Spring things are so exciting - brave little asparagus spears daring to show their naked skinny selves when it's sunny and wishing they'd stayed down below when the winter pops back, the tuis buzzing and gurgling with delight in the blossom trees, and rhubarb for breakfast.
Spring is the time for cleaning out your wardrobes and booking a stall at the Gently Used Clothing Sale on October 16. (Text 027 245-5339 and find out how to make yourself a fortune, and be fashionable to boot.)
And spring is the time to win $300 by writing the winning 500-word short story in the Queenstown Creative Writing Group's competition. The theme is "Earth and Water", so just think of the next 497 words and you're in. As long as you can afford the $5 entry fee, that is. Email earlycl@yahoo.co.uk for info.
Writing has obviously helped Alan Brady, our very own pinot noir pioneer (try saying that when you've had a bottle or two), pass the winter. He tells me he is about to launch his new book. I wonder if he'll smash a bottle of wine over it the way they do for ships. Remember saying you would send me the details of the book and the date, Alan?
Congratulations to Matakauri Lodge - its doors have only just reopened after its massive Virginia Fisher makeover and already it has been tipped as the place to stay in Queenstown in the latest Conde NastTraveller. And the place to eat is Arrowtown's Saffron. Hope the magazine's 800,000 readers each month don't all decide to visit us at once!
I'm glad so many of you are Rudyard Kipling fans and glad that so many of you hadn't read BaaBaa Black Sheep. I am now reliably informed that you can read it online just by googling it - well worth it. And his famous If is there as well, for those out there who have never read it. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
I was very jealous as he actually got to spend several hours with this marvellous author (Atonement, Saturday, On Chesil Beach are all his as well) and the review was mainly about McEwan and his beliefs, rather than about the book. But the mere mention of climate change and quantum whatever-they-are made me so nervous that I kept putting off reading it.
Remember that I am someone who doesn't even know how a light switch works, and who thinks that the TV remote is only an uglier version of a fairy's wand - pure magic.
But while Solar does mention some of this tricky physics stuff, you don't need to understand it to have a seriously wonderful time eavesdropping on the rather nasty Michael Beard's life of greed and lust and general yukkiness.
McEwan paints a horridly vivid picture of our hero seeing his naked body in the mirror that had me sobbing with laughter. In fact, even though it should all be a bit tragic, it is really quite satisfying whenever things go wrong for him. And they do.
If you have never read this author's work, do read this, and you will be straight down to the library to take out all his other books.
Have a wonderful weekend.
