patient salesman there - Jae Shin has put up with my daily visits and changes of mind without losing his temper once - thanks, Jae.
And so now with our iPad 1 (we aren't totally modern), we have flown to Istanbul for me to meet Miranda.
My darling named his boat after me as her bottom is large and wide like mine.
The romantic fool ...
While we flew, Nato bombed Gaddafi and got the poor grandchildren instead of the grand lunatic and Obama's chaps got Osama - it was a strange feeling flying over Pakistan knowing what had just happened, but much better being above it all.
Istanbul is a massive city and as different from home as a place could be.
But it's still tiny in other ways.
Nadene Milne's cousin is an interior designer here and had recommended the lovely hotel we are staying in.
We went for a wander round all the antique shops and art galleries nearby and found a particularly fabulous one.
Of course, it turned out to be her cousin's business and the shop assistant was the person I had spoken to on the phone. If you had been looking for it in these tiny, twisty streets, you could never have found it on purpose.
The difficulty is always not getting lost - there's too much to see and take in - and every corner lures you a different way.
We ate in a funny steep, stepped alley - probably 100m long with a different restaurant on every step.
It's all very colourful and chaotic - Cat Stevens and the Beatles and Julio Iglesias battling each other, while waiters fight over the few umbrellas, and real live, but should be dead, cats join in with terrible yowls.
What I learnt tonight was not to order the things that sound funniest on the menu.
Chicken of greenness tempted me, but it was just deep fried chicken bits on salad.
Our deliciously goofy waiter put us off some of the items with his sales pitch.
I did not really want to eat the yoghurt sauce that "the Turkish woman's [sic] put on a blanket and leave it till is hard", and my darling said the "handmade wine" was not as exciting as the waiter had assured us.
Someone else who's been accused of making things more exciting than they really are is Greg Mortenson, the author of Three Cups of Tea.
Jon Krakauer, who wrote Into Thin Air, has investigated Mortenson's story and claims much of it is untrue - I am so annoyed as I love that book and Mortenson was such a hero of mine for all the good work he has done building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Two books that have not annoyed me at all are The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain, and Ape House, by Sara Gruen (she wrote Water for Elephants, also terrific).
The Paris Wife is the story of Ernest Hemingway's first wife.
At first I found it strange that she seemed so boring and wondered how on earth Hemingway had ever put up with her. But as the story develops, she becomes more and more of a person, and you realise that she wasn't someone who sought the limelight - letting Ernest hog it all instead.
Ape House is about a woman who works with bobonos - the apes which are most like humans.
They are very big on love and spend a huge part of their day having sex or flirtations with one another.
They are also the ones that have come closest to mastering communication with humans.
Without giving away too much of the story, you will find animal liberationists, scientists, a lot of apes and a lot of fascinating information about how similar we are to them.
Have a great week, and while I am away, do email me on miranda@queenstown.co.nz with any exciting news or just funny stories you think should be shared.
