I've got to learn to keep my mouth shut.
I'd just come back from four days' tramping in Stewart Island with nine girlfriends and there were no kiwis to be seen, spotted or otherwise.
It was probably because of the amount of noise we made.
Apparently you need to go on one of Evan Bloomfield's guided walks there and you are pretty well guaranteed to see some.
Next time, I'm going with him.
I love Stewart Island and the getting there is so much easier these days with that beautiful catamaran. Somehow it seems to iron out the bumpy bits, but when we went over on Monday, the sea was still pretty crinkly. In fact, looking out the windows was a bit like being in a car wash.
The return trip was much, much smoother and it was lovely being met by the very kind and patient Eion at Buckley Transport.
Not only is he able to drive with 10 women shrieking and laughing all the way from Queenstown to Bluff and back, but he also makes extremely good ginger fudge to prevent car sickness. What a man!
Ever in touch with his feminine side, he also told me he plays in the Queenstown Tennis Club Ladies' Days. I wonder if the QT tennis ladies know ...
It's so easy to skite when we live in the Wakatipu, especially when the Wakatipu turns it on, as it did for my tramping friends. It was 24degC when we arrived back, and still sunny.
We raced into Arrowtown for a delicious whitebait omelette at the pub before going to Italy, India and Indonesia with that annoying Julia Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love at Dorothy Browns. The critics are right. It's not worth seeing but I loved it the same way I loved Mamma Mia and Sex and the City.
And I love seeing people's reactions when they watch a movie in Arrowtown for the first time. So very civilised. My friends were SO jealous.
The next day I took them all to Provisions for sticky buns and then to Amisfield for lunch. They were even more envious. Some of the less fortunate then had to fly away, but the rest of us dropped in to check out Matt Hanna and Mark Burdon's brand new Smokorun in a converted container at Placemakers.
It's meant to be for burly builders and hardworking tradesmen to get real-man food like chops and burgers and coffees, but it's all so delicious they might find some of the lazier locals and ladies popping in as well.
To keep the Wakatipu thrill going, we went to the Arrowtown Spring Flower Show and oohed and aahed at the daffs and tulips. The kids' art section was great - I loved Brenna and Daisy's prizewinning installation of a fierce cat about to leap on mice made of potatoes.
My silly North Island friend thought Finlay Tomkins had painted an igloo, not realising it was a picture of a beautiful weeping blossom tree.
It was really disappointing to see so few people do the walk up Queenstown Hill and over to Tuckers Beach on Sunday. Admittedly, it was a lousy day and a worse forecast and I didn't feel like going at all. But it was to raise money for this year's Branches Camp for the year 10s at Wakatipu High School.
Even if you haven't got children there it is still our local high school and everyone in the community needs a great high school with busy, happy pupils. The government funding is pathetic and the school really needs as much help as it can get from the community, especially those who haven't got school-age children eating up the greater part of their income.
The Branches Camp has been going for over 40 years now and is an absolute highlight in the local pupils' school life. If you didn't do the walk, you missed a great day - the sun broke through the cloud and proved the forecasters wrong, again.
However, the highlight for me was not finishing last. I did have to shove my two walking companions aside to beat them over the finishing line, but I managed. They are still pretty angry.
My brother is so sweet and simple.
He was very upset to wake up early on Sunday morning to hear his neighbours chainsawing. He looked at his watch which said 3am and was outraged.
In fact, it was the emergency services working hard to reopen the main road which had been closed by two of his trees falling over it.
Books.
I can't believe how many people are emailing me wanting to buy books for Christmas presents already.
How can anyone be so organised? Isn't that what Christmas Eve was invented for?
I still haven't done my full list, but if you need some guaranteed successes for almost any adult reader, go for Loving Frank (historical novel about architect Frank Lloyd Wright and one of his many mistresses) or Shantaram (bad-boy prison escapee goes to India and does good) or Solar (latest Ian McEwan novel - Nobel Prize winner slipping downhill) or City of Thieves (make sure you get the one by David Benioff - it's a popular title and the others are rubbish).
I'm just about to start A Life on Gorge River, by Beansprout (his real name is Robert Long but I don't think anyone knew that until the book came out).
He and his wife and two children have lived for 30 years in the wildest bit of wilderness you can find in New Zealand - two days' walk from the nearest road in South Westland.
Everyone's talking about this book and having visited his house - the note on the table said "Gone for a walk - back in three weeks" - I am dying to know how anyone can cope with that life. I know I couldn't.
Have a fantastic Labour Weekend - I'm going to work really hard so I can feel I have earned my place in the line at Smokorun.
